The Chicago White Sox made it official Saturday, selecting UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky with the No. 1 overall pick after a full year of speculation about whether the presumed favorite would actually be the choice on draft day.
The selection ends weeks of reported uncertainty inside the organization and hands Chicago’s rebuild a player many evaluators had already penciled in as a future everyday shortstop and potential Gold Glove candidate before he ever signed a contract.
Roch Cholowsky Goes No. 1 to the Chicago White Sox
Cholowsky hit .320 with 21 home runs at UCLA this season and finishes his three-year college career at .329 with 52 home runs, numbers that helped make him college baseball’s top prospect, according to Joe Doyle of MiLB.com, in a post shared by Underdog MLB.
MLB Pipeline had already ranked him the No. 1 overall prospect in the class, grading his hit, arm and field tools all at 60 or better on the traditional 20-to-80 scouting scale, according to MLB.com.
He was named 2026 Big Ten Player of the Year and reached the Golden Spikes Award finalist round as college baseball’s top honoree, closing out a junior season that kept him squarely atop draft boards despite a closing gap with the class’s other top prospects over the season’s final months.
Cholowsky’s path to Chicago traces back to a Hamilton High School career in Chandler, Arizona, where he led the program to back-to-back state titles and turned down a football scholarship offer from Notre Dame to stick with baseball.
He also passed on turning pro out of high school, honoring his commitment to UCLA even after going unselected in the 2023 draft as one of the board’s highest-rated available players.
“My dad’s not only watching how they play, but how they act,” Cholowsky said, as quoted by MLB.com, describing lessons learned from his father, Dan, a 1991 first-round pick of the Cardinals who later became a scout. “There’s a lot of guys that he’d tell me what they were doing and some things that I can add to my game.”
A Decision That Was Anything But Certain
The pick came after White Sox vice president of amateur scouting Mike Shirley had spent the week publicly acknowledging how unsettled the decision remained, with Texas prep shortstop Grady Emerson and Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey both drawing serious internal consideration.
“The Cholowsky/Emerson conversation, the Vahn Lackey conversation, these are real. They are happening. They’re happening up to the minute,” Shirley said, as quoted by ESPN, just days before Chicago’s front office ultimately settled on the UCLA shortstop.
Chicago earned the selection by winning the draft lottery in December, marking just the third time in franchise history the White Sox have owned the No. 1 pick, following Danny Goodwin in 1971 and Hall of Famer Harold Baines in 1977.
Cholowsky now joins a farm system built around athleticism at premium defensive spots, and evaluators widely expect him to move through Chicago’s minor league ranks faster than a typical first-round selection given his defensive polish, advanced approach at the plate and experience against high-level college competition.
Meet Roch Cholowsky: No. 1 MLB Draft Pick Joins White Sox