Despite the Noise, Roch Cholowsky Remains Clear No. 1 Pick for White Sox

In the minds of most Chicago White Sox fans, the number one overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft has been decided for quite some time now. From the very moment back in December that the White Sox won the lottery and were awarded the number one pick in the upcoming draft, UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky has been the no-brainer selection for Chicago at the top spot.

For White Sox fans, Cholowsky has been the prince who is promised. A five-tool, well-polished shortstop who can hit, slug, and is elite with the glove at a premium position. He’ll also move through the minor leagues quickly, immediately being touted as one of the top prospects in all of baseball and someone who could be playing in the major leagues at some point in 2027.

Many evaluators believe he is the best college shortstop prospect to enter the draft in the last 20 years. And even in a season where he’s having a "down year" relative to expectations, he has an OPS of 1.120 with 15 home runs, 45 RBIs, and a .455 on-base percentage while playing at an elite level at shortstop.

By all accounts, Cholowsky has felt like the superstar who will tie this entire White Sox rebuild together, the exact type of player you build your franchise around. It has also felt like a guarantee that the White Sox would select him in the draft come July.

But nowadays, everywhere you turn, there’s somebody pouring cold water on the idea of Cholowsky landing with the White Sox.

In the latest article from Bob Nightengale of USA Today, he noted that “the White Sox remain uncertain who they will draft with the No. 1 pick in July, and insist they have not committed to taking UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky.”

Nightengale adds to the mix by saying “it’s also unclear, several executives say, whether the White Sox are Cholowsky’s top preference.” There’s even one alleged GM who believes there’s a chance Cholowsky falls to his team, which is picking somewhere in the top five.

This comes just one week after Kiley McDaniel of ESPN noted that the White Sox could consider taking Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson, saying that Cholowsky “isn’t a slam dunk just yet.”

Emerson is a really impressive prospect in his own right, but there’s little doubt that, at this moment in time, he’s not as polished of a prospect as Cholowsky. That selection would be more of a bet on player development and how quickly Emerson can move through the minor league system. I don’t think that’s a gamble the White Sox are going to be comfortable taking, especially given their current competitive window as an organization.

So what should White Sox fans make of all this noise? For starters, we should acknowledge the fact that it’s just that, noise.

As is the case with any draft cycle in any professional sport, teams, agents, and anyone involved will always look to put information out there to put themselves in a more advantageous position and gain leverage. A lot of this information ultimately proves not to be true.

So let’s focus on what we know. We know there hasn’t been a no-doubt first overall pick in an MLB Draft like this in many years. We know Cholowsky is already being talked about as the best college shortstop prospect of the last 20 years. We know that Cholowsky’s preference, contrary to what Bob Nightengale might have included in his article, is irrelevant.

If the White Sox draft him first overall, they’ll have the bonus pool money to pay him well over slot value, and nobody is turning down a record-setting signing bonus to go back to college, which would be his only alternative.

We know that White Sox GM Chris Getz has talked about the importance of landing the top selection in this draft and has emphasized that the White Sox will not get cute or overthink it. They’ll simply take the best player available.

We know that Getz has also talked about the pressure that comes with being the first overall pick and how a player’s character and background can factor into whether they are equipped to handle it. With that in mind, it’s worth noting that Cholowsky’s father is a former first-round pick and professional scout. Few prospects understand the expectations that would be placed on them the way he does.

We know that Getz has highlighted proximity to the big leagues as one of the most attractive aspects of having the top selection. He has cited Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz, who was drafted in 2024 and then hit 36 home runs in 2025, as an example of how he wants to use the number one pick to immediately impact the MLB club.

We also know that Getz essentially spoiled what the White Sox were going to do with the pick during a podcast interview back in December.

He joined Chuck Garfien on The White Sox Podcast to discuss the recent signing of free agent first baseman Munetaka Murakami, the farm system, and the overall direction of the organization. Garfien asked Getz how he convinced Murakami to sign with the Sox and what his selling point was to such a high-profile player joining an organization that had lost 100 games in three consecutive seasons.

While explaining what the White Sox had to offer, Getz slipped up.

“The great thing is it’s becoming easier. Before, it was, ‘this is what we’re planning to do, this is the vision.’ And although that remains a big part of every conversation we have, we have more tangible evidence now. We are pointing to things. We’ve got Roch-... You know, we’ve got the number one pick for next year.”

Getz corrected himself, but not before he tipped his hand. And if you go back and listen to the podcast now, the audio has been edited to exclude this slip-up.

At the end of the day, the White Sox are never going to admit they’ve already decided who they’re picking when the draft is still months away. Between now and then, there will be plenty of noise and misleading information to add intrigue around the number one overall pick and to play the leverage game that exists in professional sports.

But make no mistake about it, I’ll hitch my wagon to the belief that Roch Cholowsky will be a member of the Chicago White Sox organization come July.