Major League Baseball held their draft lottery for the 2026 MLB Draft on Tuesday, with the Chicago White Sox winning the first overall pick in the upcoming draft. UCLA Bruins shortstop Roch Cholowsky has been viewed as the top player in this year’s draft but is there a fit with the White Sox?

Cholowsky is a fit for any MLB team, with all organizations utilizing minor league clubs and valuing highly-skilled prospects regardless of positional fit. Ever since Cholowsky stepped foot on UCLA’s campus, he’s been a star.

In 118 games with the Bruins, Cholowsky has batted .333 with 31 home runs, 107 RBIs and has stolen 13 bases. After a very solid showing as a freshman, Cholowsky took off in his sophomore season, with his average sitting at .353 while posting more walks than strikeouts.

ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel released a mock draft on Tuesday that has the White Sox taking Cholowsky first overall. If Chicago were to pass on Cholowsky, then the Tampa Bay Rays could snag him at No. 2 overall or he could fall to the Minnesota Twins at No. 3 overall.

“Cholowsky was a big name in the 2023 draft, ranking 32nd on my final board as a standout defender with solid tools, but questions on his overall offensive upside along with a big asking price. His bonus price wasn’t met and he was solid as a freshman at UCLA, then took a huge jump forward as a sophomore, hitting 23 home runs last season,” McDaniel said. “He is still a standout defender but now both his (above-average) hit and (plus) power tools have developed, allowing evaluators to go back over the past decade and find comps at the tops of previous drafts, such as Dansby Swanson or Troy Tulowitzki. Cholowsky has a pretty solid lead on the pack for the top pick right now, but it isn’t insurmountable due to the solid group of up-the-middle, high-upside talents in this class.”

The White Sox have a few options at shortstop but none as tantalizing as Cholowsky. 2022 first round pick Colson Montgomery is Chicago’s projected starter. The White Sox first round pick in the 2025 draft was another shortstop, Billy Carlson, with Carlson being viewed as a glove-first prospect.