It’s officially baseball mock draft season.
The 2026 MLB Draft starts July 11, but Baseball America and MLB Pipeline have issued their first projections for the first round of the draft – even if it won’t be held for seven months.
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The Chicago White Sox won the lottery for the No. 1 pick.
The St. Louis Cardinals hold the No. 13 selection in the first round. Who do the experts project will wind up being chosen in that spot come July?
One player who surely will be gone by the time the Cardinals select is UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, with both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline predicting the White Sox will use the top draft pick on him.
What makes Cholowksy worthy of the No. 1 overall selection?
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This is what Baseball America had to say about him:
“Cholowsky is the overwhelming favorite to go first overall. College shortstops of this caliber are rare, and Cholowsky, the 2025 College Player of the Year, offers loud tools across the board to go with a rock-solid offensive track record. In two years with UCLA, he has hit .333/.446/.618 with 31 home runs and 31 doubles.
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So it clearly isn’t reasonable for the Cardinals to have a glimmer of hope of drafting Cholowsky. Instead, the two mock drafts offered up these names:
From Baseball America, the choice is Tyler Spangler, a shortstop from De La Salle High School in Concord, Calif., who is committed to Stanford. It wrote:
“Spangler is one of the most highly regarded Stanford recruits in years, which could test just how unsignable Cardinal commits really are. He has a well-rounded game with a lean and projectable frame and strong contact skills to go with advanced defensive instincts and arm strength.”
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The Cardinals selected three shortstops in 2025, starting with Ryan Weingartner from Penn State in the eighth round.
MLB Pipeline, in its mock draft, tabbed outfielder Drew Burress from Georgia Tech. Baseball America predicted Burress would be selected No. 5 overall by the San Francisco Giants and wrote this about his skills:
“Burress broke into college baseball with nine homers in his first eight college games and hasn’t stopped slugging while showing he’s a center fielder with at least solid tools across the board.”
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MLB Pipeline called him an “advanced hitter with plus power and fine instincts in center field.”
In two seasons with the Yellow Jackets, he has batted .357 with 44 homers, 129 RBIs and 18 steals
In the 2025 draft, the Cardinals selected left-hander Liam Doyle from Tennessee. MLB Pipeline ranks the 21-year-old as the No. 8 prospect in baseball, with a projected arrival in St. Louis in 2021.
It is anticipated that he will start the upcoming season at Double-A Springfield.
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