Bowden: Why the White Sox should select Grady Emerson with the No. 1 pick

Posted July 09, 2026 10:21 am

By Jim Bowden

The Chicago White Sox have the No. 1 pick in this year’s MLB draft, which takes place Saturday and Sunday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

In my opinion, there are three players who have separated themselves as the top talents in the draft: UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson and Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey.

There isn’t a strong consensus leaguewide on who should go No. 1, with many talent evaluators leaning toward Cholowsky, then Emerson and then Lackey, in that order. However, I would take Emerson with that pick because I believe he has the best hit tool in this draft and the highest ceiling by a lot and not a little.

Don’t get me wrong, the White Sox wouldn’t be faulted for taking any of those three players. I get the strong arguments that most clubs have for Cholowsky because he has the highest floor of anyone in this draft. He’s close to major-league ready, comes with very little risk, can play major-league defense at shortstop right now and has the best track record of performance of anyone in the draft.

Lackey is a fascinating player because he’s probably the best catcher we’ve seen in the draft since Buster Posey in 2008. Lackey has tremendous power and arm strength. He’s extremely athletic, and his exit velocities are special. A comparison to prime J.T. Realmuto makes sense.

All that said, I still see Emerson as the right player to go No. 1. I believe in taking the best overall player for the long term, and that’s clearly Emerson.

Now, let’s go through a step-by-step analysis to see why Emerson, in my evaluation, is the right pick for No. 1.

To start, I’ve given scouting grades (on the traditional 20-80 scouting scale, with 50 being MLB-average) for each player:

Grady Emerson: HIT: 70 PWR: 55 RUN: 55 ARM: 60 FLD: 60

Roch Cholowsky: HIT: 60 PWR: 60 RUN: 50 ARM: 60 FLD: 65

Vahn Lackey: HIT: 60 PWR: 60 RUN: 50 ARM: 65 FLD: 55

You can see the biggest differential is the hit tool, where I grade Emerson significantly higher than both Cholowsky and Lackey. Emerson is also the only one with all five tools rating above average and having the best hit and run tools of the three is the separator for me.

The tools aren’t the only separators between the three players. The age differential also factors into the equation. As a high school prospect, Emerson is two years younger than Lackey and Cholowsky. Amateur players improve the most from ages 18 to 21, and the improvement is usually significant, especially for position players. It’s not uncommon to see players enter college as relatively unknown prospects and finish their two or three years in school as top draft picks. Most recently, Charlie Condon went from being barely recruited in high school and walking on at Georgia to the No. 3 pick in the draft three years later.

When looking at Emerson, Cholowsky and Lackey, we need to keep this growth progression in mind. Given his age, Emerson projects to improve significantly over the next two-to-three years. And even before that improvement has taken place, he’s already being grouped together with Cholowsky and Lackey. So three years from now, Emerson could be significantly more advanced than either Cholowsky or Lackey are presently. Age matters in the draft, especially when comparing high school and college players.

In terms of intangibles, all three rate highly for their character, baseball IQ and ability to make adjustments, so there isn’t really a separator there.

Now, let’s look at how the players performed statistically this season:

Emerson: 28 G, .532 AVG, .648 OBP, 7 HR, 50 RBI, 31 SB

Cholowsky: 60 G, .320 AVG, .452 OBP, 21 HR, 60 RBI, 1 SB

Lackey: 61 G, .397 AVG, .519 OBP, 20 HR, 78 RBI, 15 SB

These stats really aren’t comparable because the pitching all three faced was wildly different — Emerson was competing against high school arms; Cholowsky and Lackey were playing in Division I power conferences (the Big Ten and ACC, respectively). However, the stats do at least show that all three players are similar in that they can really hit and hit with power, with Emerson ahead in both the hit and run categories as the breakdown of their tools suggest he should.

Player comps are popular during draft time, and while it’s an inexact science, comps can give a good sense of what kind of player a prospect projects to be. A good comp for Emerson would be somewhere between Bobby Witt Jr. and Corey Seager. For Cholowsky, the best comparison is probably Troy Tulowitzki, and Lackey is probably somewhere between Realmuto, Charles Johnson and Posey.

Despite being the youngest of the three, Emerson has extensive big-game experience, as he was part of four gold medal-winning Team USA clubs in international competitions, representing Team USA on both their U-18 and U-15 clubs. He won Gatorade National Player of the Year this year and became just the second high school player to be named a Golden Spikes semifinalist, joining Witt in that category.

Ultimately, all three have a chance to be special, but if I’m the White Sox, I’m taking Emerson with the first pick because he has the highest ceiling and the best hit tool in the draft and is the youngest of the three top candidates for the first pick.