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This is an awesome piece. Well worth the read. Jesse Rogers had inside access to the Sox discussing and essentially landing on Roch as an organization and what those conversations entailed. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/49358788/2026-mlb-draft-chicago-white-sox-no-1-overall-pick-decision-roch-cholowsky-grady-emerson

Just another article that reinforces what I said about how open and transparent the Sox are being with the philosophies. It started with Garfien interviewing just about every guy in the front office so if you pay attention you almost know them as much as you do the players and better than you knew the FO in the Hahn/ Williams era. There guys are all modern and media friendly.

We over rated a lot of those guys and health obviously was a huge problem. Vargas is on pace to put up more WAR this season than Eloy has in his entire career. Moncada had one good season and 4 below avg ones. Robert was always hurt and when he was healthy played closer to a 2 WAR avg regular than a 6 WAR superstar. Those teams had a lot of prospect talent that never really panned out. This current Sox team just has a lot of solid players regardless of prospect status.

Trying this for first time: Round Pick Rank Player Position Height Weight DOB School Signed? Amt Slot Amt 1 1 2 Roch Cholowsky SS 6'2" 202 lbs 04/07/2005 UCLA (CA) Yes 10,350,000 11,350,600 CBA-A 34 34 Landon Thome SS 6'0" 177 lbs 11/16/2007 Nazareth Academy (IL) 2 41 27 Cole Prosek 2B 6'1" 195 lbs 06/14/2007 Magnolia Heights HS (MS) 3 77 68 Joey Volchko RHP 6'4" 225 lbs 06/21/2005 Georgia (GA) 4 105 196 Eric Segura RHP 6'2" 214 lbs 01/02/2005 Oregon State (OR) 5 137 192 Cal Scolari RHP 6'4" 220 lbs 04/28/2004 Oregon (OR) Yes 550,000 547,700 6 166 159 Alex Weingartner OF 6'2" 198 lbs 12/13/2007 St. Augustine Prep HS (NJ) 7 195 248 Clay Burdette OF 6'2" 215 lbs 06/11/2004 Xavier (OH) 8 225 — Jayson Jones 3B 6'3" 225 lbs 08/05/2003 Wichita State (KS) 9 255 — Luke Craytor RHP 6'5" 220 lbs 03/19/2004 Virginia Tech (VA) 10 285 — Matthew Bucciero OF 6'2" 225 lbs 10/18/2004 Fairfield (CT) 11 315 162 Kyle Casteel RHP 6'4" 205 lbs 02/11/2008 Butler HS (PA) Yes 1,250,000 125,000 12 345 226 Braden Holcomb OF 6'4" 245 lbs 10/28/2004 Vanderbilt (TN) 13 375 — Grayson Fitzwater 1B 6'1" 215 lbs 01/05/2004 Virginia Military Institute (VA) 14 405 — Isaac Yeager RHP 6'6" 255 lbs 09/27/2003 Oregon State (OR) 15 435 250 Cameron Johnson LHP 6'6" 256 lbs 01/11/2005 Oklahoma (OK) 16 465 — Darin Horn RHP 6'4" 200 lbs 03/17/2003 Coastal Carolina (SC) 17 495 — Crew McChesney OF 6'0" 185 lbs 12/30/2004 Brigham Young (UT) 18 525 — Jackson Bergman RHP 6'6" 225 lbs 08/11/2003 Indiana (IN) 19 555 — Jake Berkland SS 5'9" 155 lbs 08/13/2005 Minnesota State-Mankato (MN) 20 585 — Connor Fennell RHP 6'1" 183 lbs 04/20/2005 Vanderbilt (TN)

With respect does it even matter who was MVP of a meaningless exhibition game based on popularity?

It's not the old PD group in the slightest, and obviously, as a broken record, Getz did not agree with how Hahn was handling it at all since he CHANGED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT.

I cant believe the Sox granted permission with no restrictions to report on this. Not sure I've seen anything like that before in sports given the situation. Love it though.

This is why they traded Gonzo… to take maximum advantage having the first slot. Hopefully some people are starting to understand this now. They had a chance and they seemingly hit.

They did all play pretty well together when they were all on the field at the same time for like....85 games.

Appreciate Kenzo's diplomacy, but I also kind of love the attitude. These White Sox aren't fighting for the approval of anyone other than the guys in the room. Side note, it's gotta be a pretty fun whirlwind year for Kenzo too. Probably didn't expect to be walking the ASG red carpet and facilitating conversations with the national media and other MLB stars in his first year. Japanese fans seem really complimentary of him compared to other interpreters around MLB (though some think Shohei's previous guy might have been a little bettor...)

Didn't Buerhle want to be a Cardinal? I know.

For your sake, I’m glad we didn’t draft Lackey. Your head would explode trying to figure out who to rank higher between Bonemer and Lackey.

Some of the greater takeaways from me is that it sounds like he's going to be ditching the two strike approach he has in favor of more impact. He's also never worked with a hitting coach before, and that they have some cleanup work to do on the swing.

The sweep, the draft, the All-Star game, let the good times roll.

I think the “oh gosh” part was PCA. They were doing an in-game interview with him while he was in centerfield.

Defensive excellence is less scarce than offensive excellence. Even with the attention and emphasis on defense and baserunning in the modern era, the fact remains that someone will always find a place for a top tier bat who can't defend while top tier defenders who can't hit have short lived careers. I think Bonemer is a top tier bat. And he's a good athlete to boot and isn't a worthless defender. Is he as good as roch, sounds like no, but he can play the field and has ++ speed which roch doesn't have. I'd bet on caleb to be a stand out offensive player more than I'd bet on roch to be, which is why I'd take bonemer over Roch.

It really is wild how many games those core guys were out due to injury and hardly ever fully played with each other. Barely half a season worth. What’s also crazy to me is that wasn’t all that long ago. 4/5 years? The quick turnaround for not only the major league squad, but seemingly the entire organization, is just baffling to me. If the Sox win a championship in the next 3-5 years someone needs to make a documentary about this transformation.

Add Dave Portnoy to that list.

I saw this earlier. That loudmouth irks me always cutting his guest off . So bombastic, thinks he's the star and not his guests.

The White Sox are currently 4th in all of MLB with 129 hrs with Mune, the Babe Ruth of Japan, missing 35 games.

"They expressed Thursday night that they wanted me to be the guy, and they knew I wanted to be there, I felt like things definitely got a lot easier," Cholowsky said. Not that this isn't all theater anyway when you allow this type of "access" in a hyper-insular and competitive environment but it does make this particular detail pretty funny.

Dont even think Lackey can overtake my love of Bonemer but it would have been neck and neck! I might like Bonemer more than I liked Ant, but that might be pushing it!

The new murderers' row is a bit of an overstatement. I'm overjoyed with the way things are trending for the Sox much earlier than I expected, but almost anybody on this list could go poof. This reminds me of when we used to just list out the names Moncada, Eloy, Abreu, Robert, Anderson...and Andrew Vaughn will be coming up, too! And Madrigal! We're already winning the division with this young core, just imagine when they all mature a couple more years! When Kopech is our ace! We all know what happened with that, but honestly that "murderers' row" was more plausible at the time than the one making up a team a few games over .500. I'm not ready to declare the likes of Chase Meidroth or Kyle Teel to be mainstays for years to come just yet. Wow, I sound like a real wet blanket! But I'm feeling a little whipsawed by the sudden turn to uncritical projections of a core that hasn't proven it can sustain success, and best-case projections for draft prospects who haven't proven anything yet. Am I on the right message board? I'm still a White Sox fan after all.

The worst 2 days of the sports calendar.

There’s a world where Braden is the best of all of them. IMO

And somehow that's not even considering Peters or B. Montgomery. I know Peters could just be a flash in the pan and Braden has more to do, but they're here and under control.

Bonemer over Roch 100 out of 100 times. Defensive edge probably makes roch safer, but I'll take the guy who is younger and pulling a wRC+ of 134 in pro ball across A+ and AA over the older guy with a 146 wRC+ in college every single time.

This is exactly right. If Vargas gave them a 1-0 lead and had the only extra base hit (as a homer), he wins MVP for sure. From a “fun” standpoint, the Vargas hit was better. But from a pure baseball standpoint, Bellinger had the most important hit of the game.

The Sox can win each one of these games. Hope the offense continues to stay hot

The fact that Roch is already signed is amazing. Of the Top 40, only 6 are signed and #9 is the next highest after Roch.

I can't imagine what this scenario would have looked like if Hahn/Williams were still steering this ship. Kudos to Getz and his team to being so open and transparent in this process. It's an awesome look.

Hadn't seen this yet.

Sure. Or not. I have no idea. I already said I thought Vargas would’ve been a better pick because the all star game is about fun and a homer is more fun than a single. But I also just really don’t care.

Also interesting to me they discussed his ability to not only play SS, but 2B and 3B

The classic 101 mph slapped single. Enjoy your hill death I guess.

Law graded the AL Central Draft Classes. White Sox assessment below. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7443823/2026/07/15/al-central-draft-grades-picks-mlb-2026/

It's too bad they never got rid of that GM and VP of baseball operations. Woe is us.

Obsessively focusing on a single bad draft pick as a demographic problem is why this board cheered avoiding high school and “athletes” over ball players just because of Courtney Hawkins. Instead we got a bunch of fat college corner players who sucked and nobody blamed it on college.

I love trades. But I hate young-for-old trades that seem to be all anyone can come up with this time of year. Those trades destroyed us over the past decade (and beyond): Samardzija, Shields.....Kimbrel trade was the kill shot of the last playoff edition, and it would have set this edition back another 2 years had the Cubs picked Crochet instead of Madrigal. Yea, let's do more of that.

Sox should push in and try to make it happen this year. There’s no need to trade a major prospect to do it. We know better than most that tomorrow is never guaranteed. It’s not wise to assume everyone stays good/improves.

He may not know if he’s getting lefties or righties, but he knows people who know, and he knows the people that know are good people.

Sammy Sosa to the Cubs for George Bell was the grand poppy of them all! I can still remember Hawk talking about how great it was to have a “professional hitter” like Bell in the lineup that year.

that s%*# is awful. if that is what passes for "sports writing" let AI take over. Too many awful fleets of fancy sentence to sentence to even bother, it's just non sense dressed up as some deep s%*#.

I think Thome was happening no matter what. The whole world knew it. Guessing this fit his slot bonus better, and their intel was that Thome might not make it to 41 (Yankees at 35) while Prosek would. Prosek DID make it through.

Prosek is largely considered the better prospect. I think Law is the only one who has Thome ahead of him.

Confucius? Jack Handey?