With the Men's College World Series over, all eyes are turning to the players who could be selected in this year's MLB draft, which is just 12 days away now. To better understand how the 2026 draft class fits into the larger context, let's compare some of the top players in various categories to their counterparts in the 2024 and 2025 drafts.
If I'm looking for someone to fit a category and two players ranked back-to-back in my rankings, but the lower-ranked one was drafted higher, I'll list them both since it's clearly a close call. There are of course some spots in my 2025 and 2024 draft ranking that I wish I could do a little differently in hindsight, but MLB executives spending millions of dollars just to stack their draft boards have already since been fired for the same reason, so I try not to have too much regret.
Let's get right into it with the players who will be vying for the No. 1 pick on July 11.
Top overall prospect
1. 2026: Roch Cholowsky/Grady Emerson/Vahn Lackey
2. 2024: Charlie Condon/Travis Bazzana
3. 2025: Kade Anderson/Eli Willits/Ethan Holliday
These three are all quite close. Condon/Bazzana separated themselves a bit down the stretch in a very strong 2024 draft class, with JJ Wetherholt or Chase Burns joining that group of potential No. 1 picks for some teams. This looks a little silly now in light of the talent behind them (like Konnor Griffin and Nick Kurtz), but that was the industry-wide thinking at the time, reflected in the picks/bonuses those players received at draft time as Bazzana went first to the Cleveland Guardians and Condon third to the Colorado Rockies.
Anderson was my top prospect in 2025 (along with a good number of teams), while other media outlets and at least a couple teams had Holliday in that spot and something like a quarter of the league thought Willits was the best prospect. In my final draft rankings that year, I had Willits in the same tier as those two, and he ended up going first overall to the Washington Nationals (Anderson went third to the Seattle Mariners and Holliday fourth to the Rockies).
For this year, Cholowsky is the consensus top player, but it's close enough that there are two other viable options at the No. 1 pick -- and it seems right now that all three have at least a few teams backing them as the top prospect.
All of these players went/will go into the 60 Future Value (FV) tier or the higher part of the 55 FV tier, so we need to split hairs, while keeping in mind what these players were seen as at draft time.
The hesitation at the time around Bazzana was size and position, and Condon's was position along with contact ability. All of these concerns are still alive and, in retrospect, the 2024 class looks strong in high-end value but the industry had them in the wrong order at the top. The 2025 class was seen as down at the top tier because of real concerns on Willits (size/power upside), Holiday (contact) and Anderson (lacks standout stuff, already had a Tommy John surgery), so let's not play revisionist history because all three have been arrow-up in pro ball. The top prospects in 2026 get the crown due to their being premium position collegiate position players, while 2024 gets the slight nod over 2025 because of the high floors.
Top high school position player
1. 2026: Grady Emerson
2. 2025: Eli Willits/Ethan Holliday
3. 2024: Bryce Rainer/Konnor Griffin
This is a classic example of not letting revisionist history overwhelm the memory of what was going on at draft time. It was a legitimate split conversation between Rainer and Griffin in 2024, and I was going back and forth every week or so leading up to the draft. Rainer slipped a bit in the draft -- eventually going 11th to the Detroit Tigers -- and he's had a mixed start to his pro career, just as some feared he would. There were multiple teams ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates (who selected Griffin with the ninth pick) with scouts who wanted Griffin, but those with decision-making power vetoed the decision because of the perceived risk of Griffin's swing flaw.
I believe Willits was higher than Holliday on more boards in 2025 because Holliday's summer performance took him out of the running for a top pick for so many teams, whereas Willits is exactly what teams were looking for, minus the size and power upside.
You can quibble on how teams would evaluate Willits/Holliday versus Rainer/Griffin, but Willits was high on everyone's board and eminently choosable, while Holliday and Griffin had risk profiles that turned off many teams with top-10 picks. So, the 2025 group gets the slight nod over 2024.
The easiest part of this is profiling Emerson as the best draft prospect of the group. He combines the high floor of Willits with the size/power upside of Rainer or Holliday, even if Emerson lacks the overall athletic profile of Griffin. I asked scouts a few years ago if there was a Bryce Harper-level generational prep prospect in the pipeline at any class and the answer was either no or "Emerson if he keeps on this trajectory" -- and I'd say Emerson fell just barely below that standard.
Top high school pitcher
1. 2025: Seth Hernandez
2. 2024: Cam Caminiti
3. 2026: Gio Rojas
The 2026 class loses its first matchup here, and there's no arguing it. Like Emerson, Hernandez was marked early in his high school career as a potential elite prospect and largely held that spot wire-to-wire, becoming the rare prep righty to go in the top 10 picks (sixth to the Pirates). The big reason why this happened is because of what he has shown early in his pro career: He's the top pitching prospect in baseball and the odds have only improved of him becoming a true ace.
Caminiti was a real two-way prospect who was 17 years old on draft day with premium starter traits, but the concern was his breaking ball lagged a bit behind his other pitches. Rojas will be 19 years old on draft day and has better raw stuff than Caminiti, but also has some command concerns and doesn't have that same level of two-way athleticism. I suppose some teams would maybe take Rojas over Caminiti, but Caminiti, who ended up going to the Atlanta Braves with the 24th pick, would win in at least 75% of draft rooms.
Top college position player
1. 2026: Roch Cholowsky/Vahn Lackey
2. 2024: Charlie Condon/Travis Bazzana
3. 2025: Aiva Arquette
This is largely a replay of our first category, with 2025 being an odd outlier with only one collegiate position player in the top dozen picks. Arquette falls to the back of this group as he was the best of a down demographic year, going seventh to the Miami Marlins, but he still might be able to climb over the next year to look like he can hang with the other top position players in that draft class.
Top college pitcher
1. 2024: Chase Burns
2. 2025: Kade Anderson
3. 2026: Jackson Flora
Another category in which 2026 falls a bit behind the other two draft classes is collegiate pitching. Flora is the clear best of the class, a strong prospect that will go straight on a pro Top 100 -- but he's more of a mid-rotation type of prospect with a chance to outperform that projection, while Anderson is a step above him and Burns was a step above even Anderson.
Anderson has the concerns I noted above -- his ceiling and elbow surgery -- but also has three above-average pitches and above-average command that has led to a dominant Double-A season. Flora has similarly above-average stuff, but from the right side with less of a high-level track record, putting him just behind Anderson. Flora's size, control and arm action give some hope that in pro ball he could jump another level, but we haven't seen that yet.
Burns, selected second overall by the Cincinnati Reds, was a different level, with comparable control/command upside to Flora (a bit behind Anderson) but with otherworldly raw stuff headlined by a plus-plus fastball and slider with the kind of arm speed that made basically any other pitch he tried above average as well.
The next best prospect that hasn't been mentioned yet
1. 2024: JJ Wetherholt/Jac Caglianone/Nick Kurtz/Hagen Smith
2. 2025: Liam Doyle/JoJo Parker/Tyler Bremner/Jamie Arnold
3. 2026: Jacob Lombard/Eric Booth Jr./Drew Burress/Tyler Bell/Justin Lebron
This one was a little tricky to narrow down to one player, so I included a group of the best candidates for each class, considering my ranking, their pick and the signing bonus to understand all sides of "who was best" at draft time. In my mind, this is Lombard/Booth Jr. versus Bremner/Doyle versus Wetherholt/Caglianone/Kurtz. Given how the 2024 class has taken off in pro ball -- in large part because of this group of players -- they are the easy pick, but we have to focus on the pre-draft evaluations.
I haven't yet finished my evals on Lombard and Booth Jr., or, more, specifically placing them in the pro rankings context; they could be lower 50 FV (i.e. back of a Top 100, down to 120 overall) or higher in the 45+ FV (121-160 or so overall). Doyle/Bremner/Parker/Arnold all went comfortably onto a Top 100 prospects list right after the draft, so this is a faceoff between 2024 and 2025 for the top spot. Wetherholt was a legitimate candidate to go 1-1 for some teams and was third on my board, rising late in the process; Caglianone was also in the 55 FV tier at draft time. Doyle and Bremner were both higher 50 FVs that have moved to 55 FV in pro ball, so the initial instinct to hand this to the 2024 class due to their pro performance is also valid based on the draft-time evaluations.
Depth of the top 10 prospects
1. 2024: 10 players at 50+ FV
2. 2025: nine players at 50+ FV
3. 2026: eight or nine are 45+ FV, four to six are 50+ FV
The aim of this category is an even deeper consideration of all of the prospects of note we haven't mentioned yet, and the top ten as a whole. This is where the 2026 class really falls behind the others: The top three prospects are excellent; the next few are good, not great, relative to other classes; and the bottom drops out quickly into the muddled group where opinions vary widely from team to team.
For many teams this year, that muddled group starts in the back half of the top 10, whereas normally that group starts around 15th or so. The FV grades at the top aren't finalized yet, but it looks like five players (give or take) will be 50 FV or higher -- and that number has been nine or ten the last two years.
Matching up 2025 and 2024 will be a bit more difficult. The 2024 draft's 55-FV-or-higher group is two players larger (five to three) and the 50-FV-or-higher cutoff is also slightly in their favor (10 to nine). It's more subjective, but the 2024 draft's next FV cutoffs are a bit deeper and that's manifested in the 45-FV-or-lower breakouts in the last two years: Ryan Waldshmidt, Seaver King, Cam Smith, Carson Benge, Theo Gillen, Jurrangelo Cijntje, Kaelen Culpepper, Braylon Payne, Wyatt Sanford, Caleb Bonemer and Ryan Sloan all jumped from 40+/45 FV to 50 FV or better. Dax Whitney and Brendan Lawson were at the top of the 40 FV tier and may be the top two picks in the 2027 draft.
The 2025 class has obviously had one fewer year for players to break out, but that class already has some early standout types from the 40+ and 45 FV groups: Wehiwa Aloy, Gage Wood, Josh Hammond, Dax Kilby, Andrew Fischer, Tate Southisene and Anthony Eyanson.
Looking back, the 2023 class got the reputation of being a possible generational draft for the entire build-up to that draft (and has largely performed that way since), but 2024 snuck up on many to look strong by draft day and is really outperforming its reputation. The 2025 draft had questions at the top that affected the overall opinion of the class, but the top of it is really performing well early. The 2026 draft class had a lot of potential and hype entering the spring because of the top two players; that has since extended to a top three, but the group behind them hasn't separated itself yet.