With the 2026 MLB Draft less than two weeks away, the White Sox’s thinking at No. 1 keeps drifting away from the easy answer.
Back in December, landing the top overall pick made UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky look like the obvious call. That certainty has faded. In recent weeks, the conversation has opened up, and the noise around a different direction has only grown louder as July 1 approaches.
The first alternative that started popping up was Texas prep shortstop Grady Emerson, a bat many view as carrying the highest upside in the class. But now there’s another name getting serious traction, and it comes with a much stranger fit for Chicago: Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey.
Lackey’s rise has been fast. He wasn’t a major name in high school, and he didn’t enter his freshman year at Georgia Tech with much buzz either.
Then came a solid sophomore season in 2025, when he hit .347, launched six home runs and swiped 18 bases. This year, he took the next leap and turned his biggest question mark into a calling card, blasting 20 home runs and surging into the top five of draft boards.
Still, there’s a catch - literally and figuratively. Lackey doesn’t have the same track record as Cholowsky or Emerson, and catcher isn’t exactly the most obvious place for the White Sox to spend the first pick. Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero already give the organization what it believes is a strong young foundation behind the plate, and Landon Hodge and Fernando Graterol are also in the system and held in high regard.
Even so, the position itself is part of the appeal. College catchers taken early have a strong history of reaching the majors.
According to Baseball America, ten catchers went in the first round from 2012-2020, and every one of them made it to the big leagues. Three of those players have produced more than 10 career WAR.
That doesn’t guarantee stardom, but it does make the profile hard to ignore.
Lackey’s case comes down to which version of him the White Sox believe in most. If 2026 was the start of something bigger, they may be looking at a player whose ceiling has only begun to show. If it was a peak-year spike, then they’d be betting on the more familiar, defense-first catcher he was for most of his college career.
That’s the decision sitting in front of Chicago now. If the goal is the safest path to a big leaguer, Lackey starts to make sense. If the goal is to walk away with the best player in the class, the White Sox may have to embrace more risk.
The organization has overhauled its player development system in recent seasons and has been vocal about feeling good about the process it has built. That matters here, because this is the kind of pick that can shape everything that follows. The White Sox can’t afford to miss.
At this point, it feels like the choice is down to three players. The answer is coming soon.
In Other News...
Jacob Gonzalez Is Forcing A Tough White Sox Decision
Jacob Gonzalez has spent the past week looking a lot more like the player the White Sox hoped they were getting, snapping out of a slump with a stretch of productive at-bats that included a walk-off single and multiple RBIs. For a rookie who needed some breathing room at the plate, it has been a meaningful burst, the kind that can quickly change the tone around a young hitter and make a front office pause before writing off his place in the picture.
The problem for Chicago is that timing matters as much as talent, and Gonzalez is arriving at a moment when the roster is still sorting itself out. His recent surge has only sharpened the question of what comes next, because a player who is hitting better can become more valuable in more than one way as the trade deadline approaches. For the White Sox, the next few weeks may say as much about Gonzalezs future as they do about whether he is simply staking his claim or turning himself into one of the more useful chips on the board. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Minor League Trade Hints At What This Front Office Values
The White Sox made a small but revealing move with Texas, swapping Triple-A reliever Ben Peoples for High-A catcher Ben Hartl in a one-for-one minor league trade. Neither player is on a 40-man roster or has reached the majors, but the deal still says something about the way Chicago is sorting through its system, especially with a front office that has been willing to turn over depth pieces in search of a better fit.
Peoples gives the Rangers a bullpen arm who has held his own in Triple-A, while Hartl comes back as a young catcher drafted in 2024 who has already shown some value behind the plate. He has struggled to hit for average in High-A, but his arm has stood out, and that kind of defensive profile tends to matter for a club trying to build organizational catching depth and find players who can stick at premium positions. [Read more 🡒]