Body & Delivery

Rojas has an athletic frame at 6-foot-4, 190 pounds with wide shoulders and a lean build throughout his frame that portends plenty of strength and mass coming in the future. He’s an excellent mover on the mound and works with a quick delivery. He typically sets up in the middle or the first base side of the rubber. 

Rojas throws from a lower three-quarters slot that will drop down to a fully sidearm look at times. He whips his left arm to the plate with some of the best pure arm speed in the class. His arm can be deceptively fast at times because he doesn’t throw with a significant amount of effort, though he does have a slight crossfire landing and falls off to the third base side in his finish.

While he might not always land in the ideal fielding position, Rojas’ athleticism is clear in situations where he needs to bounce off the mound and react to a rolled over ground ball with quick, deft footwork and impressive reactions. There’s some depth in his arm action, but not an extreme amount, and overall his delivery is simple and fluid enough that he should be able to repeat it consistently and throw quality strikes. 

Fastball

The fastball is currently the main event for Rojas. As you might expect given his tremendous arm speed, he’s able to generate a tremendous amount of velocity. With a fastball that’s already been up to 98 mph, Rojas is in an elite group of prep southpaws who have thrown a fastball in the upper 90s at this stage.

In reporting how rare Jack Bauer’s 100-mph fastball velocity is in the 2025 draft cycle, we found just six high school lefthanders from the 2018-2024 draft classes who had reached at least 98 mph. Without even digging further into fastball shape or command, Rojas is among an elite group of southpaws: 

• 2025, Jack Bauer — 102 mph
• 2022, Brandon Barriera — 99 mph
• 2024, Cam Caminiti —98 mph
• 2023, Cam Johnson — 98 mph
• 2023, Alexander Clemmey — 98 mph
• 2022, Noah Schultz — 98 mph
• 2026, Gio Rojas — 98 mph

Like most of the fastballs on this list, Rojas’ projects as an easy 70-grade offering. He works with a four-seam grip and will make adjustments with the width of his fingers and the pressure in order to elicit more ride, cut or tail. It’s natural shape tends to be more of a sink and ride pitch that aligns with his lower arm slot. That shape might cut down on his ability to generate whiffs against more advanced hitters at the top of the zone, but the power and movement should always allow it to be a highly effective pitch and potential groundball-heavy offering. 

Rojas has added nearly four ticks of velocity on average from the 2024 summer to the 2025 summer. Across nine Synergy-logged games in 2025, he averaged 94.4 mph with the pitch and at the East Coast Pro showcase he touched 98 mph five different times in one outing.

He pitches heavily off the fastball now, and has more feel for the heater than the rest of his arsenal. Batters hit just .175/.294/.193 against it with a 34% miss rate and a 17.4% swinging strike rate. 

Slider

In addition to a potential 70-grade fastball, Rojas has a slider that could become a plus offering. Like the fastball, the slider is a pitch that has added velocity over the last few seasons and now consistently sits in the low 80s. 

It’s a big, sweeping breaking ball with high spin rates in the 2,600-2,800 rpm range and lots of movement to his glove side. In our nine-game Synergy sample from 2025, Rojas threw the slider 17% of the time against righties and 31% of the time against lefties. It accounted for just under a quarter of his usage overall. 

The pitch is a clear swing-and-miss and chase offering for lefties, who have to combat with the pitch moving away from them in addition to the low angle Rojas creates on the mound. But against high school hitters, Rojas can use the slider to miss barrels of hitters on either side of the plate. Overall he used the pitch to generate a 62% miss rate but just a 15.1% swinging strike rate.

When Rojas is able to put the slider in the zone and force hitters to contend with it, it’s a clear weapon. Getting the pitch over the plate with more frequency will be a key development goal with him moving forward. His slider is currently his least reliable in-zone offering and he threw it for strikes just 43% of the time. 

While Rojas does tend to throw the pitch in the 80-84 mph range with sweeper shape, he did flash a harder variant at the ECP event, in the 85-87 mph range. At that velocity, Rojas’ slider looked more like a typical cutter, and adding a shorter, tighter breaking ball could be a useful piece for him in the future; both to attack righties with more frequency and give him a non-fastball that finds the zone a bit more often. 

Changeup

Rojas rounds out his repertoire with an 80-85 changeup that currently sits as a clear No. 3 offering for him. He uses a circle-change grip and almost exclusively throws it in opposite-hand matchups—leaving the fastball/slider combo as the complete attack plan against lefties.

While Rojas does have a decent feel to land the changeup for strikes, it is currently a pitch that gives lower-level hitters a chance to catch up to him more than anything. While it’s an extremely small sample of just 24 pitches, batters hit .714/.714/.1.000 against his changeup in the 2025 Synergy-logged sample we have available. It generated just a 20% miss rate and 8.3% swinging strike rate. 

While Rojas will at times have nearly a 15-mph velocity gap between the changeup and fastball, he gets to that difference often by visibly slowing his arm speed, which advanced hitters will be able to pick up on. The pitch doesn’t have an exceptional movement profile at the moment, but some scouts think there’s enough here for him to get to an average changeup that will be enough to keep hitters off-balance and help him work deeper into games.

Control & Command

Rojas established a reputation as an advanced strike-thrower as an underclassman, but he was a bit more scattered than many scouts expected to see in 2025. Like almost all high school pitchers, his fastball control is better than his fastball command, and he will need to sharpen that area of his game to maximize the effectiveness of the pitch. 

At his East Coast Pro outing, for example, Rojas left his fastball over the middle of the plate in neutral or pitcher’s counts too frequently and allowed a handful of hits because of it. He’ll also need to be more consistent with the release of his slider and challenge hitters with the pitch more frequently in and around the strike zone. He tends to miss with the breaking ball down and to his glove side. 

It’s possible that Rojas is one of those pitchers whose arm speed is so fast that it’s difficult for him to repeat his release point with elite consistency, making him more of a control over command pitcher with power stuff. Despite all this, his low-maintenance operation and athleticism should give him every opportunity to develop solid-average control in the future.

In Summary

Rojas is a power-armed lefthander with some of the best pure arm talent in the class that gives him obvious upside potential. That upside comes with some clear question marks—mostly the development of a third pitch and improved command—and a timeline that many teams might not want to stomach in the first round.

High school pitchers can do more than high school hitters in their spring draft seasons to influence their draft stock, and the same will be true of Rojas in 2026. A strong spring that sees him improve his weaknesses could vault him into the top-half of the first round, while a failure to do so—or regression in other areas—could see him fall further into a deep and strong high school pitching demographic. 

Rojas stacks up nicely with some of the best high school lefties we’ve seen in recent years. He belongs in the same sort of tier as players like Brandon Barriera (23rd overall), Noah Schultz (26th) and Robby Snelling (39th) from the 2022 class; Thomas White (35th) in the 2023 class; Cam Caminiti (24th) and Kash Mayfield (25th) in the 2024 class; and Kruz Schoolcraft (25th) in the 2025 class.

A comparison to Barriera makes a lot of sense in some ways: both are lightning-armed South Florida lefties with exceptional fastball velocity to go with high-spin sliders as their primary off-speeds—though Rojas has a taller, leaner and more projectable frame at the same stage.  

Body & Delivery

Peterson was already quite tall in high school, but over the last three years he has begun to come into the physical projection scouts expected. He has added 20 pounds of listed weight since his prep days and now stands 6-foot-5, 220 pounds with a lean, well-proportioned frame.

Peterson tends to work from the middle or third base side of the rubber. He now does a much better job of staying stacked over his back leg throughout his leg lift and doesn’t leak out toward the plate too early like he would at times as a prepster. His direction to the plate is improved with a lower half that goes directly toward the plate compared to a high school delivery that often saw him land with a crossbody finish. 

Peterson has impressive arm speed and has added more verticality to his arm slot over the years. He threw from a low three-quarters slot at times as a high schooler, then in college moved to more of a high, three-quarters slot. This fall he raises his slot even more and is now throwing from a slot that looks almost entirely over the top.

Fastball

After touching 96 mph as a high schooler, Peterson is now sitting north of 95 mph with one of the better fastballs in the class. He averaged 94 mph as a freshman in 2024, then added a tick and a half in 2025—sitting at 95.4 mph and touching 99 at peak. It’s a four-seam fastball with above-average riding life and averaged nearly 21 inches in induced vertical break during the 2025 season compared to 18 inches in 2024.

That uptick in velocity and ride helped him go from a 7.2% swinging strike rate as a freshman to an 11.3% swinging strike rate as a sophomore. In both seasons, Peterson has used his fastball at a 51% clip. It’s also the pitch he throws in the strike zone most consistently.

Peterson’s vertical arm slot pairs nicely with his ability to ride the baseball to the top of the zone, and getting a steeper release point could help him get behind the ball even more. While Peterson is largely a four-seam pitcher, he has tinkered with a two-seam variant to give hitters a different look, and that two-seam fastball could be a pitch that plays well at the bottom of the zone from his above-average release height.

While Peterson has made strides with his fastball shape and velocity, it’s also been a pitch that can get hit hard. In both his seasons with Florida, opposing hitters have managed a .288/.417/.541 slash line against the pitch, including 18 of the 24 home runs he’s allowed. His fastball control is solid, but his fastball command could use more refinement. Peterson does get more misses in the top third of the zone (20% fastball miss rate) but batters have produced an .885 OPS against the fastball there, compared to a .652 OPS against the fastball in the bottom third of the zone (and a 13% fastball miss rate).

This is a quality fastball, but it’s not the sort of Liam Doyle heater that he can just put in the zone and find automatic success. He will be reliant on command to avoid damage. 

Slider

Peterson’s slider usage is the most significant year-over-year change he made from 2024 to 2025. After throwing the pitch 13% of the time as a freshman—his fourth pitch—he dialed up the usage to a 32% overall rate in 2025, making it his obvious go-to secondary. 

The increased usage coincided with a 3-mph uptick in power. He threw the pitch 84.7 mph last spring and will throw his hardest sliders in the upper 80s. The pitch has excellent pure spin rates in the 2,600-2,700 rpm range and features hard, biting tilt and a gyro look overall. He has flashed a few sliders that show more of a gloveside sweeping look at times, and this fall he was consistently throwing the pitch in the upper 80s. 

It’s a no-doubt plus offering and might be his best individual pitch. It’s certainly his most reliable bat-misser at the moment. He used the pitch to generate a 15.2% swinging strike rate in 2024 and while using it nearly three times more frequently in 2025 generated a 15.8% swinging strike rate. He used the pitch nearly half the time against righthanded hitters and backed off it to a 17% usage rate against lefties.

Curveball

As a high schooler, Peterson’s breaking ball frequently blended in shape between a curveball and slider. Then as a freshman in college he got a bit more separation between the pitches and actually used the curveball at a slightly higher rate than his slider. That’s no longer the case, and he has largely scrapped the pitch entirely against righthanded hitters, but it is still a nice change-of-pace offering for lefties. 

Peterson throws the curveball in the 77-82 mph range with a more of a top-down look and 12-to-6 shape. Like the slider, it’s a high-spin pitch that’s consistently around the 2,600 rpm range but it’s also less consistent, less of a bat-misser and a pitch that will frequently pop up out of his hand on release.

While Peterson clearly favors the slider, the curveball has had great results with less usage in his college career. He has used it just 10% of the time in his two seasons with Florida and in that period batters have hit just .114/.162/.143 against it with a 13.7% swinging strike rate. It’s also the only pitch in Peterson’s arsenal that he has landed for a strike less than half the time.

Changeup

Peterson’s changeup was his most-used secondary during his 2024 freshman season. While it has been overshadowed by the slider, it’s a key piece of his arsenal against lefthanded hitters. Peterson throws the pitch in the mid 80s with around 10 mph separation off his fastball on average, and about nine inches of separation of induced vertical break.

He used the pitch 20% of the time in 2024 and 14% of the time in 2025. Last spring against righties Peterson used the changeup just 6% of the time, but against lefties he used it 23% of the time—making it his primary non-fastball in right-on-left matchups.

Peterson throws the changeup with solid arm speed and it features a solid amount of fade and sink. Last spring, batters hit .257/.297/.483 against the changeup with a 21.4% swinging strike rate. It’s a pitch that can have a lot of success when he keeps it down in—or below—the strike zone, but he has been quite erratic with its location. When Peterson threw the changeup in the middle or upper thirds of the strike zone, that opposing slash line jumped to .455/.455/.909 and a 12.8% swinging strike rate. 

Like most changeups, Peterson’s is most effective when he keeps it down. It doesn’t have the elite movement traits to be a bat-misser in any area of the zone, but does look like a rock-solid third piece of his arsenal. 

Control & Command

Peterson is trending in the right direction when it comes to his control. 

During his high school draft year, Peterson was highly inconsistent with his strikes across the board—fastball and otherwise. He did walk batters at well below-average rate as a freshman with Florida in 2024 (13.5% walk rate), but he improved that rate significantly during his 2025 sophomore season (10.5% walk rate). His overall strike rate jumped from 59% in 2024 to 62% in 2025. 

This is perhaps the biggest area for improvement for Peterson as he enters his 2026 draft season. He has been a below-average strike-thrower in the past and might be a fringy strike-thrower currently. 

If he can continue to make strides in this area—with his fastball command specifically and just more strikes consistency from his secondaries—he could have a chance to lock down his reputation as the SP1 in the college game and move from a power-armed, but inconsistent starter, to a well-rounded pitcher who could profile as midrotation arm in the majors.

In Summary

Peterson has the physicality and arm talent to profile as a typical, top-of-the-class college righthander who goes off the board in the first 15 picks and boasts midrotation upside. While he is currently the top college arm in the class, the gap between him and the next best college arms—Coastal Carolina’s Cameron Flukey and UC Santa Barbara’s Jackson Flora—is not large.

If he can continue making the strides he has already begun to make in the control and command departments, he will have every opportunity to slam on the door on that conversation and lock himself into an early draft pick. Multiple years of starting track record in the SEC always helps, and being able to pitch in that conference once again this spring is a separator from his closest competition at the moment. 

Body & Swing

Listed at 6-foot-2, 180 pounds, Emerson is a lean and projectable lefthanded hitter. He has some present strength in his lower half, but looks like a player who is going to add plenty of good mass in the coming years. He’s a high-waisted player with a narrow frame, and he doesn’t seem likely to add the sort of strength that would eventually force him off an up-the-middle position. 

Emerson has an extremely balanced and repeatable swing. He has a slight crouch and a slightly open setup with his feet, and he features very little movement with his hands in his pre-pitch load and during the swing itself. Emerson starts his hands around his back shoulder and takes a simple, small leg kick to get started with his lower half. His hands make a bit of a down and back move in his load before firing the barrel through the zone with a slightly uphill path.

In two-strike counts, Emerson gets marginally wider and deeper into his lower half, but his swing is remarkably consistent from pitch to pitch and when looking at BP or game film. His head is incredibly steady throughout the swing, showing no up-or-down movement that would otherwise disrupt his timing or vision. He consistently finishes his swing in control with good balance. 

Overall, Emerson’s swing is direct and repeatable with no wasted movement. He looks like a natural hitter. 

Approach & Contact

Emerson amplifies his smooth hitting mechanics with strong swing decisions and above-average hand-eye coordination.

He recognizes pitches out of the hand at a high level and understands the strike zone. Emerson has consistently walked more than he’s struck out throughout his career, and he’s confident spitting on pitches just off the plate. He rarely swings and misses and has shown an impressive ability to barrel the baseball in any quadrant of the zone. He uses the entire field and is both capable and willing to hit the ball where it’s pitched. 

In 297 plate appearances logged by Synergy Sports, Emerson has managed an 18% miss rate and 18% chase rate. When looking at only 2025 logged events, it’s a 23% miss rate and 17% chase rate. 

Like most high school hitters, Emerson will need more reps against consistent 90+ mph velocity. His miss rate jumps against pitches in this category, and in a 106-pitch 2025 sample, he slashed .207/.324/.276 with a 27% miss rate against those pitches. However, at the 2025 Area Code Games—not accounted for in this sample—Emerson looked entirely unfazed against mid-90s velocity. 

Emerson has traditionally been a patient and selective hitter who gets on base at a high clip. With the 2025 18U National team, he hit .346/.526/.423 with a team-high eight walks and four strikeouts. 

Power

While Emerson’s pure hitting ability stands out more than his raw power, he has made strides in this department in recent years. 

Almost all of the power Emerson does show comes to the pull side. He will flash solid pullside power in batting practice, and he also finished second in the 2025 high school home run derby. In games, however, he’s more of a gap-to-gap hitter who will collect more doubles than home runs.

Overall, this is the piece of Emerson’s game that requires the most projection. He should be able to grow into at least average in-game power production—roughly 19-22 home runs over the course of a full pro season—thanks to his physical projection, bat speed and feel for the barrel. 

Speed

Emerson is a solid runner, but not a burner. He’s been a plus runner at times, and when underway, he can turn in impressive run times. At Perfect Game’s National showcase, his 60-yard dash was good for 23rd among 226 total runners.

Throughout the summer, many of Emerson’s in-game home-to-first times clocked around the 4.20-4.25 second range, which are average to fringe-average run times for a lefthanded hitter. Occasionally, he’ll take a few steps to get going out of the box. 

Fielding

Emerson has experience all over the infield, but he’ll begin his career as a shortstop and should have the tools to stick there and be a good defender. He’s an instinctive shortstop with soft, reliable hands and the ability to make impact plays going to both his left and right.

Emerson’s internal clock is advanced. He understands when he has time to set and fully load up for throws and when he needs to get rid of the ball quickly. His exchange is quick and deft, and his footwork around the field is rock solid. He takes good angles to the baseball on slow-rollers and has also done a nice job positioning himself effectively to make plays while ranging to his arm side deep in the 5-6 hole.

Emerson is not the flashiest defender you’ll see at the position, but he’s extremely reliable and does have the sort of athleticism that allows him to make an occasional highlight-reel play while diving on a ball up the middle. 

Arm

Emerson’s arm looks like a clear plus tool.

His ability to generate velocity on throws across the infield from a spot deep in the hole is advanced for his age and level. He gets great carry on his throws when he needs to and has the requisite arm strength to make throws from any position on the infield. At third base, he’s made a number of impressive throws while working away from the first base bag to his arm side.

Emerson seems equally comfortable throwing while on the run for slow rollers or while ranging up the middle from the shortstop position. He can throw from multiple arm slots when necessary and is adept at throwing accurately while on the run or after making a spin on a challenging ball that pulls him far towards his glove side.

In Summary

Emerson’s pure hitting ability drives his profile. He possesses one of the most impressive hit tools in the 2026 class, and it gives him a chance to be a legitimate plus hitter. But he’s also an advanced, instinctive and well-rounded player without many clear holes in his game.

The largest disagreements about Emerson could revolve around his power projection and questions about how much impact he’ll get to at physical maturity.

Still, it’s hard to not see a hitter who will be able to provide batting average and on-base value while sticking at shortstop. Next in an impressive line of recent Dallas-area prep shortstops that includes Bobby Witt Jr. (2019, 2nd), Jordan Lawlar (2021, 6th) and Jett Williams (2022, 14th), Emerson should go in a similar overall range on draft day next summer.

Body & Swing

Cholowsky has filled out nicely over the last three years. He was listed at 6-foot-2, 185 pounds in high school, with the sort of physical projection that indicated strength gains in the coming years. UCLA listed him at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds on their 2025 roster—a 15-pound increase in weight. He looks noticeably thicker throughout his frame, with more mass on his legs, a more powerful midsection and broader chest and shoulders. He carries the weight well and still has a lean and athletic frame.

His operation in the box looks similar to three years ago. Cholowsky has a slightly wide and open setup with a bit of a crouch and a stable back leg. He’s always been a leg kick hitter and that remains the case, though in college Cholowsky seems to be doing a better job getting started earlier and getting his front foot down with better timing. 

In the image above you’ll see that Cholowsky has his front heel elevated off the ground. This seems to be a new tweak to his setup that he used throughout the summer with Team USA. In the spring with UCLA in both 2025 and 2024 his front foot was fully planted in his pre-load stance. 

Cholowsky sets his hands around chin/shoulder height and features solid rhythm with a bit of bat waggle before his load. As he loads he has a slight hand press down and back towards the catcher before firing through the zone with great bat speed and a slightly uphill path. 

No player has ever won back-to-back College Player of the Year awards.

But after a sophomore campaign where he hit .353 with 23 home runs, UCLA's Roch Cholowsky could break that barrier. pic.twitter.com/YGa1gRaoHg

— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) September 15, 2025

Approach & Contact

In high school, we noted that Cholowsky was a solid contact hitter with good hand-eye coordination, but that he could get too aggressive with his swing decisions at times. He’s matured as a hitter in college and in two seasons with UCLA has hit .333/.446/.618. 

He owns a career 11.4% strikeout rate, going from an already impressive 14.5% strikeout rate as a freshman in 2024 to an excellent 9.3% rate as a sophomore in 2025. He went from a 10.2% walk rate in 2024 to a 13.9% walk rate in 2025 and owns a career 12.3% walk rate overall. In general, Cholowsky does a great job limiting his strikeouts and drawing a fine number of walks. 

Across both seasons he’s swung 44% of the time. For some context, the major league average swing rate in 2025 is 47.5%.

Cholowsky has a strong 81% overall contact rate and a respectable 26% chase rate. His in-zone contact rate with UCLA is a solid 89%. Against all pitches 92 mph or harder he owns an 83% contact rate. 

Below you can see Cholowsky’s contact and approach data in college via Synergy Sports:

Year/Team	PA	Swing%	Contact%	In-Zone Contact%	Chase%
2024 UCLA	229	44%	81%	87%	25%
2025 UCLA	315	44%	81%	90%	27%
2024 Orleans	65	46%	75%	92%	28%
2025 USA	38	51%	69%	87%	38%
Total	647	45%	80%	89%	27%

Cholowsky’s UCLA performance is better than his summer performance. 

He played 17 games with Orleans in the Cape Cod League in 2024 and hit .218/.338/.327 and also had a down summer with Team USA in 2025. In five official games against Japan he went 1-for-17 (.059) with nine strikeouts and one walk. In 10 games including training camp against American arms, Cholowsky went 7-for-34 (.206) with 12 strikeouts and three walks. 

This summer Cholowsky was far more aggressive than usual. He swung more than half the time (51%) and chased out of the zone at a 38% clip. That was true in both his training camp games against American pitchers—where he saw fastballs at a 60% rate—and also against the Japanese national team—where he saw fastballs at a 41% rate.

Power

The power grade in Cholowsky’s high school report was the lowest of his five tools, and the only tool that was graded below a 50. He earned a 45 future grade on that report. We wrote the following: “For now he’s more of a contact hitter than a power hitter, though he has the sort of lean, athletic frame that should only add more strength in the future. He did hit 11 home runs in 31 games with Hamilton High in his senior season.”

That grade now seems quite light. 

BA College Player of the Year Roch Cholowsky hit this ball to dead center and came inches away from scoring a bull's-eye on my camera. The result was some pretty neat footage. pic.twitter.com/CWViH5PF9J

— Josh Norris (@jnorris427) July 1, 2025

As a freshman Cholowsky homered eight times in 52 games, then as a sophomore he homered 23 times in 66 games. His 23 homers were tied for fifth among all Division-I hitters. Among D-I hitters with at least 300 plate appearances his .710 slugging percentage was the best in the country and his .357 isolated slugging was third. 

From 2024 to 2025, Cholowsky hit the ball harder, he hit the ball in the air more frequently, and he hit the ball in the air to his pull side more frequently. Below you can see TrackMan data for his first two collegiate seasons: 

Year	BBE	Avg EV	90th EV	Max EV	Barrel%	AirPull%	HH LA
2024	138	87.7	104.6	108.9	14.3%	20.6%	10.5
2025	186	91.5	106.5	112.1	31.3%	44.3%	13.3
Change		+3.8	+1.9	+3.2	+17.0%	+23.7%	+2.8

Cholowsky’s power has come almost entirely to the pull side in college. On top of hitting the ball harder, Cholowsky went from a 50% ground ball rate in 2024 to a 37.5% ground ball rate in 2025. He also hit a larger percentage of his batted balls to the pull side. 

All of those components led to a huge uptick in game power. Below you can see his 2024 spray chart and 2025 spray chart via Synergy Sports, with fly balls highlighted: 

Given his college performance, exit velocity data and some of the grades placed on 2025 college hitters, a 55 power grade for Cholowsky seems entirely reasonable, and could be conservative. Had he shown more impact with a wood bat in the last two summers, I’d be more confident here.

Speed

I expected to see less speed from Cholowsky last spring given his additional weight and mass. That wasn’t the case. I clocked a handful of plus run times from home to first on some of his high-effort runs down the line, and he moves well enough to be a consistent above-average runner.

Cholowsky hasn’t been a high-volume base stealer at UCLA but he has been an opportunistic one. He went 6-for-7 (86%) as a freshman and went 7-for-8 (88%) as a sophomore. Overall he’s gone 13-for-15 (87%) on the bases, and consistently shows good jumps. In particular I’ve been impressed with how he takes his leads and jumps at second base to get easy steals to third.

Fielding

I have zero questions about Cholowsky’s defensive ability at shortstop. He was one of the most impressive defenders in the 2023 class in high school. We wrote glowingly about his ability as a defender at the time.

After spending his freshman season at third base in deference to Cody Schrier, Cholowsky moved to his natural position at shortstop this spring, won the Rawlings Gold Glove award and was named the Brooks Wallace Award Winner, which is given to the top shortstop in the country. He had a .978 fielding percentage with seven errors in 314 defensive chances and also led the country in Synergy’s defensive runs saved (+20). Since D1Baseball has tracked DRS going back to 2023, Cholowsky is one of just five players with 20 or more defensive runs saved in a single season—along with Kyle Teel (2023), Ari Armas (2024), Vance Honeycutt (2024) and Ryan Stafford (2024). He’s the lone shortstop of that group.

Cholowsky has all the tools and skills necessary for the position. He attacks the baseball with confidence and quickness, and has more than enough athleticism and body control to make impact, highlight-reel plays while ranging up the middle and to his arm side in the hole. His hands are fluid and reliable and his footwork around the second base bag has been a standout part of his game since his prep days.

UCLA head coach John Savage compared Cholowsky defensively to Brandon Crawford—who played at UCLA from 2006-2008—and noted both players love quarterbacking the infield defense.

For recent college shortstop comparisons, Cholowsky doesn’t have quite the same ease and fluidity that Wake Forest first-rounder Marek Houston plays with, but he offers more dynamism and athleticism that could lead to similar defensive value at the position. 

Arm

Cholowsky has both plus arm strength and plus arm versatility. 

He generates great carry on the ball and has the arm strength to make throws from wherever he’s at on the diamond. When he sets his feet and has time he uses a picturesque arm action that’s fluid and compact, but he’s just as capable of dropping his slot to throw from a lower angle when necessary. 

Cholowsky amplifies his arm by getting the ball in and out of his glove rapidly with a quick exchange you would expect to see from a big league middle infielder. His ability to throw with both accuracy and power from off-balance positions while moving away from his target speaks to both his arm talent but also his natural athleticism and advanced game feel. 

In Summary

Cholowsky is an extremely well-rounded prospect who has a chance for above-average tools across the board. That toolset at a premium position will allow Cholowsky to impact the game in every conceivable area for a position player, giving him both tremendous upside and multiple paths to big league value if one part of his game doesn’t develop as expected. 

He’s the most impressive college shortstop prospect in the last 10 years, and is the current favorite to be the first player selected for good reason. No college shortstop has been selected first overall since the 2015 draft that saw Dansby Swanson go first to the D-backs and Alex Bregman go second to the Astros. Both players could serve as reasonable benchmarks for Cholowsky.