- The Baseball America Newsletter
- Posts
- Final 2026 Staff Draft
Final 2026 Staff Draft
Plus: Hot Sheet, draft sleepers, Statcast Standouts & top preps in every state
Final BA Staff Draft For 2026
At long last, draft week is finally here. And we’ve got a ton of content set to roll out between now and the first pick on Saturday, including our final BA 500 rankings, more mock drafts and the latest intel from Carlos Collazo.
In the meantime, Baseball America writers convened for our fourth and final staff draft of the 2026 cycle featuring our preferred picks and rationales for the first 75 selections. Check out the full staff draft below and stay tuned this week for lots more coverage coming your way.
Get ready for this weekend by bookmarking our 2026 draft pick tracker, which will update automatically for every player picked.
SUBSCRIBE TO BA ON YOUTUBE 📺️
HOT SHEET 🔥
Henry Lalane Tops The Hot Sheet … Again
Baseball America’s Hot Sheet ranks the hottest prospects from the previous week while also identifying a weekly helium player to keep tabs on.
The latest Hot Sheet is topped for the second consecutive week by Yankees lefthander Henry Lalane, who spun another gem: 11 strikeouts, no walks, three hits and no runs. Now back healthy, the 22-year-old is just eight strikeouts off the Florida State League lead and once again looks like one of the minors’ most exciting young pitchers.
Join us at 2 p.m. ET on Monday for our weekly Hot Sheet prospect chat and be sure to watch the Hot Sheet show on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET on YouTube.
DRAFT SLEEPERS 😴
20 Sleeper Draft Prospects To Know
Players at the top of any draft class get plenty of attention and analysis. But as 20th-round Braves outfielder Eric Hartman is showing, impact prospects can come from anywhere in the class.
So with the 2026 MLB draft less than a week away, here are 20 draft sleepers we’re also excited about who might warrant a bit more attention. Each player below currently ranks outside of the top 100 on our most recently updated draft board.
STATCAST STANDOUTS 📊
25 College Draft Arms With Intriguing Data
In a special draft edition of Statcast Standouts, Eli Ben-Porat dives into the arsenals of 25 top college pitching prospects through the lens of their publicly available Statcast data.
To do this, we examine players’ present major league-ready skills and then also dissect how each could improve in order to reach the majors and graduate from prospect status.
HS NAMES TO KNOW ⚾️
Updated HS Player Ranks For Every State
In advance of this weekend’s draft, Ben Badler is back with updated lists for the top 2026 high school draft prospects from around North America, including the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada.
Click below to find links to every list and see which prep players are standing out before the first picks are made on Saturday.
FOLLOW BA ON SOCIAL 📱
TRENDING NOW AT BASEBALL AMERICA 👀
|
|
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? BECOME A BA SUBSCRIBER TODAY
Join the thousands of fans, players, coaches and front office personnel who are the backbone of the Baseball America community by subscribing today.
FROM OUR FRIENDS AT FOUL TERRITORY ⚾
The Athletic's Tyler Kepner joins Scott Braun, Erik Kratz and Kevin Pillar to explain why the Mets can't simply copy the Brewers’ blueprint for success.
