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Mock Draft 2.0: Updated First-Round Picks
Plus: New Top 25, Hot Sheet, Statcast Standouts & more
Mock Draft 2.0: Updated First-Round Picks For Every Team
As the spring draft season continues to heat up, Baseball America draft expert Carlos Collazo is back with his second in-season mock for 2026.
Unsurprisingly, UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky continues to hold down the top spot. But beyond the 1-1, we’re starting to see some interesting projected player movement among the first 40 picks. Highlights include:
A new name in the top three picks
Previous top college picks falling down the board
The mock debut for an electric high school arm
Be sure to check out our updated Top 300 draft rankings for 2026 here.
NEW HOT SHEET
Kade Anderson Tops The Latest Hot Sheet
Baseball America’s Hot Sheet ranks the hottest prospects from the previous week while also identifying a weekly helium player to keep tabs on.
This week’s Hot Sheet is topped by Kade Anderson, last year’s third-overall pick who entered the year with a chance to be the kind of pitcher who comes up toward the end of the season and makes an impact on a pennant race. So far, he’s doing his best to make that prediction look wise. After two turns in the Double-A Arkansas rotation, the lefthander has yet to allow a run and has punched out 17 hitters.
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.
NCAA TOP 25
New Top 25 College Baseball Rankings
After weeks of stability at the top, Week 9 finally brought chaos to the top 10 of BA’s Top 25. All but No. 1 UCLA changed positions, and three teams fell out of the group. In all, six Top 25 teams—Texas, Florida State, Alabama, Mississippi State, UCF and Nebraska—posted losing weeks.
Check out Baseball America’s latest Top 25 and each team’s week in review below.
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STATCAST STANDOUTS
Josh Ekness, Riley Cornelio Headline 10 Statcast Standouts
Every Monday morning, Eli Ben-Porat highlights 10 players who stood out over the previous week based on underlying Statcast metrics, which often serve as early indicators of breakouts or players who might be ready for MLB roles. Highlights from this week’s list include:
A bold prediction for Eli’s new pitching prospect crush
How the Nationals unlocked Riley Cornelio
Did the White Sox clone Chase Meidroth?
A PTBNL flashing plus-plus stuff
The next Cam Schlittler might be pitching in college
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Baseball Card America Newsletter Launches April 15
Introducing Baseball Card America, BA’s brand new monthly newsletter scheduled to hit inboxes for the first time this Wednesday with all the latest baseball card news and analysis, including special spotlights on top prospects for collectors to target.
To celebrate the launch of Baseball Card America, we’re giving away an entire case of 2026 Onyx Vintage, which features exciting chases for Paul Skenes’ autographs in Japanese and dual autos for BA’s top two prospects, Konnor Griffin and Kevin McGonigle.
We’ll be giving away boxes from the Onyx Vintage case to six lucky subscribers, so don’t miss out. All you have to do to enter to win is to sign up for the Baseball Card America newsletter.
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@baseballamerica Roch Cholowsky could ink a RECORD-SETTING signing bonus 👀 #fyp #mlb #mlbdraft #ucla #baseball
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