{"id":19546,"date":"2026-06-09T10:05:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19546"},"modified":"2026-06-09T10:05:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:05:56","slug":"mock-drafts-and-draft-class-ranks-as-we-get-closer-to-draft-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19546","title":{"rendered":"Mock Drafts and Draft Class Ranks as we get closer to Draft Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gringlinger-Jared-via-BA-jared_grindlinger_tracyproffittfourseam.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gringlinger-Jared-via-BA-jared_grindlinger_tracyproffittfourseam-1024x438.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19648\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gringlinger-Jared-via-BA-jared_grindlinger_tracyproffittfourseam-1024x438.webp 1024w, https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gringlinger-Jared-via-BA-jared_grindlinger_tracyproffittfourseam-300x128.webp 300w, https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gringlinger-Jared-via-BA-jared_grindlinger_tracyproffittfourseam-768x329.webp 768w, https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Gringlinger-Jared-via-BA-jared_grindlinger_tracyproffittfourseam.webp 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">2-way prep star Jared Gringlinger is settling in on multiple mocks to the Nats at #11.  Photo via BA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each year we have basically three categories of mock drafts and Draft Board Ranks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The way too early drafts, which are done any time in 2025 for the 2026 draft all the way to those done within the first couple of months of the spring season.  I reviewed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19451\">Phase 1 version<\/a> of mocks about a month ago.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The &#8220;starting to get down to business&#8221; mock drafts, which start to really look at those who are rising and falling due to 2026 performance, those who have had injury issues, plus those who have clarified their &#8220;going to school&#8221; status. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The &#8220;week leading up to the draft&#8221; Mocks where the major pundits are working the phones to get for-real intel into who the teams are looking at, and sometimes we get mocks the day of that nearly nail the top 10.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&#8217;re now well into Phase 2; that is this analysis.  In fact, there&#8217;s been so many i&#8217;m publishing now and may do another version of this as more mocks come in the rest of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Macro Draft Class statements<\/strong>: the pundits are reporting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The top of the draft is weaker than in year&#8217;s past<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Class Strengths include College bats, Prep Pitching for depth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Weaknesses seem to be prep bats after the top 3-4 names, college arms this year for sure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, let&#8217;s get to it. For each Mock i&#8217;ll list the top 5 names plus who they project to the Nats at #11 with some commentary. I&#8217;ll spell out player names the first time they&#8217;re used, then just use last names going forward.  Also, I&#8217;m adding more commentary to each mock in this section, and will identify names who the Nats would purposely be skipping in each mock who I think they&#8217;d give serious thought to taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7255697\/2026\/05\/07\/mlb-mock-draft-2026-grady-emerson-chicago-white-sox\/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRpeHBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEemujRdjpmQenjKLFtOaiHGheHpZTwftaIHkGIxEX1BsaeWYWEWOLyFipq7ps_aem_vtKJCStkNifyAOY9xbTrPw\">Keith Law Mock 1.0 5\/7\/26<\/a>: Grady Emerson (prep SS, Texas HS), Roch Cholowsky (SS UCLA), Vahn Lackey (C Georgia Tech), Jackson Flora (RHP UC Santa Barbara), Eric Booth Jr (prep OF, Miss HS). Nats at #11 take <strong>Chris Hacopian, SS\/3B from Texas A&amp;M<\/strong> (and thus leaving Peterson, Bell, and Lebron on the table). Law is the first mock drafter who does NOT have Cholowsky going 1-1 in this cycle, and freely admits that the team drafting 1st overall (the White Sox) may be sending smoke signals to the Cholowsky camp to tamper down bonus demands. I think they&#8217;d be fools not to take the UCLA shortstop, who entered the season the consensus 1-1 candidate and has done absolutely nothing but produce and keep that reputation. Meanwhile, as I&#8217;ve mentioned in prior posts there&#8217;s a big &#8220;gap&#8221; in prep prospects right in the section where the Nats draft, which really makes it seem like we&#8217;ll be drafting a college bat.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/mlb-pipeline-2026-mock-draft-may-7\">Jim Callis MLBpipeline First Officiail Mock 5\/8\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Jacob Lombard (prep SS , Florida HS), Flora.  Nats at #11 take <strong>Jared Grindlinger, OF\/LHP, Huntington Beach (Calif.) HS.<\/strong>  This would be a shock overdraft, as he&#8217;s ranked well outside the 1st round on draft boards right now.    In this mock, picking Gridlinger would leave in particular Curiel on the table, but also the likes of Hacopian, Flukey, Bell, etc.  Grindlinger reclassified from 2027, so he&#8217;d be super young like Willits, but may also go under-slot which would allow for more over-slot prep draftees in rounds 2-5.   <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/2026-mlb-mock-draft-3-0-first-round-picks-for-every-team-with-2-months-to-go\/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=mock-draft-3-0-latest-picks-intel&amp;_bhlid=2231e49ef909c1675db320338ed2b3e541e85691\">Baseball America Mock Draft 3.0 5\/11\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 take<strong>&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/players\/21168-drew-burress\/\">Drew Burress<\/a>, OF, Georgia Tech<\/strong>.<\/strong> Burress has been in the top 10 of this draft since the beginning of the cycle, and BA has mocked Burress to the Nats now a couple of times with these exercises. In this mock, the Nats would be passing on the likes of Bell, Curiel, Gridlinger, Lebron, etc. But, BA has some of these players now in the 20s, implying that a 6.1M slot value would sign for something 33% less 10 picks later. Players like Peterson and Reese, who have been mocked to the Nats earlier in this cycle, are now nearly out of the 1st round.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7271408\/2026\/05\/14\/mlb-draft-2026-top-100-prospects-roch-cholowsky\/\">Keith Law Draft Ranks 5\/14\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Lackey, Flora, Bell, Emerson.  As Law notes immediately in the write-up, this is a rank, not a mock.   He&#8217;s got Bell in particular in the top 4, but i&#8217;ve seen mocks with Bell going in the 20s.  That&#8217;d be such an amazing steal for that team if indeed Bell is this good.  He also ranks Lombard (regularly in the top 5 on these mocks) way way down at #17, so I can imagine what he thinks of a team popping him that early.  Some of the names associated with the Nats at #11 are deep into the 20s on this list (Hacopian, Gracia), while others are much higher (Burress in particular).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/48742802\/2026-mlb-mock-draft-10-kiley-mcdaniel-first-pick-chicago-white-sox\">Espn\/Kiley McDaniel Mock Draft 1.0 5\/14\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora.  Nats at #11 take Grindlinger, same as the MLBpipeline mock above.  McDaniel reports that the consensus decision at 1-1 is now nearly a 50\/50 proposition with Emerson rising fast.  Grindlinger is reported as a two-way player, better on the hit side but still promising on the arm side (as a pitcher-only prospect he&#8217;s a comp-to-early 2nd rounder).  In this scenario, the Nats would be passing on Peterson, Curiel, Lebron.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ESPN\/Kiley <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/48778463\/2026-mlb-draft-rankings-update-top-150-prospects\">McDaniel top 150 Draft Ranks 5\/17\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Booth.  #11 is Grindlinger as it turns out.  McDaniel&#8217;s draft board isn&#8217;t entirely in sync with his recent mock draft, showing Lombard out of the top 5, which is consistent with many of the draft rankings despite is frequent placement in the top 5.  His rank exposes one of the big disagreements between pundits: where to rank Tyler Bell?  McDaniel ranks him #29 while Law ranks him #4.  That&#8217;s a really, really wide gap.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/mlb-pipeline-2026-mock-draft-may-21\">Jonathan Mayo\/MLBpipeline 5\/21\/26 Mock<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Flora, Lombard, Lackey.  #11 Nats take <strong>Justin Lebron<\/strong>, SS from Alabama.  Lebron has been &#8220;polarizing&#8221; this season b\/c he started the mock draft season as an easy top 5 pick but has struggled this season, badly.  As of the beginning of SEC play he&#8217;s only slashing .266\/.384\/.522.  I say &#8220;only&#8221; since he&#8217;s got 14 homers &#8230; and 38\/39 SBs.  He wasn&#8217;t on a bunch of pre-season AA lists for nothing.  Question is: what&#8217;s his true hit tool?  .266 this year or his .314 last year?  In this scenario Nats would leave players like Peterson, Curiel, Gracia, Gridlinger, and Bell on the board, all names we&#8217;ve seen them associated with in prior mocks.  This really highlights to me just how wide open this area of the draft is this year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballprospectjournal.com\/2026-mlb-draft-mock-draft-1-0\/\">Dan Zielinski III from Baseball Prospect Journal released his Mock 1.0<\/a> on 5\/23\/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora.  Basically the same top 5 as most everyone else at this point.  He&#8217;s got Nats at #11 on Gridlinger, though he&#8217;s have us skip over in particular Cameron Flukey, the Coastal Carolina #1 starter who is probably the 2nd best arm on the board.  I know you don&#8217;t draft for Need &#8230; but do we &#8220;need&#8221; yet another prep SS?  Maybe its time to infuse more pitching into the system, since every one of our prospect stars this season seems to be a hitter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/rankings\/2026-top-mlb-draft-prospects\/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=new-top-500-draft-rankings&amp;_bhlid=28e56d7dbe9b3eebe1fdbe47bf0de041a60a9fd4\">Baseball America Top 500 Draft Board 5\/27\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Lombard.  #11 ranked is divisive Kentucky SS <strong>Tyler Bell<\/strong>.  Bell projects as a well rounded SS who can play all over the dirt in a pinch, with solid marks for all five tools but no 60s or 70s anywhere.  He was a 2nd rounder out of HS, went to college, and now projects as a mid 1st rounder.  He hurt his shoulder in the first week of the season and played through it a bit, which has hampered his draft stock\/stats, something to think about from a value perspective.  Bell at #11 could be a solid pick.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballprospectus.com\/prospects\/article\/107398\/bp-on-draft-2026-draft-board-v1-0\/\">Baseball Prospectus Draft board 5\/28\/26<\/a>: entirely behind a paywall.  If anyone has an account let me know.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/48899402\/2026-mlb-mock-draft-20-kiley-mcdaniel-predicts-picks-white-sox-rays-twins-giants-pirates\">ESPN\/Kiley McDaniel Mock 2.0 5\/29\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Same 5 as the last few mocks, in slightly different order. He puts the Nats on Gridlinger, like a few others, saying &#8220;Grindlinger has been tied to this spot for a while.&#8221; In this scenario Burress is long gone, but the Nats take the prep SS over the likes of Hacopian, Bell, Flukey, Lebron.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/top-200-draft-prospects-for-2026\">MLBPipeline Top 200 Draft Prospects 5\/29\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. #11 ranked player is Coastal Carolina&#8217;s ace Cameron Flukey, though as we know player ranks tend to fluctuate with day in and day out performance. If Flukey dominates in the CWS regional (CCU is an underdog in their regional) we could see him pop up a bit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/milb\/news\/draft-industry-experts-on-who-will-go-no-1-and-more?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage\">Jonathan Mayo Industry survey 6\/1\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora again.  We&#8217;re definitely starting to see some consistency here.  This wasn&#8217;t a ranking, but more of a survey. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>D1Baseball Top 250 draft board 6\/4\/26: Lackey, Cholowsky, Flora, Hacopian, Bell.  D1&#8217;s list is only D1 players, no Prep players, and is weird in that they have Lackey over Cholowsky, basically the only service that does so.  I also think they have some players too high\/too low in comparison to others.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/mlb-pipeline-2026-mock-draft-june-4\">Post-D1 regional MLBPipeline mock 6\/5\/26<\/a>: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora.  Same top 5 as everyone.  He&#8217;s got Nats on Gridlinger once again, but says that if Burress or Hacopian are available they could go here.  In this scenario, the Nats leave Flukey, Curiel, Reese, Bell, and Lebron on the table.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Baseball America published a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/rankings\/2026-top-high-school-mlb-draft-prospects\/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=top-500-hs-rankings-for-2026&amp;_bhlid=8aa8d87c380871e1c2189e3a5e3e8858439a17f7\">Top 500 Prep-only list 6\/5\/26<\/a>: that&#8217;s just a crazy amount of analysis, even given the modern day of travel teams and showcases for these kids. 500 prep kids ranked. The top 5 prep kids go as expected: Emerson, Lombard, Booth, Rojas, and Nats favorite Grindlinger. There&#8217;s a smattering of Virginia-based kids, not a ton as this seems to be a pretty down year for prep kids in the state.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/2026-mlb-mock-draft-4-0-first-round-picks-for-every-team-with-a-month-to-go\/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=mock-4-0-top-40-picks-a-month-out&amp;_bhlid=af67e6c22216607c2323c0486f05bc143c2eddbf\">Baseball America&#8217;s Mock 4.0 6\/8\/26<\/a>: Cholowosky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora.  Again, same top 5 names.  Nats at #11 once again projected to Grindlinger.  In this mock, they&#8217;d leave Lebron, Reese, Hacopian on the list.  I wonder if Hacopian would tempt them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Conclusion: most of these mocks have the same 4-5 names within the top 5 picks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Cholowsky: has been 1-1 on practically every mock draft<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Emerson: nearly always in the top 2<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lackey: seems to be consistently the next player taken after Cholowsky\/Emerson are done.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lombard and Flora are the two names that most frequently round out the top 5, albeit sometimes with interlopers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Names most frequently mocked to Nats at this point: Grindlinger, Hacopian, Burress, though in later mocks Burress is mostly gone by the time Nats pick at #11.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each year we have basically three categories of mock drafts and Draft Board Ranks: We&#8217;re now well into Phase 2; that is this analysis. In fact, there&#8217;s been so many i&#8217;m publishing now and may do another version of this as more mocks come in the rest of the month. Macro Draft Class statements: the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-draft","category-prospects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19546"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19650,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19546\/revisions\/19650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}