Tour 2026: MLB Draft

All photos of Philadelphia and 2026 MLB Draft available on Flickr.

Saturday was the day I was most looking forward to of the trip and also the most exhausting.  It was the one day we had to set an alarm, and we were on the road for Philly a little after 7:00am for the 4+ hour drive.  The bulk of this drive would be on our old Tour nemesis - I-95 - so we knew to expect traffic and made sure to give ourselves plenty of time to make it for the first pick at 1:30.  It started out beautifully as we headed south to New Haven and west along the Long Island Sound, but sure enough we slowed down through the Bronx and into Newark.  Why there is not a better bypass system to get around New York City, I'll never know.  It was our longest drive of the trip, and we mostly passed the time listening to a very entertaining reggae radio station we stumbled upon, featuring a thick-accented Jamaican DJ that was eager to repeat the same event ad reads over and over.  We also made a pit stop in New Jersey, at which I learned that it is the only state in the union where it is illegal to pump your own gas.  We made it into downtown Philly just before noon, got checked into our hotel, and walked past city hall over to the convention center for the Draft.

Up until 5 years ago, the Rule 4 Draft was historically held in early June, which was always an incredibly inconvenient time as most college players are still in school and many of the top picks might even still be playing.  The draft back then was also extremely inaccessible to the average fan.  The advent of MLB Network and the rise of social media helped with this some, but it was never the spectacle that the NFL or NBA drafts are.  That all changed with with the latest CBA in 2021 when it was formally moved to be integrated with All-Star Week.  This change gave the league an opportunity to better market the sport and give prominence to this event like never before.  Fans visiting a city for the All-Star Game could now go watch the draft in person just like all the other major sports.  I'm not sure how it's been the last 5 years, but this year it was free but you had to register for an opportunity to be one of the supposedly 250 fans let in.  The Luck of the Tour was on our side once again and I was selected!  Fans started being let in at 12:30, and we rushed up the escalator to claim chairs as close as we could to the stage.  On the way to our seats, we passed by rows and rows of analysts and team representatives actually working the draft, as well as multiple television crews.  It felt like we truly had VIP access, and quite simply it was one of the coolest baseball events I've ever been a part of.  To be in the same room as star former players, media personalities, and the commissioner of baseball, not to mention the honor of witnessing the most important moment in the lives of a few dozen athletes, was something I'll never forget.  Erik and I were memorialized on TV and the internet several times in our Brewers and Twins jerseys respectively, cheering loudly for each pick.  It all felt like a crazy dream that we got to be there, and it was my favorite part of our trip.  Any baseball fan needs to add this event to their bucket list ASAP. 

My one complaint for this particular iteration of the event was the very limited concessions.  We ended up leaving about 3 hours in after the Brewers #25 pick, but the draft lasted well into the evening and really your only options were popcorn, pretzels, and soda.  It definitely wouldn't have been enough real food to sustain us had we chosen to stay longer.  In the pro column, I loved how much they tried to make it a very personal experience for the limited number of fans in attendance.  This is clearly an event best suited for television audiences, but MLB Network and the emcee made every effort to entertain the crowd during the breaks and made sure we more than just 250 flies on the wall - and all the free swag didn't hurt either.  It felt like we were a part of a live studio audience that just got kind of a peek behind the curtain of how the draft runs, and it was a pretty indescribable feeling.

One other major factor in the MLB Draft gaining more popularity in recent years is that draft picks make a faster impact in the big leagues than ever before, and the White Sox #1 overall pick of UCLA SS Roch Cholowsky was perfect evidence of that.  It used to be that a team would pick a guy, and he would get exiled to the minor leagues and nobody would hear from him again for 5+ years.  It's not uncommon now for the top picks or polished college players to get called up to the majors within 1-2 years.  Many experts believe that Roch will be ready for the bigs as early as next year and that that was a factor in them choosing him.  There are many "inside baseball" reasons for this fast tracking that I won't get into here - the slashing of minor league teams is one of the many - but it's undeniable that it makes the Draft more exciting for the casual MLB fan when they can visualize these players helping their team sooner rather than later.  The first 4 picks were chalk - Cholowsky (or Cha-loose-kee as our commissioner says), HS SS Grady Emerson #2 to the Rays, Georgia Tech C Vahn Lackey #3 to the Twins, and UCSB P Jackson Flora #4 to the Giants.  The Pirates and Royals then selected a couple of moderate surprises projected to go lower in the 1st round and it was off to the races.  UNC P Jack Schaffner #20 to the Red Sox and HS SS Trey Ebel #25 to the Brewers were the biggest surprises of the 1st round, if you define "surprise" as merely the biggest gap between their rank and where they were selected.  Any Brewers fan or draft expert should know by now that it's never a surprise for them to take a value pick in the 1st round to save money for spending later in the draft, which is exactly what they did when they stole TCU OF Sawyer Strosnider at the back of the 2nd round.  This is famously how the Brewers managed to snag Cooper Pratt away from a college commitment a few years ago, and now he is their starting SS with a long-term contract.  For as amazing an experience the draft was, by the time the Brewers picked it was starting to get a little redundant, so we left after that to head to our 2nd part of the day in Allentown.

2026 MLB DRAFT ROUND 1/PPI/1A: 

1.  CHW - Roch Cholowsky, UCLA, SS

2.  TB - Grady Emerson, HS, SS

3.  MIN - Vahn Lackey, Georgia Tech, C

4.  SF - Jackson Flora, UC-Santa Barbara, RHP

5.  PIT - Derek Curiel, LSU, OF

6.  KC - Zion Rose, Louisville, OF

7.  BAL - Eric Booth Jr., HS, OF

8.  ATH - Drew Burress, Georgia Tech, OF

9.  ATL - AJ Gracia, Virginia, OF

10.  COL - Tyler Bell, Kentucky, SS

11.  WSH - Chris Hacopian, Texas A&M, 2B

12.  LAA - Jared Grindlinger, HS, OF

13.  STL - Trevor Condon, HS, OF

14.  MIA - Jacob Lombard, HS, SS

15.  ARZ - Ryder Helfrick, Arkansas, C

16.  TEX - Gio Rojas, HS, LHP

17.  HOU - Logan Hughes, Texas Tech, OF

18.  CIN - Justin Lebron, Alabama, SS

19.  CLE - Liam Peterson, Florida, RHP

20.  BOS - Jack Schaffner, UNC, RHP

21.  SD - Coleman Borthwick, HS, RHP

22.  DET - Cameron Flukey, Coastal Carolina, RHP

23.  CHC - Cade Townsend, Ole Miss, RHP

24.  SEA - Ace Reese, MS State, 3B

25.  MIL - Trey Ebel, HS, SS

26.  ATL - Carter Beck, Indiana State, OF

27.  NYM - Carson Wiggins, Arkansas, RHP

28.  HOU - Jack Radel, ND, RHP

29.  SF - Carson Bolemon, HS, LHP

30.  KC - Tyler Rabe, Ole Miss, RHP

31.  ARZ - Blake Bryant, HS, RHP

32.  STL - Tegan Kuhns, Tennessee, RHP

33.  TB - Taj Marchand, HS, SS

34.  CHW - Landon Thome, HS, SS

35.  NYY - Hunter Dietz, Arkansas, LHP

36.  PHI - Tyler Spangler, HS, SS

37.  COL - Daniel Jackson, Georgia, C

38.  COL - Logan Reddemann, UCLA, RHP

39.  TOR - Cole Carlon, ASU, LHP

40.  LAD - Bo Lowrance, HS, SS

venue - Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia