Despite the adversity, the Bruins largely stayed intact between the 2024 and 2025 seasons \u2013 something coach John Savage and Cholowsky\u2019s teammates largely credit to the shortstop. It was a drastic shift for a program that lost an eventual second-round pick and three third-round picks across the previous two offseasons.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CHOLOWSKY.KD_.B.jpg\")
Cholowsky prepares to fire to first base after securing the force out at second. (Kai Dizon\/Assistant Photo editor)<\/p>\n
While Cholowsky may not have been seen as a probable No. 1 selection until after a breakout 2025 campaign, he\u2019s no stranger to scouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Upon graduating from Hamilton \u2013\u00a0the alma mater of former NL MVP Cody Bellinger \u2013\u00a0in 2023, Cholowsky was a potential late-first round pick, positioned as MLB Pipeline\u2019s No. 44 ranked prospect and Perfect Game\u2019s No. 17 prospect.<\/p>\n
The two-time Arizona State Champion said a trip to the 2023 Men\u2019s College World Series cemented his decision to play collegiate baseball \u2013\u00a0and honor his commitment to UCLA, the first school to offer him a baseball scholarship, according to Cronkite News.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After going the entire 2026 campaign as the consensus No. 1 prospect available in the 2026 Draft \u2013 and UCLA becoming the first team to ever complete an entire regular season as the nation\u2019s top team \u2013 Cholowsky\u2019s stock seemed to slip just before the draft after his 2-for-12 performance in the NCAA Los Angeles Regional coincided with the Bruins\u2019 elimination.<\/p>\n
In the end, however, Executive Vice President and General Manager Chris Getz chose Cholowsky over 18-year-old shortstop Grady Emerson and Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey.<\/p>\n
Cholowsky joins an organization deep in shortstop talent, with 2021 first-round pick Colson Montgomery in the Big Leagues, 2024 second-rounder Caleb Bonemer at Double-A Birmingham and 2025 first-rounder Billy Carlson at Single-A Kannapolis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless, Cholowsky would likely say being selected first overall is like his walk-up song.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeel So Good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA baseball already had a shortstop wearing jersey No. 1 when Roch Cholowsky arrived in Westwood as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-794101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}