​For more than a year, two shortstops have dominated the chatter surrounding this year’s draft: Roch Cholowsky of UCLA and prep standout Grady Emerson. As the 2026 college season unfolded, Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey emerged with a breakout showing that put him in the conversation alongside those two. Now the draft appears to feature three standouts who rise above the rest—a favorable scenario for the team holding the third pick. The Twins, positioned there, would mark their first top selection since Royce Lewis went No. 1 in 2017. The draft is set to begin Saturday at noon CDT.
Sean Johnson, the Twins’ assistant general manager and head of amateur scouting, has heard comments that the club has the “easiest pick in the draft.” If the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays select two of the three top prospects, Minnesota could be left choosing from the remaining one. But there’s little sense of ease inside the draft room.
“I’ve told people internally, I haven’t woken up one day thinking, ‘Man, we’ve got it easy this year. This is a piece of cake,’” Johnson said. “We’re intrigued by the players who are perceived as the three best in the draft. We also like a couple guys behind that.” While there’s a consensus top trio, the method for determining the top order isn’t crystal clear. Earlier in the cycle, Cholowsky seemed the favorite to go first, backed by a strong season at UCLA. Yet some view Emerson as having the highest ceiling, and Lackey showed notable power while projecting to stay behind the plate.
“I think the conversation has been a little murkier than we thought it might be,” Johnson said about how the top of the draft could unfold. “We’re not sure, and we haven’t spent a lot of time trying to guess.” Instead, the Twins’ scouting staff has been absorbed in long days at their Target Field operations center—roughly 9:30 a.m. to 6:30–7 p.m. since Sunday—running simulated mock drafts, refining their board, checking in with other teams to glean what they’re hearing, and touching base with agents.
Beyond the No. 3 pick, the Twins also hold the No. 43, 74, 79, and 107 selections on the opening day of the draft. The event then continues with rounds 5 through 20 on Sunday. “Our priority is to take the best player available when we pick at three, and then also with our subsequent picks, and so on. We’ve discussed this from the outset: a lot will be made about Pick 3. No one ever asks us, ‘Who are you taking in the eighth round this year?’ No one cares—but we do. We’re trying to identify the best player we can all the way through to round 20.”
In the meantime, the trade deadline is still more than three weeks away, but Minnesota has already acted to address an area of need. The Twins added 35-year-old right-handed reliever Tommy Nance, along with an international asset, signaling their intent to bolster the bullpen and add flexibility as they navigate the draft and the upcoming season.