Scouting Roch Cholowsky: Most Complete College SS In A Decade?
Image credit: Roch Cholowsky (1) UCLA Bruins vs LSU Tigers in the continuation game eight of the 2025 NCAA Men’s College World Series at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska on Tuesday, June 17, 2025 (Photo by Eddie Kelly/ ProLook Photos)
Welcome to our offseason scouting series for the 2026 draft class. In this series we’ll examine some of the top players in the class and get into the weeds with video, data and reporting as we prepare for the 2026 spring season. First up, the top player on our draft board, UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky.
Cholowsky moved into the top spot on our 2026 rankings after a Player of the Year sophomore season that put him into a rare group of underclass college performers. He comes with excellent prep pedigree as a high-level multi-sport athlete and ranked as the No. 42 player in the 2023 class out of Hamilton High in Chandler, Ariz. Cholowsky turned down significant money in the draft out of high school, was the top-ranked hitter to reach campus at UCLA and now has positioned himself as one of the better college shortstop prospects in years.
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Body & Swing
Cholowsky has filled out nicely over the last three years. He was listed at 6-foot-2, 185 pounds in high school, with the sort of physical projection that indicated strength gains in the coming years. UCLA listed him at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds on their 2025 roster—a 15-pound increase in weight. He looks noticeably thicker throughout his frame, with more mass on his legs, a more powerful midsection and broader chest and shoulders. He carries the weight well and still has a lean and athletic frame.
His operation in the box looks similar to three years ago. Cholowsky has a slightly wide and open setup with a bit of a crouch and a stable back leg. He’s always been a leg kick hitter and that remains the case, though in college Cholowsky seems to be doing a better job getting started earlier and getting his front foot down with better timing.
In the image above you’ll see that Cholowsky has his front heel elevated off the ground. This seems to be a new tweak to his setup that he used throughout the summer with Team USA. In the spring with UCLA in both 2025 and 2024 his front foot was fully planted in his pre-load stance.
Cholowsky sets his hands around chin/shoulder height and features solid rhythm with a bit of bat waggle before his load. As he loads he has a slight hand press down and back towards the catcher before firing through the zone with great bat speed and a slightly uphill path.
Approach & Contact
In high school, we noted that Cholowsky was a solid contact hitter with good hand-eye coordination, but that he could get too aggressive with his swing decisions at times. He’s matured as a hitter in college and in two seasons with UCLA has hit .333/.446/.618.
He owns a career 11.4% strikeout rate, going from an already impressive 14.5% strikeout rate as a freshman in 2024 to an excellent 9.3% rate as a sophomore in 2025. He went from a 10.2% walk rate in 2024 to a 13.9% walk rate in 2025 and owns a career 12.3% walk rate overall. In general, Cholowsky does a great job limiting his strikeouts and drawing a fine number of walks.
Across both seasons he’s swung 44% of the time. For some context, the major league average swing rate in 2025 is 47.5%.
Cholowsky has a strong 81% overall contact rate and a respectable 26% chase rate. His in-zone contact rate with UCLA is a solid 89%. Against all pitches 92 mph or harder he owns an 83% contact rate.
Below you can see Cholowsky’s contact and approach data in college via Synergy Sports:
| Year/Team | PA | Swing% | Contact% | In-Zone Contact% | Chase% |
| 2024 UCLA | 229 | 44% | 81% | 87% | 25% |
| 2025 UCLA | 315 | 44% | 81% | 90% | 27% |
| 2024 Orleans | 65 | 46% | 75% | 92% | 28% |
| 2025 USA | 38 | 51% | 69% | 87% | 38% |
| Total | 647 | 45% | 80% | 89% | 27% |
Cholowsky’s UCLA performance is better than his summer performance.
He played 17 games with Orleans in the Cape Cod League in 2024 and hit .218/.338/.327 and also had a down summer with Team USA in 2025. In five official games against Japan he went 1-for-17 (.059) with nine strikeouts and one walk. In 10 games including training camp against American arms, Cholowsky went 7-for-34 (.206) with 12 strikeouts and three walks.
This summer Cholowsky was far more aggressive than usual. He swung more than half the time (51%) and chased out of the zone at a 38% clip. That was true in both his training camp games against American pitchers—where he saw fastballs at a 60% rate—and also against the Japanese national team—where he saw fastballs at a 41% rate.
Power
The power grade in Cholowsky’s high school report was the lowest of his five tools, and the only tool that was graded below a 50. He earned a 45 future grade on that report. We wrote the following: “For now he’s more of a contact hitter than a power hitter, though he has the sort of lean, athletic frame that should only add more strength in the future. He did hit 11 home runs in 31 games with Hamilton High in his senior season.”
That grade now seems quite light.
As a freshman Cholowsky homered eight times in 52 games, then as a sophomore he homered 23 times in 66 games. His 23 homers were tied for fifth among all Division-I hitters. Among D-I hitters with at least 300 plate appearances his .710 slugging percentage was the best in the country and his .357 isolated slugging was third.
From 2024 to 2025, Cholowsky hit the ball harder, he hit the ball in the air more frequently, and he hit the ball in the air to his pull side more frequently. Below you can see TrackMan data for his first two collegiate seasons:
| Year | BBE | Avg EV | 90th EV | Max EV | Barrel% | AirPull% | HH LA |
| 2024 | 138 | 87.7 | 104.6 | 108.9 | 14.3% | 20.6% | 10.5 |
| 2025 | 186 | 91.5 | 106.5 | 112.1 | 31.3% | 44.3% | 13.3 |
| Change | +3.8 | +1.9 | +3.2 | +17.0% | +23.7% | +2.8 |
Cholowsky’s power has come almost entirely to the pull side in college. On top of hitting the ball harder, Cholowsky went from a 50% ground ball rate in 2024 to a 37.5% ground ball rate in 2025. He also hit a larger percentage of his batted balls to the pull side.
All of those components led to a huge uptick in game power. Below you can see his 2024 spray chart and 2025 spray chart via Synergy Sports, with fly balls highlighted:
Given his college performance, exit velocity data and some of the grades placed on 2025 college hitters, a 55 power grade for Cholowsky seems entirely reasonable, and could be conservative. Had he shown more impact with a wood bat in the last two summers, I’d be more confident here.
Speed
I expected to see less speed from Cholowsky last spring given his additional weight and mass. That wasn’t the case. I clocked a handful of plus run times from home to first on some of his high-effort runs down the line, and he moves well enough to be a consistent above-average runner.
Cholowsky hasn’t been a high-volume base stealer at UCLA but he has been an opportunistic one. He went 6-for-7 (86%) as a freshman and went 7-for-8 (88%) as a sophomore. Overall he’s gone 13-for-15 (87%) on the bases, and consistently shows good jumps. In particular I’ve been impressed with how he takes his leads and jumps at second base to get easy steals to third.
Fielding
I have zero questions about Cholowsky’s defensive ability at shortstop. He was one of the most impressive defenders in the 2023 class in high school. We wrote glowingly about his ability as a defender at the time.
After spending his freshman season at third base in deference to Cody Schrier, Cholowsky moved to his natural position at shortstop this spring, won the Rawlings Gold Glove award and was named the Brooks Wallace Award Winner, which is given to the top shortstop in the country. He had a .978 fielding percentage with seven errors in 314 defensive chances and also led the country in Synergy’s defensive runs saved (+20). Since D1Baseball has tracked DRS going back to 2023, Cholowsky is one of just five players with 20 or more defensive runs saved in a single season—along with Kyle Teel (2023), Ari Armas (2024), Vance Honeycutt (2024) and Ryan Stafford (2024). He’s the lone shortstop of that group.
Cholowsky has all the tools and skills necessary for the position. He attacks the baseball with confidence and quickness, and has more than enough athleticism and body control to make impact, highlight-reel plays while ranging up the middle and to his arm side in the hole. His hands are fluid and reliable and his footwork around the second base bag has been a standout part of his game since his prep days.
UCLA head coach John Savage compared Cholowsky defensively to Brandon Crawford—who played at UCLA from 2006-2008—and noted both players love quarterbacking the infield defense.
For recent college shortstop comparisons, Cholowsky doesn’t have quite the same ease and fluidity that Wake Forest first-rounder Marek Houston plays with, but he offers more dynamism and athleticism that could lead to similar defensive value at the position.
Arm
Cholowsky has both plus arm strength and plus arm versatility.
He generates great carry on the ball and has the arm strength to make throws from wherever he’s at on the diamond. When he sets his feet and has time he uses a picturesque arm action that’s fluid and compact, but he’s just as capable of dropping his slot to throw from a lower angle when necessary.
Cholowsky amplifies his arm by getting the ball in and out of his glove rapidly with a quick exchange you would expect to see from a big league middle infielder. His ability to throw with both accuracy and power from off-balance positions while moving away from his target speaks to both his arm talent but also his natural athleticism and advanced game feel.
In Summary
Cholowsky is an extremely well-rounded prospect who has a chance for above-average tools across the board. That toolset at a premium position will allow Cholowsky to impact the game in every conceivable area for a position player, giving him both tremendous upside and multiple paths to big league value if one part of his game doesn’t develop as expected.
He’s the most impressive college shortstop prospect in the last 10 years, and is the current favorite to be the first player selected for good reason. No college shortstop has been selected first overall since the 2015 draft that saw Dansby Swanson go first to the D-backs and Alex Bregman go second to the Astros. Both players could serve as reasonable benchmarks for Cholowsky.
