It’s never too early to do a mock draft. Well, yes of course there is, but what’s the fun in that?
Here’s a smattering of super-early mock drafts and ranks that i’ve seen. I think these have value because they give you an idea of what the industry is hearing about the very top guys, plus we can see who’s highly ranked now but who may drop to the Nats #11 pick range (which has happened with us more than a few times to our great benefit, ahem, Anthony Rendon). These links run from December to the end of April.
For each mock i’ll list the top 5, then (if they go that deep) who they project to #11. I won’t repeat full names past first mention for space.
- MLBPipeline’s first mock Dec 2025: Roch Cholowosky, Grady Emerson, Justin Lebron, Drew Burress, Jacob Lombard. Nats at #11 take Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida
- Baseball America’s first mock Dec 2025: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lebron, AJ Gracia (a 1B/OF from UVA), Derek Curiel. Nats at #11 take Ace Reese, 3B from Mississippi State.
- Bleacher Report first mock Feb 2026: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lebron, Burress, Curiel. Nats take Peterson.
- PrepBaseballReport 3/1/26 early mock: Cholowosky, Lebron, Lombard, Jackson Flora (UCSB rhp), Carson Bolman. Nats at #11 take Coleman Borthwick, a prep RHP/3B committed to Auburn.
- D1Baseball 3/5/36 Early march mock: (they use the above Prep Baseball Report mock data)
- Baseball America Mar 2026 mock 1.0 3/9/26: Cholowosky, Emerson, Lebron, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 take Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove (Miss.) HS
- BA Staff Draft 3/23/26: Cholowosky, Lebron, Emerson, Lombard, Van Lackey (fast-rising C from Ga Tech). Nats at #11 take AJ Gracia from UVA.
- BA Mock 2.0 4/13/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 get Ace Reese, 3B, Mississippi State. Big bat, projected pro 1B so has to keep hitting. Has been 5-6 in draft ranks in the class, but is a risk taking a non-premium position here. This pick also leaves leBron on the table, which is crazy to have said a month ago.
- BA Staff Draft 2.0 4/27/26: Cholowsky , Emerson, Flora, Lackey, Lombard. Nats at #11 get Drew Burress, OF from Georgia Tech. Burress was top 5 early in the cycle and has dropped a bit. Understandable: he’s “only” slashing .360/.484/.611 as of 4/27/26 with more walks than Ks. (sarcasm). In their draft we leave the likes of Curiel, Lebron, and Reese on the table.
- BA’s Top 400 Draft ranks 4/29/26; Ranks aren’t the same as mocks, but it is useful to see where BA ranks these players independent of team drafting proclivities. Their top 5: Cholosky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Lombard, and #11 on their board is Drew Burress, so that’s relatively consistent with the BA staff draft.
Conclusions: Cholowsky is #1 on every single mock, without fail. Not one pundit has moved him off the top, and his performance so far in the college season has kept him there. The major name flying up the board this spring is Van Lackey, and it seems like he’s going #2 or #3. Nearly everyone has prep phenoms Emerson and Lombard in their top 5 as well. The top arm now seems to be Flora across the board.
Falling out of top-5 contention and now likely in the conversation for the Nats pick at #11 include Burress, Lebron, Gracia, and Curiel primarily. Also throw in there Tyler Bell and Liam Peterson, both college guys who were ranked higher but have had injury issues this year. If Mike Rizzo was still drafting, I would almost bet money on him taking Derek Curiel if he was here, just based on how “famous” he is (he was a 1st round talent out of HS before becoming perhaps the wealthiest NIL player in the country at LSU). But the new crew went prep-heavy in 2025 and may do so again in 2026.
I don’t really see any prep kids right in the 10-12 range on any of these mocks, and our new front office may be looking to go young again. One mock has us taking Eric Booth, but others have him ranked in the 6-10 range and going before he drops to us. If you want to see who the highest ranked Prep kids are by BA, here’s that list. It goes Emerson, Booth, Lombard, relatively big gap, then Spangler (who has a strong commit to Stanford) and a LHP out of florida named Rojas who’ll be 19 at the draft and is a Miami commit. Neither of those seem like Nats guys, not when there’ll be a slew of college players that make sense. But, if they get slot savings at #11 on someone like Rojas who is ranked in the teens, that lets them throw money in later rounds at prep kids who have slipped, which is how we ended up with the likes of Harmon, Sime, James, Fitz-Gerald, Fien, Jones, etc.