Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Will the White Sox select Roch Cholowsky with the No. 1 overall pick?
04 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Who is Roch Cholowski and why is he a top pick?
Rahimi Harrison-Grody.
I don't want to break time. I want to yell at Marshall. Can we handle more Anthony Heron?
Middays 10 to 2 on 104.3 The Score. First pitch, this one sent over towards left field, and unable to make the grab is Williams. One run will score for UCLA, and Rock Cholowski is able to give UCLA the lead for the first time today after the Bruins were down eight runs in the sixth and seventh inning of the season.
That is courtesy of Big Ten Network. That is a man that we have our eye on. And so White Sox have the first overall pick, the 1-1, in the 2026 MLB Amateur Player Draft, Rock Cholowski. Now let's rewind to Bob Nightingale's column last Sunday.
The Bob Nightingale, ease into your Sunday, drop news bombs in the middle of the column, and then everybody tries to figure out what it means for the rest of the week. Not that I'm mad. Fired already? MLB's best managers know unfairness comes with a job. Now, this is something that we talked about a little bit differently.
The Athletic also did a column on that when it came to just how bad it is right now to be a major league manager. But in that is the real devil in the details, the around the base pass. And that's where all the action happens.
Touch first base, second base, third base. Oh, wait, did you see this news along the way? Somewhere between second and third? Oh, shortstop.
It's not a Woj bomb. It's like a sleeper that just comes out of nowhere. And this is on the 26th. The Chicago White Sox remain uncertain who they will draft with the number one pick in July and insist that they have not committed to taking UCLA shortstop Brock Cholowski, the consensus top player in the draft. Consensus has been an operative word lately.
Not just in the NFL draft, but in Major League Baseball. Consensus. So like the average of everybody who's an expert pretty much saying this is the dude. It's also unclear, several executives say, whether the White Sox are Cholowski's top preference. So nobody's committed to anyone. That's what I take out of this.
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Chapter 2: What did Bob Nightingale report about the White Sox draft strategy?
That Vallejo native is Rock Chalaski, just in case you were curious. So the Giants have the number four overall pick. Now, the Giants need infielders. You know this. Let's rewind to that whole Nico Horner is interesting to the Giants moment that happened right before his extension.
But this has taken on a bigger discussion about, is it simply the White Sox don't want to telegraph who they want to pick first overall? Or is it that this is a perhaps Reinsdorfian negotiation and that Jerry likes to exercise options? We've seen that a time or two.
Jerry Reinsdorf or Jerry Jones? Are we talking about the same person here?
When I say Reinsdorfian, I do intend to mean Jerry Reinsdorf.
I got you. But the similarity there was...
Then there's Jerry Jones math, which is so that's improvement. Like Jerry meeting with the Nashville mayor, for example, or, you know, even going back to Rob Manfred being named Major League Baseball commissioner. He brings up another candidate in the Red Sox owner. So it has happened where they just don't immediately commit to people.
I saw this news. This was last week, right, when this all came to be?
It feels like it was a longer time ago, but it was Sunday. Bob Nightingale is here to wreck your Sunday.
My initial impression of this was, okay, as an open-minded, like, let's make sure we have all the T's crossed, the I's dotted, boxes checked. This makes sense. It's... April, because it was April back then when we... It was the 26th, yes. Yes. It's April. Let them do their due diligence and make sure they get the right guy.
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Chapter 3: How do executives view the White Sox's interest in Cholowski?
I still disagree with that idea. I'm glad to see Ben Johnson is here. Could the process have gone smoother? Yep. You always want to have more knowledge rather than less.
So aren't you thankful that at least the White Sox appear to be doing that due diligence that we were talking about with the Bears in the number one pick?
I don't even know if it's that. I think they just don't want to commit to something right now. I think it can't just be that simple. When Bob Nightingale is talking, you usually know that one of his sources is Jerry Reinsdorf because he hits on everything that is close to Reinsdorf when it comes to sourcing, discussion, prediction, reporting.
So this may be as simple as Jerry's not 100% committed to reporting. Brock Chilowski, and it could be anybody in that position who is the consensus number one. Maybe I'm being a little too open-ended on it, but that's just how I feel having covered teams for as many years.
The only reason I push back against that, and not like a wholehearted, like, there's no way you could possibly be right, is because... The scouting department and baseball ops, they have a job to do here to make sure that it's good. So they really shouldn't be in a position where they're saying, we definitely know who they're taking.
I think that's my whole point is it's okay if someone is the overwhelming favorite to be drafted number one overall, but you're not ready to punch the ticket yet.
Here's what makes this interesting is that when it's a pitcher, then you see what goes into their resume. Then you see, well, how polished is the breaking ball? How many miles do you have on your arm? If you're in college, how many times did your team go to the World Series, the College World Series? How many times were you pitching for your team? How many pitches were you throwing?
Did that affect you into the future? Mark Appel comes to mind. But in this case, when it's a shortstop, I feel like it's a little more cut and dried.
In the meantime, we are also needing to talk about a player, and I know we don't have much time left, who I think really, this was, I don't know that it was buried yesterday, but when the number 31 overall prospect, who's been tearing it up in AA, gets a reported promotion to AAA in Braden Montgomery,
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Chapter 4: What factors influence the White Sox's decision on the number one pick?
I'm sorry. I just kind of threw that out there.
I guess breaking news. You probably do the breaking news, right?
Breaking news on the score is sponsored by IDOT. Speeding in a work zone is a no-win. Just don't do it. Mind the signs, avoid the fines.
That was IDOT if you couldn't hear the muffled.
The Illinois Department of Transportation. Also, a special thank you to our friends at Lou Malnati's who dropped off pizza this morning. It was like Victory Monday. We got pizza.
I ate a piece.
I did too.
It wasn't in my diet, but I ate it.
Lou Malnati's has launched the Italian combo Beefza, bringing Chicago's most iconic sandwich to its most iconic pizza. The limited time creation features Italian beef, sausage, and giardiniera, a Lou Malnati's legendary butter crust, and is available through May 31st in honor of Italian Beef Month. Why am I just now finding out it's Italian Beef Month? It's also AAPI Heritage Month.
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