The Chicago White Sox took shortstop Roch Cholowsky with the first pick of the amateur draft this past weekend, and Tampa Bay selected shortstop Grady Emerson one spot later.
Yes, both those teams are currently in first place.
Pro drafts — even those with lotteries — generally start with some of the weakest teams from the previous season. But because baseball doesn't conduct its draft until the middle of the ensuing season, sometimes the teams picking at the top have already made impressive strides. The White Sox lost 102 games last year and Tampa Bay dropped 85. Now they're in contention — and adding possible help for the future via the draft.
Here are a few teams that actually reached 90 wins the same year they had the top pick:
2008 RAYS (97-65)
This was Tampa Bay's fourth No. 1 pick in a 10-year span, and the Rays haven't had one since. Starting in that 2008 season, which ended with a World Series appearance, Tampa Bay became a lot more successful. The Rays didn't take full advantage of that final No. 1 pick, selecting infielder Tim Beckham when Eric Hosmer and Buster Posey went later in the top five.
2024 GUARDIANS (92-69)
Cleveland won the draft lottery, then proceeded to win the AL Central. The Guardians drafted Travis Bazzana, who made his big league debut earlier this season.
1984 METS (90-72)
The Mets began their mid-1980s rise in '84, finishing 6 1/2 games out of first place in the NL East with Dwight Gooden winning Rookie of the Year honors. New York would peak two years later with a World Series title, but this draft pick — outfielder Shawn Abner — never played for them.
1977 WHITE SOX (90-72)
Chicago's rise in 1977 — from 64 wins to 90 — was short lived. But the White Sox drafted a keeper that year in Hall of Famer Harold Baines. He'd go on to play more than two decades in the major leagues and was part of division champions in Chicago in 1983 and toward the end of his career in 2000.
Cholowsky, of UCLA, became the school's first No. 1 overall draft pick since Gerrit Cole in 2011. But there was another UCLA star, drafted in the first round, who has been worth even more wins above replacement than Cole. Who was it?
The Mets led 9-4 and, according to Baseball Savant, had a 94.2% win probability after Juan Soto's three-run homer in the bottom of the fourth against Kansas City on Tuesday night. The lead didn't even last until New York's next at-bat.
The Royals scored five runs in the fifth, then added seven more in the seventh on their way to a 16-12 victory.
Then on Sunday, the Mets blew a two-run lead in the ninth and lost to Boston 3-2 in 10 innings. Meanwhile, the rival Yankees swept three straight in Washington, coming from behind in the eighth inning or later in each game.
Toronto's Dylan Cease had a no-hit bid broken up in the ninth inning of a 10-0 win over San Francisco on Wednesday. He finished with 11 strikeouts and one hit allowed in eight-plus innings.
Honorable mention: Kansas City's Tyler Tolbert went 5 for 6 with a homer in that big comeback victory over the Mets. He tied a major league record with hits in 12 straight plate appearances.
Chase Utley, drafted with the 15th overall pick in 2000, was worth 64.6 WAR according to Baseball Reference.
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Chicago White Sox's Roch Cholowsky, first round of the 2026 MLB draft (No. 1 overall), throws a ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game between the Athletics and the White Sox in Chicago, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
NEW YORK (AP) — Chad Tracy notices how much baseball has changed in the 13 years since he took his last big league at-bat.
“You watch a Triple-A game, most everybody that’s coming out of the bullpen left-handed or right-handed is throwing 95-plus,” the Boston Red Sox manager said. “Back in the day, it was you'd get a lead and you'd get to the lower part of a bullpen and you’d see some guys coming out throwing 88.”
Heading into the All-Star break, velocity is on track to set a record for the sixth straight season.
Four-seam fastballs averaged 94.7 mph through Saturday, up from 94.5 mph last year, 93.7 mph in 2021 and 91.9 mph when Major League Baseball first started tracking in 2008. The average was 94.4 mph for the first half of 2025, and this year's final figure could increase by a tick.
“Definitely expecting anybody you’ve never heard of to throw a 95-plus,” said the New York Mets' Marcus Semien, a three-time All-Star who made his major league debut in 2013, when four-seamers averaged 92.7 mph. “Before you'd know who the guys were who were throwing 98. Now, you just expect that this new guy is probably throwing 98. So that shows how everybody’s trained.”
Expectations have changed. In David Auburn's “Proof,” which won the 2001 Pulitzer Price for Drama, a mathematical research work is described as “streamlined: no wasted moves, like a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. It’s just ... elegant.”
That figure no longer is notable.
Right-handed pitchers are averaging 95.2 mph in 2026, up from 95.0 mph last year. Right-handed relievers are averaging 95.6 mph.
The Triple-A average of 93.6 mph is up from 92.7 mph when tracking started at that level in 2022.
“People are learning the biomechanics of the body a lot better and it’s easier to figure out why people are throwing hard,” said Athletics pitcher Hogan Harris, whose four-seam average has increased from 92.6 mph as a rookie in 2023 to 95.0 mph this year. “There’s so many young kids throwing hard now and then you see a lot younger people in the big leagues, so my thought is they see a guy that’s throwing 100 when he’s 22 and, boy, he’s not going to throw 100 when it’s 30, so let’s get in there now.”
Six pitchers are at 100 mph in average four-seam velocity led by a pair of relievers, the Athletics' Mason Miller (101.3 mph) and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Edgardo Henriquez (100.6 mph).
Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski, a 24-year-old starter, is averaging 100.5 mph, up from 99.3 mph as a rookie last year. He has thrown a big-league high of 670 pitches at 100 mph or higher. The Brewers skipped his start Sunday because of arm fatigue.
As velocity increases, so does pitch mix among fastball types.
Four-seamers are 30.4% of pitches this season, down from 31.8% last year and 35.8% in 2019.
Sinkers increased from 15.5% last year to 16.6% and cutters from 7.5% to 7.8%. Offspeed pitches rose from 13.6% to 14.3%.
“It is exponentially harder to hit and I hit .200 in my career, so that should show you how well I would do in the game today. The thing that I think gets me when I watch games is it’s not just one fastball anymore," said New York Mets interim manager Andy Green, whose last big league season with extensive playing time was in 2006. “It’s easy for us that played a couple of decades ago to malign the offensive players for not hitting from a batting average perspective what used to be hit, but there’s so much to contend with, so much information, so much awareness of what hitter handles what fastball shape. The game’s gotten harder, there’s no doubt about it."
Big league batters are hitting .244, just below last year’s .245 and above the .243 in 2024.
"At the end of the day, us as hitters have to find a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it," Chicago Cubs star Alex Bregman said.
AP Baseball Writers Jay Cohen and Janie McCauley contributed to this report.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
San Diego Padres' Mason Miller reacts after the team defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in a baseball game Saturday, July 11, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Derrick Tuskan)
Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski throws during the first inning in the first game of a baseball doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
