UCLAs Roch Cholowsky goes No. 1 in MLB draft to White Sox, making good on pledge

The kid always believed he would get here.When he was little, Roch Cholowsky wrote letters saying he would play in Yankee Stadium someday.Before he bypassed a chance to go high in the MLB draft out of high school, the precocious shortstop spoke with a local TV station, telling the reporter that his goal was to be the top pick but that he needed to refine his game by going to UCLA.“I saved it,” Tika Cholowsky, Roch’s mother, recently told the California Post, “and I was looking through some stuff and I saw that and I just went, ‘Wow.’ ”Wow indeed.Fulfilling his own prophecy, Roch Cholowsky on Saturday became the top pick.The White Sox — among the handful of teams that were talking to Cholowsky coming out of high school — made Cholowsky the first No.1 pick from UCLA since Gerrit Cole in 2011.It wasn’t much of a surprise.

Cholowsky was widely expected to be the top pick even before a junior season in which he reaffirmed his status as the most promising player in the college game.He was selected as the Big Ten’s Player of the Year for a second consecutive season — joining Barry Larkin and Luke Appert as the only conference players to go back-to-back.Big Ten coaches were not casting any sympathy votes.Once again, Cholowsky had earned his standing as the conference’s most dominant player.He hit .320 with 60 runs batted in and a team-leading 21 home runs while getting plunked by pitches a program-record 25 times, reflecting his fearsome status.One pro scout who saw Cholowsky told The Post that “he’s got all the tools” and compared him to Boston Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story, a two-time All-Star.“His best tool for that position is going to be the arm, and then the glove and then the range,” the scout said of Cholowsky, “but he can play shortstop and he’s got power — it’s a great profile overall.”It’s one that also includes a family history of success in the game.Cholowsky’s father, Daniel, was a Hall of Fame infielder at ...