Yankees Draft: Everything you need to know to follow the 2026 edition
· Yahoo Sports
It’s that special time of year again. A new generation of Yankees will enter the farm system in the coming days and weeks through the Major League Baseball Draft, seeking to make their mark on this historic franchise. The highest picks will understandably get the most attention, but remember that impact can come from anywhere. Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice have Cy Young and MVP cases this year while making their first All-Star Game, and the Yankees nabbed them in the seventh and 12th round of the 2022 and 2021 drafts, respectively.
Jake, Madison, Michael, Peter, Jonathan, and our old friend Dan Kelly—who previewed the draft for us—will join me in delving into all of the Yankees’ new draft picks, from their first four today to Round 5 and beyond tomorrow. Note that the two-day draft schedule from Philadelphia is a little different from last year and very different from the years before that, when this was a three-day event. If you’re curious about who the Yankees might take, Dan wrote a good roundup of names from recent mock drafts, though as he notes, predicting who exactly will still be on the board at No. 35 overall is quite difficult.
Visit freshyourfeel.com for more information.
If you have any interest in following the MLB Draft proceedings beyond PSA’s coverage (which you can find here), check out the viewing guide below. The best guess is that the Yankees won’t pick until around 4pm-ish.
Saturday, July 11: Rounds 1-4
1:00-2:30 p.m. ET – Preview show + Picks 1-10 (NBC/Peacock)
2:30-4:30 p.m. ET – Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB.tv, MLB+)
4:30-7:45 p.m. ET – Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB.tv, MLB+)
Sunday, July 12: Rounds 5-20
11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. ET (MLB.com, MLB.TV, MLB+)
Below is the draft order for Sunday’s coverage. The Yankees are picking 10 spots behind where they would have lined up due to luxury tax penalties (as are the Dodgers, Mets, Phillies, and Blue Jays). So their first pick won’t come until No. 35 overall, though because they didn’t sign any free agents this past offseason, they do have all their expected picks.
Note that under current MLB rules, the only draft picks that can be traded are Competitive Balance Round picks, and while the Yankees are technically picking in the first Competitive Balance Round, it is considered an untradeable first-round pick that simply moved back 10 spots.
The first half of the first round was primarily curated by last December’s MLB Draft Lottery, which the White Sox won. The Rays are in first place right now, but they fared well in the lotto last year and will get the No.2 pick, with the Twins selecting after them. UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey, and Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson are all expected to go within the first three picks, though it remains to be seen who the Pale Hose will pick to kick off the action. As a darkly amusing reminder (like with the White Sox from 2024-25), the 119-loss Rockies were ineligible from picking any higher than 10th this year because they’re a revenue sharing team that also had lotto picks in 2024 and 2025.
That’s enough semantics. Here’s the order!
Round 1
- White Sox
- Rays
- Twins
- Giants
- Pirates
- Royals
- Orioles
- Athletics
- Braves
- Rockies
- Nationals
- Angels
- Cardinals
- Marlins
- Diamondbacks
- Rangers
- Astros
- Reds
- Guardians
- Red Sox
- Padres
- Tigers
- Cubs
- Mariners
- Brewers
Prospect Promotion Incentive Picks
- Braves [for Drake Baldwin winning NL Rookie of the Year]
- Mets [No. 17 pick moved back due to luxury tax]
- Astros [for Hunter Brown finishing in the top three for AL Cy Young]
Competitive Balance Round
- Giants [acquired from Guardians for Patrick Bailey]
- Royals
- Diamondbacks
- Cardinals
- Rays [acquired from Orioles for Shane Baz]
- White Sox [acquired from Pirates for Jacob Gonzalez and Brandon Eisert]
- Yankees [No. 25 pick moved back due to luxury tax]
- Phillies [No. 26 pick moved back due to luxury tax]
- Rockies
Round 2
- Rockies
- Blue Jays [No. 29 pick moved back due to luxury tax]
- Dodgers [No. 30 pick moved back due to luxury tax]
- White Sox
- Nationals
- Twins
- Pirates
- Angels
- Orioles
- Athletics
- Braves
- Rays
- Cardinals
- Pirates [compensation for unsigned 2025 No. 50 pick]
- Marlins
- Diamondbacks
- Rangers
- Giants
- Royals
- Astros
- Reds
- Guardians
- Padres
- Tigers
- Cubs
- Yankees
- Phillies
- Mariners
- Brewers
Competitive Balance/Compensation Round
- Red Sox [acquired from Brewers for Caleb Durbin and two others)
- Cardinals [acquired from Mariners for Brendan Donovan]
- Tigers
- Reds
- Marlins
- Cardinals [acquired from Rays in Brendan Donovan trade]
- Athletics
- Twins
- Cubs [for losing Kyle Tucker in free agency, and no luxury tax]
Round 3
- Rockies
- White Sox
- Nationals
- Twins
- Pirates
- Angels
- Orioles
- Athletics
- Braves
- Rays
- Cardinals
- Marlins
- Diamondbacks
- Rangers
- Giants
- Royals
- Mets
- Astros
- Reds
- Guardians
- Red Sox
- Padres
- Cubs
- Yankees
- Phillies
- Mariners
- Brewers
- Blue Jays
Round 4
- Rockies
- White Sox
- Nationals
- Twins
- Pirates
- Angels
- Orioles
- Athletics
- Braves
- Rays
- Cardinals
- Marlins
- Diamondbacks
- Rangers
- Giants
- Royals
- Mets
- Astros
- Reds
- Guardians
- Padres
- Tigers
- Cubs
- Yankees
- Phillies
- Mariners
- Brewers
- Blue Jays
- Dodgers
Compensation Round
- Astros [for losing Framber Valdez in free agency as luxury tax payor]
- Padres [for losing Dylan Cease in free agency as luxury tax payor]
- Phillies [for losing Ranger Suárez in free agency as luxury tax payor]
The draft will then be on hold until Sunday at 11:30am ET, and it will be a primarily MLB.com-focused event from there. Usually, they make it pretty easy to follow the draft picks though, and there won’t be much pomp and circumstance between selections. If anything, it will be just enough time for their draft experts to opine on the picks, and then it’s onto the next!
The draft order is largely the same in the fifth and sixth round, aside from the Dodgers losing picks due to various free agent signings. Then from the seventh round onward, it’s all straightforward “worst record to best record + playoff results” 1-30. You can check out the full order here.
Per Baseball America, the Yankees have a total draft bonus pool of $7,342,800 to spend (the lowest of all 30 teams), meaning that they can go over or under the given slot number on any pick, but in the end, their grand total must stay below that amount. Here’s how the slots are divvied up:
RoundOverall pickSlot value135$2,826,700263$1,451,700399$792,3004127$603,5005160$437,2006189$341,8007218$270,0008248$223,1009278$203,50010308$193,000$7,342,800The Yankees can vary their bonus levels; any left over might be used to help sign draft prospects with signability questions in the 11th round and beyond for more than the allotted $150,000 value. Teams can spend over their allotted pools, but not without penalties:
A team that exceeds its bonus pool faces a penalty. A club outspending its allotment by 0-5 percent pays a 75 percent tax on the overage. At higher thresholds, a team loses future picks: a first-rounder and a 75 percent tax for surpassing its pool by more than 5 and up to 10 percent; a first- and a second-rounder and a 100 percent tax for more than 10 and up to 15 percent; and two first-rounders and a 100 percent tax for more than 15 percent.
Happy draft-watching!