Scouting the 2026 Big 12 Tournament
This year, I’ve mostly been focused on minor league coverage — those pesky lists don’t write themselves — but with the draft on the horizon and four conference tournaments happening in one metro, I flew down to Phoenix last week. Eric split his time between the Mountain West, West Coast, and WAC tournaments while I sat on the Big 12’s signature event in Surprise. It was a strange week in some respects. The top two, and maybe even top three, guys on my pref list aren’t eligible until next year’s draft, thanks in part to injuries that knocked a couple of the league’s best prospects out of the tournament entirely. Moreover, the relatively brief nature of a single-elimination tournament means I didn’t come away with a complete impression of a lot of players, including guys who will presumably be drafted relatively early.
With that in mind, I encourage you to consider this a rundown of what I saw rather than a definitive list of the top prospects from the league. These are just my observations from the field, and do not reflect a more holistic evaluation process. Eric and I will do more work on the Draft Board as we get closer to July, a process which may shift how I or we think about some of the players covered below, and we’ll likely add other players from the Big 12 into the mix. With a nod to how short the look was in some cases, where applicable, I’ll share the questions I have about some of these players going forward alongside my notes.
2026 Draft Class
As mentioned above, a few of the league’s top dogs were stuck in the kennel. Sawyer Strosnider, arguably the Big 12’s most projectable hitter, missed TCU’s one-and-done after injuring his ankle in practice the week before. His teammate Chase Brunson, another potential high pick, missed the game with knee trouble. Finally, Kansas was able to lift the trophy without first baseman Brady Ballinger, who was nursing a hamate injury. He’s a power hitter who entered the season with draft helium, though he has seen his stock take a bit of a tumble after only hitting seven homers as a junior. Read the rest of this entry »