Recapping Phillies’ First Day of 2026 MLB Draft
Tyler Spangler #34 bats during the 2026 Draft Combine at Chase Field on Tuesday, June 23, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Jill Weisleder/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The Phillies didn’t have to travel to the 2026 MLB Draft. Major League Baseball set up shop at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, putting the Phils’ front office in front of a home crowd for the first time in franchise history.
The Phils used the opportunity not just to add five prospects, but to once again make it clear this front office isn’t afraid to bet on upside.
Tyler Spangler, SS, De La Salle HS (Concord, Calif.) — Pick 36
The front office has shown a preference for high-caliber athletes over best-at-position value under Don Mattingly‘s tenure, and they stayed true to that identity by taking Tyler Spangler, a 6-foot-3 shortstop out of De La Salle High School in Concord, California. His blend of size and instincts at shortstop draws Cal Ripken Jr. comparisons, and his left-handed bat adds some Corey Seager to the profile as well.
Spangler’s bat-to-ball skills are advanced, with his only real hole being low-breaking balls at his back foot, something the minor leagues can iron out. He works up the middle and to the opposite field, and his swing already generates enough backspin to project doubles power into the alleys at Citizens Bank Park. Pull-side power isn’t his carrying tool yet, but as his 6-foot-3 frame fills out, that should come.
Defense is where he separates himself. His footwork gets him to balls smoothly and on time at every level he’s played, and scouts have described the position as looking like it moves in slow motion for him.
He probably isn’t going to wow anyone with elite range, but his hands and arm are good enough that even if shortstop doesn’t stick, third base is a very realistic fallback. He also slid from a mid-20s ranking down into the 50s over back injury concerns, and the front office didn’t blink. That’s exactly why this pick makes sense. The Phillies don’t need him tomorrow, which gives them the luxury of letting an 18-year-old develop without rushing him at all. De La Salle’s program most recently sent Brewers left-hander Kyle Harrison to the majors, and Spangler carries similar homegrown polish. If this develops the way the Phillies believe it will, they may have landed their shortstop of the future at No. 36.
Caden Bogenpohl, OF, Missouri State — Pick 64
With the Phils’ second-round pick, they went back to a familiar place to draft a left-handed power bat. They took 6-foot-6 Caden Bogenpohl out of Missouri State University, and no obvious parallel jumps out until you remember the last time this program produced a Phillies pick with plus-plus raw power, the school was called Southwest Missouri State. That guy was Ryan Howard. Same school, same raw power, different names.
Bogenpohl broke Howard’s school freshman home run record with 20 in 2024 and set the program’s career walk record as a junior, and his exit velocities touched 119 mph this spring, numbers that rank near the top of the class regardless of position.
That’s where the questions start. Bogenpohl hit just six home runs in 55 junior-year games with a 53 percent groundball rate, a sign his long levers and oversized frame led to too much in-zone swing-and-miss. He struggles against non-fastballs and leaks open early in his swing, leaving him exposed away. The front office had chances to address right-handed bats, a clear organizational need given the current roster’s lefty-heavy lean, and safer right-handed options were still on the board at 64. They passed on safer bats and swung for upside again. Whether you love that strategy probably depends on how much patience you have left watching this farm system develop.
Here’s why the Phillies made the gamble: if Bogenpohl tightens his lower half and starts driving the ball in the air more consistently, he profiles as a middle-of-the-order threat who can hit balls out to any part of the yard. He projects to an outfield corner long-term, but his bat will dictate everything. Howard turned this same program’s raw power into an MVP season for Philly. Nobody’s comparing Bogenpohl to Howard today, but the kind of raw power that gets those comparisons doesn’t show up very often either.
Ruger Riojas, RHP, Texas — Pick 100
Riojas took a long road to the third round. He won 15 games as a reliever over two seasons at the University of Texas at San Antonio before transferring to Texas, where he worked into the rotation by the middle of last season. He was pitching his way toward the top three rounds of the 2025 draft before the flu and bronchitis cost him 20 pounds, wreaking havoc on his stuff. He surrendered 27 runs over his final 14 2/3 innings. He went unselected last July.
This spring, he regained the weight and added 10 more pounds on top of it, and his stuff followed suit. His four-seam fastball jumped two to three miles per hour, sitting 94-96 mph and touching 98 with slight armside run to it. A pitch that’s been close to unhittable when he commands it to both sides of the plate. He matches that with a sharp splitter that dives like a changeup, as well as throwing a cutter that flashes plus. His off-speed breaking pitches consist of a loopy no-dot slider and a 1-7 curveball that falls off a table before getting to the hitter.
He varies his arm angle by pitch, working four-seamers, curveballs, and splitters from a high three-quarters slot before dropping down for cutters and sliders. He pounds the zone with everything, and every pitch besides the slider draws chases outside the zone as well. There are really only two knocks here. He’s already 23, and some scouts think his delivery is easy for hitters to pick up, but he’s polished enough to open his pro career in Double-A. If everything clicks, this may end up being the quickest player from this draft class to reach the majors.
Devin Sheerin, RHP, LSU — Pick 128
Sheerin’s path to pro ball hasn’t been smooth, but it’s a personal pick for Philly. The Reading native won Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year honors and set Mount St. Mary’s records for strikeouts (109), strikeouts per nine innings (14.0) and opponent average (.197) in 2024. He transferred to LSU as one of the top pitchers on the portal market, then tore his left ACL playing basketball that summer and missed all of 2025 following knee surgery. Somehow, after missing an entire season, he came back throwing even harder than before the injury, causing some teams to consider him one of the best reliever prospects in this class.
His fastball now sits 95-97 mph and tops out at 100 with carry and armside run, backed by a tight slider that he commands exceptionally well, even if it hasn’t missed bats at the rate its shape suggests. A sharp curveball and a strong biting splitter similar to that of Jhoan Duran‘s round out his arsenal, though he leans almost exclusively on the fastball-slider combination. His 6’5″ frame, low arm slot, and crossfire delivery add deception, and he has been projected as a reliever right now. But the four-pitch mix and a fastball that touches triple digits give him a real chance to start if the Phillies want to stretch him out and see what he can do.
Jaxon Jelkin, RHP, Kentucky — Pick 135
Jelkin carries more risk than most third-round picks, and the makeup concerns go back to his freshman year, when Nebraska dismissed him from the program in 2022. He rebuilt his image at a junior college in Arizona before landing at Houston, where he blew out his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery that cost him all of last season at Kentucky. He’s turned down pro money twice already, passing on the Dodgers as a 14th-round pick in 2023 and the Mets as a ninth-rounder in 2024. He’ll turn 23 in the fall, old for a college arm, but he backed it up and earned second-team All-SEC honors as a redshirt senior.
The stuff explains why teams stuck with him. His fastball sits 93-96 mph and has touched 98 with heavy sink, and it even touched 100 in showcases. His curveball is his best secondary pitch, a hammer with legitimate depth, and his cutter gets in on hitters late enough to avoid the barrel. He’s shown a feel for a changeup too, one that fades and sinks when he commands it. At 6’5″ and only 195 pounds, he still has room to add some size and strength, and his low arm slot makes the ball difficult to pick up. Strikes haven’t been the problem; pounding the zone has, and cutting down on the mistakes over the plate will decide how far this arsenal takes him.
Steve Hamilton
Steve may have been born in California, but don’t let that fool you. After dating a local woman and clashing with her and her family over sports for decades, he has an affinity for Philly sports. Balancing love for Philly and Bay Area sports teams may seem impossible, we can all agree that the Cowboys are the true evil.
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