Brewers Select Complete College Catcher with the #25 Overall Pick in First 2026 Mock Draft

[Jamie Cameron]

Welcome to the 2026 MLB Consensus Draft Board. This is the fifth version of the board, which began in 2022 as a top-30. Since then, it’s expanded to around 150 players on an annual basis, featuring at eight different team sites. So what is the Consensus Board? How is it made? How should it be used?

The concept is loosely based on Arif Hasan’s NFL Consensus Board. It’s meant to be a tool for folks getting interested in the MLB Draft. As I was learning about the draft, I struggled to navigate wildly varied rankings and evaluations of players. The Consensus Board takes every major publicly available board and combines them into a consensus ranking, eliminating some of the noise and variance of an extremely challenging evaluation process. We’ve found this process to be useful in ranking players in appropriate ranges through around the first five rounds of the draft.

On the board, you’ll find player names, handedness, listed height and weight, age, and a write-up, walking through their strengths and opportunities as a prospect. As we go through the cycle, these will be updated with tweaks, final college stats, etc. Every time a major outlet (Baseball America, ESPN, The Athletic, etc.) releases an updated list, the consensus ranking shifts. As such, the board is a lagging reflection of what the industry thinks of the class and its key players. The final Consensus Board will incorporate at least 10 other boards as inputs.

New MLB Mock Draft Board Features

There are a few important features to point out to help you navigate the board. There’s a search bar to help you find players of interest. If you click ‘expand,’ the board will focus on the write-up you are engaged with, in addition to one immediately above it and one immediately below it. Additionally, you’ll find the logo of your team next to their draft slots to help understand where they are picking. There will be a player slotted there, based on their consensus ranking. Rather than using that ranking as an indicator of who they might actually pick, it’s more useful to use it as a proxy for what caliber of talent is available at that slot. We’ll dig in deeper to team-specific mock drafts later in the cycle. The last important note is that this year the board features ‘push’ updates. It updates automatically every hour. The board is typically updated with new write-ups five days per week, so check back regularly for updates.

At #25, The Milwaukee Brewers Select: Ryder Helfrick, C, Arkansas

Entering the season, Helfrick was neck and neck with Vahn Lackey as the possible best college catcher in the class. That Lackey has established himself as a clear number one says more about his incredible season than any dip in performance from Helfrick.

A notable prep prospect, Helfrick got to campus at Arkansas and has featured consistently in the Razorbacks' lineup ever since. Helfrick has a solid approach. He doesn't expand the zone too much, and while there's some swing and miss in his profile, it's not a real flaw in his offensive game. His skill set is built around dealing damage on contact. He hits the ball hard in the air and has a knack for finding the barrel.

Defensively, there's a lot to like, too. Helfrick isn't the same caliber of defender as Lackey, but neither is he 'a hitter who does some catching'. He calls games effectively, receives and blocks well, and has an easy plus arm. Helfrick looks likely to set a career high in walks and home runs in 2026, in addition to a career low strikeout rate. That's a combination that will put him in the top 30 consideration when we get to July.

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