Roch Cholowsky Named Baseball America’s 2025 College Baseball Player Of The Year
Image credit: Roch Chowlosky (Photo by Eddie Kelly/ ProLook Photos)
John Savage still remembers the phone call vividly.
It was June 2020. Shortstop Roch Cholowsky had just finished ninth grade at his suburban Phoenix high school. Savage had been tracking him for months—long before other programs had even started looking.
It’s a moment the UCLA head coach still believes changed the future of the Bruins’ program.
“I committed on the spot,” Cholowsky said. “I would have just turned 15.”
There wasn’t a parade of suitors. No national buzz. But Savage didn’t need consensus. He saw the makeup, the athleticism and the respect for the game.
He remembers the feeling washing over him as he watched Cholowsky play: The Bruins needed the budding middle infielder.
“We just knew he had a chance to be special,” Savage said.
By the time Cholowsky stepped into the UCLA lineup as a freshman in 2024, he had already lived up to the projection. But what came next defied even the earliest expectations. He became the engine of a national power’s revival, the face of a program that collapsed one season and returned to the College World Series the next.
And this June, he became something else entirely.
Cholowsky is the Baseball America College Player of the Year and joins an exclusive group. He is just the sixth POY to be honored prior to his draft year in the 44-year history of the award. His name now sits beside Robin Ventura, John Olerud, Mike Kelly, Mark Teixeira and Anthony Rendon.
“It was a little surprising,” Cholowsky said. “Just seeing what those other Players of the Year have done, who it’s gone out to. So I was a little surprised, but it means a lot to me. I’m super excited about it.”
- SEE ALSO: 2025 College Baseball All-American Teams
His coach wasn’t shocked—but he was struck by the weight of the moment.
“For him to get this award,” Savage said, “it’s a big, big deal.”
Rare as it might be for an underclassman to win Baseball America’s highest individual honor for a collegiate player, Cholowsky was more than deserving.
He hit .353/.480/.710 with 23 home runs and 74 RBIs in 66 games. He paced the Big Ten Conference in slugging and with a 1.190 OPS. His defensive value as a shortstop set him apart from other POY contenders.
Cholowsky’s 80 runs scored fell just one shy of Chase Utley’s UCLA program record. His 179 total bases are second-most by a Bruins player in the 64-team era.
But he doesn’t define himself by numbers.
“I don’t really try to focus on myself during the season,” he said. “I really just—I want to lead a good team and play winning baseball. So as much as I can do that, the personal accolades will come.”
That mindset dates back to his childhood. The son of longtime MLB scout and 1991 supplemental first-round pick Dan Cholowsky, Roch grew up around the game—but not in a bubble.
“I played football in high school, too,” he said. “I played basketball growing up. Honestly, I had the most fun with football and basketball more so than baseball.”
His father never pushed him toward any single path.
“I probably think (my dad) enjoyed watching me play football more than he did baseball,” Cholowsky said. “But they left all decisions up to me . . . They said they’d support me with whatever I wanted to do.”
In the end, he chose baseball and UCLA.
“I wanted to go somewhere where I could develop as a player for three to four years and also play winning baseball,” he said.
In addition to Utley, other Bruins infielders who forged long, productive MLB careers include Troy Glaus and Brandon Crawford.
“(Savage has) proven that infielders that come through UCLA can make it to the big leagues and be successful in the big leagues,” Cholowsky said. “And then also, he’s won a national championship.”
Cholowsky’s freshman year didn’t go according to plan—at least not for the team. UCLA won just 19 games, a historic low under Savage. Cholowsky played every day at third base and grinded through a tough season while staying tethered to the larger goal.
He never considered leaving, even in an era in which loyalty is rarely louder than opportunity. The transfer portal beckons with promises of quicker paths and bigger stages, and players don’t so much transfer as migrate—following the scent of wins, exposure and money.
But Cholowsky stayed. Not out of inertia or comfort, but conviction.
He believed in the place that first believed in him. After a year in which almost everything collapsed, he kept showing up. Quietly. Deliberately. A freshman out of position on a team out of sync, still chasing the vision that attracted him at age 15.
“I just wanted to have a winning season and have a chance to get to Omaha,” he said.
Savage saw the shift the moment Cholowsky moved to shortstop.
“It felt like as soon as this guy got the keys (to shortstop), that he was going to take this thing to where everybody wanted to go,” Savage said.
From Opening Day, Cholowsky did exactly that. He became the Bruins’ captain, defensive anchor and offensive pulse. He was named conference player of the year—the first Bruin to win that award since Eric Valent in 1998—and later received the Brooks Wallace Award as the nation’s top shortstop and won the ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove, too.
Still, what defined him couldn’t be summed up in awards.
“He’s just a winning kid,” Savage said. “His feel for the room, his feel for his teammates, his feel for games . . . We had one of the best shortstops in America over the last 15 years in Brandon Crawford. He was a phenomenal shortstop. He reminds me of him on the defensive side. They love playing defense. They love being the quarterback.”
Cholowsky cites Crawford, along with Derek Jeter and Nolan Arenado, as the players he grew up watching. That sense of history shaped how he plays and leads.
“It’s just refreshing to see a player have so much respect for the game and to have so much respect for the past,” Savage said. “He knows all those guys and he’s watched them.”
MLB scouts have taken note, too.
“He’s elite,” one scout said. “He’s a competitor, and every aspect of his game has distinct polish. Great feel for the barrel, disciplined hitter who can drive the ball all over the yard, and his actions at shortstop are as smooth as anyone’s. He’ll stick at the position and has a real chance to be a very early pick in ’26.”
That, of course, is what makes this year’s honor even more extraordinary. Cholowsky isn’t eligible for the draft until next summer. And yet, he plays like the best player in the country right now.
For Savage, it’s affirmation—and comfort.
“The future this guy has, I’m just so excited for him and his family and for us, knowing that we get this back for one more year,” he said. “You can sleep at night knowing that I have my shortstop and, let me tell you, for him to get this award, it’s a big, big deal.”
