Ranking the best names from the White Sox and Cubs’ 2018 MLB draft picks

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Sox draft pick Konnor Pilkington has an excellent name. | Butch Dill/AP Photo

Much of the discussion of the draft hauls from the Cubs and White Sox will key in on first-round picks Nico Hoerner and Nick Madrigal, so it’s easy to forget that the teams actually selected a combined 82 players over the course of 40 rounds.

That’s a lot of prospects, and once you’re on pick 954, it’s hard to get excited about the prep third baseman who might arrive in 2022 if everything works out.

But there’s one very good reason to keep tuning into the MLB Draft after the first few picks, and it’s not about the game. It’s about the names. Oh, the sweet, sweet names.

One of the best parts of following the draft each year is seeing the amazing names of some of the players selected. It’s 2018, and that means we get like 14 different spellings of Brandon and a top prospect who spells Konnor with a “K.” (Which, thinking about it, is actually rather appropriate for a pitcher.)

So in honor of the delightfully bizarre names that make the world go round, let’s rank the players drafted by the Cubs and White Sox over the past three days solely based on the subjective quality of their names. It doesn’t matter whether you can hit, run or even catch a ball. Just have a good name.

The “generic Costco brand” tier

Ethan Roberts, Cubs 4th round

Luke Reynolds, Cubs 10th round

Cameron Sanders, Cubs 12th round

Chris Allen, Cubs 20th round

Jack Patterson, Cubs 32nd round

Jacob Campbell, Cubs 36th round

Chase Hanson, Cubs 38th round

Andrew Perez, White Sox 8th round

Gabriel Ortiz, White Sox 19th round

Nick Johnson, White Sox 21st round

Ryan Fitzpatrick, White Sox 22nd round

Jason Morgan, White Sox 35th round

The “your name still isn’t fun” tier

Brennen Davis, Cubs 2nd round

Jimmy Herron, Cubs 3rd round

Andy Weber, Cubs 5th round

Riley Thompson, Cubs 11th round

Riley McCauley, Cubs 14th round

Josh Sawyer, Cubs 16th round

Carlos Vega, Cubs 21st round

Blake Whitney, Cubs 24th round

Julian Boyd, Cubs 26th round

Drew Wharton, Cubs 30th round

Miguel Pabon, Cubs 34th round

Henry Vilar, Cubs 37th round

Nick Madrigal, White Sox 1st round

Kevin Maldonado, White Sox 11th round

Isaiah Carranza, White Sox 12th round

Luke Shilling, White Sox 15th round

Ty Greene, White Sox 16th round

Jimmy Galusky, White Sox 20th round

Jack Maynard, White Sox 25th round

Devon Perez, White Sox 26th round

Ian Dawkins, White Sox 27th round

Logan Sowers, White Sox 28th round

Taylor Varnell, White Sox 29th round

Austin Conway, White Sox 31st round

Aaron Soto, White Sox 32nd round

Bryce Bush, White Sox 33rd round

Alec Valenzuela, White Sox 34th round

Adrian Del Castillo, White Sox 36th round

Mason Montgomery, White Sox 39th round

Kyle Salley, White Sox 40th round

The “hey at least it’s hard to spell” tier

Cole Roederer, Cubs 2nd round

Paul Richan, Cubs 2nd round

Jake Reindl, Cubs 17th round

Jonathan Stiever, White Sox 5th round

Jason Bilous, White Sox 13th round

Travis Moniot, White Sox 17th round

The “two first names” tier

Kohl Franklin, Cubs 6th round

Derek Casey, Cubs 9th round

Hunter Taylor, Cubs 23rd round

Mitchell Parker, Cubs 28th round

Levi Jordan, Cubs 29th round

Clayton Daniel, Cubs 31st round

Davis Martin, White Sox 14th round

The “runners up” tier

Ezequiel Pagan, Cubs 13th round

Tyler Durna, Cubs 15th round

Dalton Hurd, Cubs 25th round

Lency Delgado, White Sox 4th round

Codi Heuer, White Sox 6th round

Cabera Weaver, White Sox 7th round

Bennett Sousa, White Sox 10th round

Romy Gonzalez, White Sox 18th round

Lane Ramsey, White Sox 23rd round

Rigo Fernandez, White Sox 24th round

Michah Coffey, White Sox 30th round

Matthew Klug, White Sox 38th round

The top 15

15. Tyler Ras, Cubs 33rd round

Now I’ve seen a lot of four-letter last names, but a THREE-letter last name? That’s … interesting.

14. D.J. Artis, Cubs 7th round
13. Pierson Gibis, Cubs 39th round
12. Edmond Americaan, Cubs 35th round

I don’t know where that third “a” came from but I don’t dislike it.

11. Itamar Steiner, Cubs 40th round
10. Zach Mort, Cubs 8th round

STEVE HOLT! ZACH MORT!

9. Niels Stone, Cubs 27th round
8. Nico Hoerner, Cubs 1st round

Do we want to take bets how long it’ll be until “Horny for Hoerner” becomes a thing? Is that just me?

7. Jamie Galazin, Cubs 22nd round

The Amazin’ Galazin!

6. Jake Slaughter, Cubs 18th round

Slaughterin’ the competition since 2018.

5. Steele Walker, White Sox 2nd round
4. Konnor Pilkington, White Sox 3rd round
3. Layne Looney, Cubs 19th round

Just a wee lad from Liverpo- wait, he’s from Dallas? Huh.

2. Cannon King, White Sox 37th round

Cannon King doesn’t just have an amazing name, he’s also the son of longtime TV personality Larry King. The White Sox also drafted King’s other son, Chance, in a late round last year, so apparently this is something they like to do.

1. Gunnar Troutwine, White Sox 9th round

Gunnar. Troutwine. Trout. Wine. If he ever strikes out Mike Trout looking and the Angels outfielder gets upset, it’d be a “Trout whine about Troutwine” so…  at least we have that to look forward to. Congrats to Mr. Troutwine on topping this list, which is surely the most important thing that’s happened to him this week. Great job by the writers of “Key & Peele” this year, too, can’t wait for next year.


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