To the extent that any player has an idea of what to expect in the draft, Mississippi high schooler Cole Prosek wasn't expecting to join the White Sox.
The 19-year-old infielder had a meeting with Sox brass at the MLB Combine in Arizona that he thought went well, but before he became the 41st overall pick, Prosek felt the Padres, Rockies and Brewers were showing the most interest.
Then the White Sox pulled a move that rendered it all moot.
"After the ninth pick, they called my agent and offered me the amount of money," said Prosek, who signed for $3.25 million. "Then my agent upped my number for every other pick, from 40 up to 20. He upped my number, nobody wanted to pay over it. So, fell down to the White Sox, and here I am, which I'm very glad to be here in this organization. So, I'd say it was a little surprise."
Such are the lengths that the White Sox were willing to go, as their financial might in the draft was amplified by trading Jacob Gonzalez and Brandon Eisert to the Pirates, to secure what Chris Getz called "the best high school left-handed bats remaining in the draft," in Prosek and Landon Thome.
"The White Sox had a good draft, for sure," Prosek said.
Sox Machine has yet to interview a teenager who has sounded bummed about hanging out in Arizona with other baseball players, lifting weights, completing infield drills and taking batting practice, shortly after securing life-changing money. But Prosek's contentment with the Sox extends to his life at the complex, where bridge league games start on Thursday.
Specifically, he presents as on board with the plan to move him to the infield, which has him bouncing between second and third base. Sox scouting director Mike Shirley said he felt Prosek's advanced left-handed bat and his raw-but-promising catching skills would have different developmental paces, and they didn't want to slow the former to accommodate the latter. Granted, the team just outpaced the rest of baseball in the money they were willing to put behind their theory, but Prosek concurred nevertheless.
"I was decently good behind the plate, I wouldn't say I was amazing, but I just think the versatility stuck out a little bit and got me here," said Prosek, who has played all four infield positions for stretches. "If you catch, it's a lot of wear and tear on the body. And a lot of the times [when] you could be hitting, you will be catching bullpens and stuff like that."
In his short time in the organization, Prosek thinks White Sox coaches have already altered the timing for his pre-pitch movement for the better, so he's landing just a touch later and is less flat-footed upon contact. He feels it's already had a measurable impact on his defensive range, even if the challenge for him now is to stay off first base. Second base is the lower bar to clear for providing offensive impact, but third base would make better use of a throwing arm that's seen him touch low-90s off the mound in high school.
But perhaps the best version of Prosek's bat could sustain such a tumble down the defensive spectrum. He's spent a decent amount of time hitting at a facility run by the father of fellow Mississippian Cooper Pratt, who recently landed his own pretty sweet contract from the Brewers. But Prosek doles out most of the credit behind his swing to his mother, Brett.
"She played college softball, so she knew how to hit," Prosek said.
The beauty of Prosek's stroke is its simplicity. His filled out 6-foot-1-inch frame might not offer boatloads of physical projection, but the flip side of it is he loads his swing with minimal effort for a 19-year-old. He concedes that setting up his hands lower and away from his body is the most recent development of a swing that's remained fairly stable over the years, and only become more calcified by lower half strength gains borne from his low reps, high weights approach to lifting.
"I don't have much movement in my hands [during my setup], I just got to get a little load in my hands, get the knob toward the catcher, and then attack the baseball," Prosek said. "I don't really have to change it to get loft on the ball. I create good backspin as it is. I just try to stay hitting hard line drives, and line drives turn into home runs. So, not changing my swing path a lot."
The short and controlled nature of Prosek's swing allowed him to hit .356/.447/.494 across over 100 plate appearances in showcase events over the past two years, which is also where he previously met and played against Thome. It's where he also gained a reputation as a bit of a free-swinger with emerging chase issues, which hitting director Ryan Fuller described as a byproduct of having a mobile barrel that can produce hard contact all over the strike zone, and having yet to face pitching good enough to rein him in.
"He gets reports every day about his swing decision-making," Fuller said while appearing on the Sox Machine podcast. "His ability to touch the baseball leads to expansion outside of the zone. Main focus is improving swing decision-making; learn to take a pitch on the edge and force pitchers over the middle more."
Even though bridge league won't actually go down as Prosek's official professional debut, in some sense that work begins on Thursday. And it sounds like the Sox didn't just get one of the most polished prep bats in the 2026 draft, but they have Prosek's ear as well.
"Everybody's talking to each other, everybody's seeing how everybody's day's going, helping each other out, patting each other's back in the weight room, making them work harder. It's been something special for sure," Prosek said of his time in Arizona. "Anybody in the organization will talk to you. Trainers, coaches, nutritionists, anything, etc. Everybody's very, very up for communication. Communication is a big thing for me, too. I like to talk to people and get the feel of what they think versus what I think. So, an organization like this -- great coaches, hitting coaches, infield coaches, everything -- joining an organization like this is awesome."
