Both Cummings and Graham Harboe, assistant director of baseball operations, said the White Sox’s Chatham-centric draft haul wasn’t necessarily an intentional act by Getz. But his ties to the Anglers are strong, and his first-ever draft class grew them — intentionally or not.

“Maybe it was the tiebreaker,” Harboe, a former scouting and photography intern with the A’s from 2012-13, joked of Getz selecting Chatham alumni. “We do have to play up our Chatham connection every once in a while. People don’t forget their summers out there.”

Scouting talent on the Cape isn’t a secret. The White Sox are no different than MLB’s 29 other organizations. Cummings hails the CCBL as the “pinnacle” of summer baseball. He says the White Sox look at it as an extension of the NCAA season, especially for players from cold-weather schools or smaller programs.

Harboe touched on the ever-changing landscape of the CCBL, saying it’s been watered down a tad due to the transfer portal and the draft being in July rather than June. But the prestige is still there, he says, adding that CCBL experience is constantly referenced in draft rooms.

Cummings’ job entails evaluating players across his region and determining how much money the franchise will need to give up for them. He said the White Sox exert heavy energy into scouting on the Cape. Playing with wood bats against the nation’s best competition can be a major indicator in one’s stock rising, Cummings said.

He brought up Chicago Cubs’ minor league third baseman Matt Shaw, who Cummings said didn’t initially project highly in the 2023 MLB Draft. But he drastically rose on draft boards after winning the CCBL MVP in 2022 with Bourne, and wound up being selected 13th overall by the Cubs last year.

Even take Cotuit alumnus Brooks Baldwin, a 12th round selection by the White Sox in the 2022 MLB Draft. The White Sox received a recommendation from Kettleers manager Mike Roberts, Cummings said, but Baldwin could have done the talking himself. Baldwin’s .361 average led the Cape by the point he was drafted. So, Chicago promptly picked him.

Harboe emphasized Baldwin’s batting-champion status as a primary reason for the selection.

Twenty-five months later, Baldwin made his MLB debut for the White Sox.

“If you perform on the Cape, you’re going to be drafted well and looked at as a premium prospect,” Cummings said.

Fox is a prime example of someone who rapidly shot up draft boards. He transferred from Gardner-Webb to Pittsburgh ahead of the 2024 season, where he dominated. Fox, a 5-foot-9 righty, pulverized ACC hitters with a 1.47 ERA and 45 strikeouts in 36.2 innings. He earned All-American and all-conference honors. And he tallied a 0.00 ERA in Chatham this summer.

Cummings called Fox the most underrated pitcher in the draft. The rest of the organization thought similarly. The White Sox picked Fox in the seventh round. If he was 6-foot-3, Cummings said he’d be a first-rounder. He added that he thought Fox possessed the best fastball shape among the entire field of pitching prospects.

“Hopefully, we can develop his secondary pitches,” Cummings said of Fox.

His praise went even further for George. The towering 6-foot-6, 240-pound righty out of Alabama elicited a Mason Miller comparison from Cummings. Miller, an American League All-Star reliever for the Oakland Athletics, throws his fastball in the 102 to 103 mile-per-hour range. Cummings said George can do the same, topping out at 102 MPH.


George is an Austin, Texas, native, and Cummings used to scout prospects there. He said George didn’t quite have the innings out of high school at Lake Travis. Yet his time in college with Texas and Alabama along with his summer in Chatham, where he struck out 11 batters in 7.2 frames, showed off his brilliance.

The White Sox may have selected George in the 13th round of the draft. Make no mistake about his trajectory, however.

“If we get this guy in the zone more consistently, he might have the best stuff in the draft,” Cummings said about George.

Paddack was the White Sox’s final pitcher drafted among A’s alumni. The lefty from Gonzaga went off the board in the 18th round. He was even notified of his selection when receiving a phone call in a Chatham uniform before a contest at Falmouth on July 16.

One of Chicago’s West Coast crosscheckers, Scott Thomas, recommended Paddack, according to Cummings. He said Thomas was convicted on the lanky starter, enamored by Paddack’s ability to spin breaking balls. Picking Paddack that late was a bargain, he added.

The White Sox also picked Antonacci in the fifth round and Miller-Green in the 17th. As a Springfield, Illinois, native, Antonacci was a player Chicago desired for a while. The infielder shined at Coastal Carolina and the Cape, making him a no-brainer. As for Miller-Green, his three-year CCBL experience paired with his ability to throw 95 MPH and display innate power at Austin Peay made him another easy late-round selection.


These five players all developed on the Cape in some form — just how Harboe was prior to his front office career. He said working as a scouting intern in Chatham was his first taste of the professional realm. It helped him figure out the fine line between picking guys who seem like a good baseball player versus those who have the tools to succeed against MLB talent.

“Trying to project what guys will look like at the major league level as well as trying to understand the value of certain draft picks — I never really thought about it in a way beyond the surface level,” Harboe said.

Harboe knows the Cape League’s immense weight on scouting. So does Getz. They both lived it as they moved up the ranks, and they’re both living it today as colleagues atop a MLB franchise. Now, they’ll just have to wait and see if — and when — more Chatham Anglers alumni arrive to work at Guaranteed Rate Field on the south side of Chicago.