This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Tim Elko had a busy couple of days at the start of the 2023 MLB Draft, and the first baseman for High-A Winston-Salem in the White Sox organization wasn’t even involved in the player selections.

It really wasn’t busy baseball-wise. But Elko, who played a major part in Ole Miss’ 2022 College World Series championship before joining the White Sox as a 10th-round pick in that year’s Draft, got to welcome two more Rebels title teammates to the South Side.

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With the 15th pick in this year’s Draft, the White Sox selected left-handed-hitting shortstop Jacob Gonzalez from Ole Miss. That pick was followed by three Tweets from Elko (@TimElko), including “I personally LOVE this pick” with a smiling face emoji.

“Yeah, he is a great kid, great teammate and obviously outstanding player!” Elko said via text when I asked about Gonzalez. “He never lets the moment get too big and he is just so level-headed. I could tell when he first got to Ole Miss that he had a beautiful swing and always seemed to find the barrel!”

But the White Sox weren’t done with Ole Miss. With their fourth-round pick, they selected left-handed-hitting catcher Calvin Harris. That move drew an “I again LOVE this pick” Tweet from Elko.

That’s two Drafts and three Ole Miss championship players for the White Sox, with Elko crushing a .299/.358/.557 slash line this year with 18 home runs, 17 doubles, three triples and 65 RBIs over 76 games between the Dash and Single-A Kannapolis. When factoring in second-round pick Grant Taylor from LSU, the White Sox committed three of their first four picks this season to not only SEC teams but the past two national champions.

“There are people around the scouting circles who call it the varsity league,” said White Sox director of amateur scouting Mike Shirley about the SEC. “It can be a challenge.

“What happens is, the players that play in that league -- they go through some adversity. They are forced to manage, from an offensive side, manage stuff they are going to face at the professional level.”

That Ole Miss title team, including Elko, Gonzalez, and Harris, celebrated the first anniversary of its clinching game on June 26. Now, these three players are teammates again.

“It’s a championship team,” said Shirley of taking the three players from Ole Miss. “You think about how you know how to win. You know how to be a teammate. You know how to contribute. 

“Those are pretty big characteristics or traits that can work. They matter. On top of the physical talent players bring, if they know how to win, well, then you go with those guys.”