A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to speak with Ed Wade, the former General Manager of the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros regarding the Amateur Baseball Draft.
We discussed a variety of different topics regarding the draft, how organizations prepare, what scouting directors go through each year and what individual scouts look for based on the area of the country they are assigned.
We talked about draft strategy, which level players teams prefer to take (high school or college) and much more. I put together a lengthy essay regarding our conversation about the Rule 4 Draft and you can read it by clicking on the link below.
Baseball’s 2006 first-year amateur draft didn’t present many surprises to baseball critics or hardcore fans but that’s not to say that every draft comes without surprises. As described in the New York Times bestseller, Moneyball, collegiate players have a more promising career than players coming out of high school.
“College players are a better investment than high school players by a huge, huge, laughably huge margin. The conventional wisdom of baseball insiders-that high school players were more likely to become superstars-was also demonstrably false.”
The book was written by Michael Lewis discussing Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane. No matter how long someone has served as general manager of a club, it is their responsibility to make the final decision on who to draft and where. The GM uses a staff loaded with scouts who scour the nation looking for the perfect collegiate or high school player who could be with the big club in record time. Since the inception of the draft in 1965, there is one glaring trend that has changed as the years have rolled on by; collegiate players have slowly become the more popular player to be drafted into the professional level.
Over the last 45 years the first-year amateur draft has netted teams plenty of players to build a franchise around like Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins in Philadelphia and Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada in New York (Mariano River and Andy Pettite were signed as amateur free agents). The draft has also produced players who have been drafted several times before deciding which team to sign with. For example, J.D. Drew was drafted three separate times by the Giants, Phillies, and finally the Cardinals.
There have only been two members of baseball’s Hall of Fame taken in the first round of the amateur draft. In 1973, Robin Yount and Dave Winfield were chosen third and fourth overall by the Milwaukee Brewers and the San Diego Padres. Yes, in one of the most productive drafts in professional sports, there have only been two Hall of Famers taken in the first round of baseball’s amateur draft.
So how has the amateur baseball draft changed over the years in terms of who gets drafted and why? Well it starts out with the development of players at both the collegiate and high school levels throughout the country. The numbers have been in favor of collegiate players so much that in the 2005 draft, 35.2% of all the draftees were from high school. This is the highest percentage of players coming from high school in the past ten years according to an article published on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s website.
Since the inception of the draft in 1965, general managers have become increasingly more reluctant to draft players out of high school because of various reasons as explained by former Philadelphia Phillies General Manager Ed Wade.
“There is always a debate over the sensibility of taking a high school player in the draft, particularly in the upper rounds. Some organizations favor the college player because he is probably more polished than the high school prospect.”
On the other hand though, Wade says that there are some reasons a high school player could be drafted in the early rounds.
“At the same time, the high school player may present a higher ceiling, meaning that once his skills mature, they will surpass those of the polished college player.”
Many players coming out of high school are too immature in two ways; talent and attitude. The players that most GM’s are weary of coming out of high school are pitchers because their arms may be too weak to handle the grit of a full minor league season. When high school pitchers are taken in the draft, many of them begin their careers in Class A ball, or sometimes even the rookie league so that they can strengthen their arm throughout extended spring training and then their team’s shortened season.
The article on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s website stated some comparisons between players at the collegiate level and in minor league baseball. Author Paul D. Staudohar, remarks that players who perform in college at the College World Series (CWS) are playing at a level that is similar to AA baseball while collegiate players who simply play ball in college for two to three years play at a level similar to class A baseball. Staudohar stats that it is much easier to determine how high a player’s ceiling of talent will be if they are drafted following a stint at the collegiate level.
There are other factors contributing to the reasons why collegiate players get drafted at a higher rate than high school players. In the past few years, colleges have become easier for students to attend in terms of financial aid and scholarships. Another reason is that more and more players coming out of high school are grabbing at the opportunity to play at the collegiate level and less are accepting offers from Major League franchises to sign with after being drafted.
Athletic scholarships have become more and more lucrative and beneficial to players because they can attend schools that may have programs that can compete for a national championship like Rice and Vanderbilt. Not only does playing for a college or university help a player develop academically but it also provides the player with valuable experience on and off the field playing with teammates from all walks of life. Wade gives examples of what types of questions a scouting staff has to answer about a potential draft pick.
“Teams have to look at the economic side. Is the player signable? Who is his agent? Is school a viable lever for the player? Is he a multi-sport athlete who may walk away from baseball for football or basketball? Then, you get into the intangibles. Is he healthy? Is he durable? What is the player’s intellect? Will he be able to handle being away from home, toiling in the lower minor leagues? What’s his makeup? Are there off-field issues to be considered?”
Players that attend college today for baseball strengthen their arms, bat speed, and fielding while still learning the intricacies of the game. Like any other venture into the professional world, someone is always affected by the decisions of management. The obvious people affected from this trend are the high school baseball players; ones that don’t have a national ranking from Baseball America or haven’t been scouted. They have to play their way onto a college team or earn an athletic scholarship to a high-profile program.
The Amateur Baseball Draft is the youngest of all the major sports drafts yet it has been the most productive and will remain to be one of the hardest ones to predict in terms of who will go where and what level of education they will be coming from.
“Trends are also cyclical. Philosophies change with changes in GMs and scouting directors. It’s like trying to reinvent the wheel. No matter how many people have convinced themselves that it’s doable, you always come back to ‘round,’” Wade explains.
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Jim is the creator and editor of At the Dish, Cinn City Sports, Life with Tony and Enzo and owner of JAVFreelancing. He coached baseball for five years, three at his former high school (Holy Cross in Delran, NJ) and two at prominent Division III program Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. He has worked for the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ; Metro Networks in Bala Cynwyd, PA; and was the play-by-play announcer for the Camden Riversharks of the Independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball for two seasons (2007-2008) on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM, the student-run radio station at Rowan University. Jim earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and minor in Journalism from Rowan University in 2008. While in school he was the Assistant Sports Director at WGLS for two years and the Sports Director for one year. He also covered the football, baseball, softball and both basketball teams for the school newspaper 'The Whit.' Jim lives in New Jersey with his wife Nicole, sons Tony and Enzo and dog Phoebe. He can be reached at jimvassallo@mlbdrafts.com.
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