Good article, seems the facts match up what has been posted here largely
I like Sugiura's articles overall since they usually have a lot of meat.
This article was written Monday night and Ken speculated that Bart and English would be gone if they were drafted in the 100's. Since then we have gone through the 10th round and 315 picks and they weren't drafted.
But I think that getting drafted high has everything to do with the players having communicated to the scouts that they want to go to to the minors more than college; yes the players have to have the talent but the teams won't "waste" a draft pick on a kid who won't come.
I have a friend who's son was drafted yesterday in the ninth round as a college senior. He had about 10 different teams calling and talking to him about what he wanted. There is a tremendous amount of communication in baseball and I think a large part of the reason that essentially all of the HS players drafted in the top 10 rounds go to the minors is that the deal is set to start with.
The stark reality though is that if you are drafted below the 10th round, the odds of ever playing in the MLB are very low. From post #1 & #2, it's pretty clear to me at least that if a player goes from HS to the minors, his odds of playing anytime soon are very low - only 3 (2%) of the 2012 HS draftees who went directly have
even tasted the MLB and only 6 (4%) from 2011 draft. As my friend said,
the minor leagues are a puppy mill. Unless you get that great signing bonus
or aren't going to college anyway, going to the minors from HS is actuarially a bad financial move.
The kids who have committed with us are obviously college material and didn't get selected high. So I'm optimistic going into the last day of the draft ....... but ....... I think the competitiveness of our team next year depends on getting English and not losing King or Ryan.
