Recently, as part of their latest proposal, the owners want to eliminate HS kids from the pool of players eligible for the amateur draft.
Given the owners' stance on other topics related to the new CBA, I tried to imagine how this would help the greedy owners to hold onto their money.
Then something strange happened. I found myself agreeing with the owners on this one topic.
I think we should limit the MLB draft to college sophomores and higher.
The statistics are compelling. Before I present those counting stats, a few words about my process.
A. The first 5 rounds represent 'pure' drafting. That is, due to the numbers of potential high impact prospects, few college senior signings designed to save money. So, for college kids I used the first five rounds of drafting because it gets messy after that as teams are drafting low cost college seniors whose draft slot is generally not representative of their talent just to save money for a drafteee (usually a HS kid) who will require and over slot bonus.
B. Looking at HS players drafted, I used the first 11 rounds. HS flyer picks are spread throughout the draft but the better ones are usually in the bonus pool rounds (1-10) and in the 11th round. After that, the HS kids that are picked are usually low level prospects or, especially with ranked HS kids, contingency picks in case a team has excess bonus money (above slot) that they budgeted but had a player turn down (FYI, they lose the SLOT value if the player doesn't sign but they can still spend the excess they have saved up in the first 10 rounds). So the first 11 rounds is probably a good cutoff of kids they actually intend to sign.
C. I used MLB Pipeline's top 250 rankings.
So , here are the stats:
Of the first 11 rounds (343 picks) only 64 pcks (19%) were used for HS kids. Only 3/4 of those HS kids were top 250 ranked prospects. The 49 ranked HS kids drafted in the first 11 rounds represents only 50% of the HS kids ranked in MLB's top 250, with the other 50% of the HS kids not being drafted.
Looking at just the first 5 rounds for college players, of the 123 who were selected in the first 164 picks (41 were HS kids), 108 (88%) were ranked in the MLB's top 250. As expected, after round 5, the number dipped significantly with about 20% of the college players selected in rounds 6-10 being ranked prospects with a large number being drafted, in part, because they would sign for underslot bonuses.
So, 49 ranked HS kids (about 25% of ranked draftees in the first 10 rounds) are HS kids. So 75% of RANKED prospects drafted in the first 10 rounds are college kids.
So, what can we glean from this data? Only about 50% of ranked HS kids are deemed signable or, at least, signable for the bonus they say they want. Put another way, half of the quality HS kids would rather go to college. Looking at top prospects and excluding low bonus draftees, we still have 75% of draftees being college kids.
Also, it should be noted that one study showed that 98% of draftees in the first 10 rounds sign so the above numbers not only represent who is drafted but that ranked players usually sign if drafted in the first 10 rounds.
So what the MLBPA says is, essentially, correct. Looking at relevant drafted players, most of the draftees are college players. In addition, 50% of the good HS prospects feel it is in their best interest to go to college, due to some combination of NIL money and the feeling they can develop and do better in the draft after college experience.
My take on this data is that only a few players would be inconvenienced if we eliminated drafting HS kids entirely. Also, and this is just my opinion, the vast majority of the HS seniors who are signing are doing it so they can grab the brass ring while it is there, not because they feel pro development is superior to developing their skills in college.
What is indisputable is that teams are spending a lot of money signing HS kids to overslot bonuses.
Additionally, it is very likely that the draft pool of quality prospects in each draft would be almost identical to what it is now, as a HS kid not drafted in 2027 would likely be a quality prospect in the 2029 or 2030 draft.
OK, so the above stats show that not drafting kids out of high school would impact a limited number of prospects, let's talk about the pros and cons of eliminating this group from the draft entirely.
Cons
1. Kids might get injured in college and lose their leverage to get signed
2. Kids might not want to go to college
3. Kids might not get the development in college that they would get as professional players
4. Development would be turned over to the colleges and we have no way of ensuring the training would be as good as these players would get from professional coaches.
5. Many colleges might not have infrastructure to support full scholarships for more talented players or NIL money to offset what these kids would make if they turned pro.
Pros
1. Kids would have an extra 2-4 years of playing baseball before they started playing it for a living
2. Kids would be more physically developed before they started the rigors of professional baseball
3. NIL money would help mitigate, to a small extent, the money these kids would lose by not turning pro.
4. Travel ball for younger kids might be less stressful if players were just playing trying to get a college scholarship as compared to getting a fat pro contract. It doesn't mean that travel ball won't have pressure, but just that the pressure will be different and, IMO, less intense.
5. Development time in the minors would likely be 1-2 years shorter if a player went to college.
6. The current loose transfer portal rules would allow players to move around in college until they found the spot that was right to help their development.
7. This would eliminate putting 18 year olds who may never have lived away from home in less structured situations than they would get in college
8. Even kids who don't necessarily want to go to college would likely benefit in getting a free education in case their professional baseball dreams don't work out.
There are clear tradeoffs here but, similar to other topics in the CBA, discussions, it seems to boil down to one thing: when and how much money will the players be able to grab or the owners be able to keep.
In my opinion, professional baseball would not be impacted negatively if drafting HS kids was banned, College baseball would be improved and, except for a very few players each year, kids would likely get to the majors at roughly the same rate.
So, let's eliminate drafting HS kids.
THE OTHER ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
There is still one significant issue that eliminating the drafting of graduated HS seniors will create.
The current amateur player acquisition process creates sort of a continuum of prospects in the minors.
16/17 year old international signees
18/19 year old HS kids
19/20 year old JUCO kids
20-24 year old college kids
If we eliminate drafting of kids who have not completed their sophomore year in college, we would create a gap of 3-4 years between the international FAs and the youngest US drafted player. The young international kids would have to scale 3 levels (DSL, ASL, A ball) before most would be ready to compete against the youngest US draftee.
I don't believe it is prudent to just move the signing age for international FAs to sign to match the US draftees. Even creating an international draft would not help as the young international prospect system is really set up to get these kids into pro ball at a young age as there is no place for them to play and develop for an additional 3-4 years. There are also socioeconomic reasons why it could be devastating for these young international signees to have to wait 2-3 years longer than they have to sign now.
That 3 year gap in age and development would mean that the international signees would be training against themselves for 3 years which is not ideal for their development, their education or their socialization into professional baseball. I don't have an answer right now for how to handle this but, clearly, that solution would have to be incorporated into the next CBA.
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