College v. High School

[Greg Pappas]

I wanted to take a moment to try and make a point concerning drafting a HS'er compared to a Collegian.

When all things* are equal, take the Collegian.

*Things meaning talent level, upside, projections, financial concerns, and any other potential factor.

Taking a college player simply makes the most sense in that scenario. Collegians historically, and from a common sense standpoint, make it to the majors quicker than a HS'er drafted the same year. Get talent through the system quickly to help the big league club ASAP.

Again, the key is that there is no discernable difference between them.

I believe most here will agree... you?

[Pruke]

I wanted to take a moment to try and make a point concerning drafting a HS'er compared to a Collegian.

When all things* are equal, take the Collegian.

*Things meaning talent level, upside, projections, financial concerns, and any other potential factor.

Taking a college player simply makes the most sense in that scenario. Collegians historically, and from a common sense standpoint, make it to the majors quicker than a HS'er drafted the same year. Get talent through the system quickly to help the big league club ASAP.

Again, the key is that there is no discernable difference between them.

I believe most here will agree... you?

I would - and I'd add that I think collegians are a bit easier to project. If there's any planning around stocking up IF, OF, C or P prospects, one has a better chance projecting a collegian, IMO.

[wickedwitch]

Another benefit to college players is that they've all played against a much higher level of competition. Many of the hitters have played with a wooden bat at some point, so there's less worry about if their swing will translate. And we can look at their stats to help rate them as opposed to HSers where the stats are next to meaningless.

Put it all together and college players are generally much less of a risk.

[WebLink21]

This is how I have looked at it. I think that in the current state of the club we should take the best college player available with EARLY picks (take HS kids in later rds and try to get them in the system all you want). Get a few years of good college players coming through the system and making it to the big club. Then once we establish a farm system that is deep and is producing player at the ML level, we then start drafting more high schoolers that have more potential. This way we already have players in the system and can allow them to develop the way that they have to. I know I find myself trying to rush players like Rowell through the system because I want to see a return on such a high draft pick. I think that if we had other players coming thought the system and have seen results that we would all be more patient. Just my thoughts.