RJM posted:A kid from our high school passed on a ranked, top academic D1 to sign for 7th round money out of high school. I understand why from knowing the kid. But it was a bad decision.
After he was released three years later I chatted with him. He said it was the worst decision in his short life. He saw himself as the stud on the block in high school who could hit anything and run like the wind. The kid was so athletic he could have gone D1 in his pick of three sports. He didn’t see himself as a 6’1” 170 seventeen year old with a fall birthday who was sent off to compete against men (twenty-one and twenty-two year old former college players).
Being twenty when he was released he hooked up with an Atlantic League Indy hoping to get another shot. His play improved as he filled out and mentally matured. But the second shot with a MLB franchise ball never came.
You can cut and paste that story hundreds, if not thousands of times......a local kid had his sights set on a D1college scholarship, looking at an engineering degree......succeeded and was committed. Yep, you guessed it. Took some bad advice, he got an advisor, who makes a nice pay day upon his draft day. In the end doesn't give a rip about him personally.
The 6'4", 170lb RHP, gets taken in the draft, 6th round, signs, spends the last two seasons in ROK ball. Fires his agent this off season....everyone tells him he should have fired his dietician instead. Times ticking.......until they cast him aside for the next. The business of baseball is tough!