PGStaff posted:We see a ton of outstanding baseball players every year. We get information from them. One of the questions is do you play other sports. To me, there is no correlation between one sport and multisport players as to who the best prospects are.
Even if someone believed there was an advantage, which there might very well be, I would venture a guess that at least half of all the players in the Big leagues played baseball only in HS. If I am correct, that means the other half were multisport athletes in HS.
I am talking about organized actual HS sports. Almost every kid will get involved in other sports and activities at times, without actually participating on a HS team.
I know this has been a topic lately, but when we are at some of these big events we see College Recruiters salivating over player they see. Believe me, they could care less how many sports that kid plays... they desperately want him!
I mean who do you want playing shortstop, Francisco Lindor or some multisport athlete? You want Yadi catching or some tougher multisport athlete? It goes both ways... You want Mike Trout in the outfield or someone that only played baseball? I wonder if Mike Trout would be any good had he not played football?
So to me this whole topic about multisport athletes vs those that play just one sport is rediculous. It has been proven, over and over, that the best players have done it either way. Unless you are talking about the NBA. That is where you probably will find the most single sport athletes.
Truth is even if somehow we could prove there was a big benefit to playing multiple sports, it will never trump talent in any single sport. Some are among the most talented at more than one sport, are we to believe they wouldn't be that talented if they only played one of those sports?
That said, I do like multisport athletes and I do believe each sport can teach different things. If kids want to play other sports they should. I have gone to football games and basketball games to watch a baseball prospect play. It can be helpful at times to see how they compete and how they act and how athletic they are. So I get why scouts and coaches might say what they say. But in the end, what they say isn't what they do. They always take the best player they can get, with no regard for how many sports they participate in. After all, they are recruiting or drafting baseball players.
Lastly, I do think younger kids should play just about everything they enjoy. I wish they all played baseball, too. But this fallacy that someone is a better baseball player because he played three sports doesn't pass the test. So if you are a great athlete and enjoy other sports, that's great. If you just play one sport and you become one of the best at it, that's great too. Only thing I will say is there definitely is an advantage in being a great athlete and that is true in every sport.
Regarding the 50% of current MLB players that you guess were multi-sport athletes in HS, I have to ask, "Do they play football at the baseball academies in the Dominican Republic ?"