@2022NYC posted:Just curious, are there any parents here who had/know of 17 year olds in the minors? My kid knows a couple via the international route and knows one who will most likely get drafted next year.
The kid two shortstops before my son at the high school was seventeen when drafted in the first ten rounds. His options included HA D1’s. He chose to sign. I chatted with him the year after he was released. He called signing the biggest mistake he made in his short life (age twenty when he said it).
He was raised by his grandmother. He felt he owed her to help put her in a better situation. So he signed out of high school. He didn’t receive what I call life changing money. But, to each his own perspective.
This kid was so athletic he would have been a D1 recruit in baseball, basketball or football. He quit football after running for 1500 yards freshman year. He told the college basketball coaches it’s all about baseball.
A physical problem became a mental problem. He never thought about being a high school player competing against twenty-one and twenty-two year old college men. He was 6’2” 170. He was physically overwhelmed and overmatched. Being physically dominated turned into mental domination.
He hit .170 and made a lot of errors in short season Single A. He lost weight from stress.
The next season he was held back in camp and sent to short season again. He has got a little bigger and stronger. But his body wasn’t ready to pack on bulk. He repeated his .170 and error filled season. He stressed out and lost weight.
He repeated the act in a third season. He was released on the last day of the season at age twenty.
He then went to work teaching baseball waiting for the Indy season to start. After two decent Indy seasons but no MLB organization offers he gave up playing baseball at twenty-two. He then attended the local JuCo for a couple of years and proceeded to a local college.
The moral of the story is understand coming out of high school you will be competing against mostly those who are physically and mentally men.
There’s a kid local to where I live now who might have struggled with college based on what I’ve heard. He took the money. He signed out of high school at about the same size. After struggling in short season in 2019 (50% whiffs) this summer he spent 2021at camp playing with mostly sixteen and seventeen year old Caribbean players.