Not much discussion here, thought I would make some comments.
The draft will be held over 3 days, wow, I liked the old one and done, or over 2 days, but I admit this is good for baseball, trying to grab attention like football or basketball does. And certainly does bring much more thought to the process as teams can reorganize their draft boards after each day.
I was listening to something on ESPN about how baseball differs from those other two sports. One being those drafted in those sports are in the game immediately (have attended 3-5 years of college for their apprenticeship), while newly drafted players (especially HS) need time to develop the skills needed for the ML game. They also talked about baseball being much more of a game based on skill than based upon athleticism and gave 5 things looked for by scouts (other than tools they usually grade players on), athleticism, competitveness,aptitude, off the field, health.
Interesting to the discussion was how scouts and teams know so much less about baseball drafted players than football and basketball players and the reasons. Hope you can catch this on ESPN.
For college guys, going pro is much easier decision than for those younger player outside of HS. I am not going to get into the pros and cons, discussed many times, but FWIW, if I had to do it over, son would still head off to college first. That's my opinion based on my experience, someone with a player immediately out of HS definetly has their opinion. I respect that. Guide your player into a decision based upon how well you feel he can handle pressures of a real job, not just that he loves to play the game everyday. So much more to it than that.
Many things to consider, but one thing that I think is VERY important. Your son may have the tools he needs physically to play ball, but at 17,18 does he have the MENTAL tools needed to cope with a very different lifestyle than he is very much used to at home. There are rewards, but no glamour in milb. Understand completely that on average, unless you are the Porcello type and most players are not, it can take 4-5 years IF you reach the field of dreams. Statistics prove you mostly will not.
Guide your player to make the right decision based upon where you think he will best do his growing up. JMO.
Best of luck to all.
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