Originally Posted by Go Dawgs:
I disagree. I think the Jones family and not UVA are holding all the cards with respect to his signability.
I completely agree with GoDawgs on this. To say otherwise is ill informed.
Originally Posted by monstercup:
...UVA has a habit of holding kids hostage...
Who have they "held hostage"?
When a player has the potential to be a pro draft bonus baby, UVA invests a lot of time into determining if a kid is committed to college before they offer him. They don't want their scholarship budget tied up on someone who's never going to show up on campus.
They have also been known to sweeten the pot to induce someone to forgo the pros. That is, if they can find the money, they'll increase the scholarship percentage.
If this is what you mean by being held hostage, it's a case of being forced to sit in the comfy chair and being prodded with the soft cushions. 
Makes pefect sense to try to hold on to a talented athlete as long as you can. The idea that they have a gun to someone's head is ridiculous though. The attraction to stay and earn a degree from a top notch school may keep some players there through their senior year. If the offer to jump to proball is lucrative enough most guys would negotiate a deal that includes money to pay for whatever is left to finish their degree.
If a kid is academically inclined, it is standard for the MLB team to offer to pay for his education.
True to a point. The MLB scholarship deal is hard to use and in practice, infrequently taken advantage of. Teams are often quick to offer it, knowing that few players will ever actually access the money set aside.
On the other hand, a high school senior player can leverage his playing ability into a better educational opportunity that may not be there some years later. In particular, a kid who got help with admissions from the baseball program at a place like UVA may not be able to reach that academic level 5-7 years down the road if the pro thing doesn't work out -- which, by the way, is by far the greater likelihood.
In the end, the determining factors tend to relate more to the preferences of the particular player and his family. A kid whose only interest in college was for the baseball opportunity is more likely to have his head turned by a pro offer. A kid who valued a UVA diploma all along is a tougher sell.
Well, it is true. Whether a player uses it or not is on them. Teams will regularly offer the money.
can you give a brief explanation of how this works? the kid gets drafted and the team agrees to pay for him to go to college if he gives it a good effort but does not make it to The Show? can he go to a 60k a year private school or do they typically get a certain amount they can use towards their degree? I'm just curious as I have heard kids mention this type of deal but then they ended up not going to school and I wondered if it was because the kid didn't hold up his end of the bargain somewhere along the line.
Not everyone gets any form of bonus money. For those guys rated highly enough to get bonus money and maybe more, the team may offer (or the player may ask for) money to be put aside in the MLB scholarship plan. The amount set aside is fixed at the start, and it's "use it or lose it" by a certain date.
Most cases I've heard of involve moneys predicated on the assumption of a state university, because putting aside the huge sums needed to cover a private university would likely consume the team's willingness to pay and then some.
Historically, most of the moneys set aside in this manner end up going unused and get retured to the teams some years down the road. The reality is that by the time a guy's MiLB career is over, he's often to the point of having a wife and maybe kids and he needs a job to provide for his family, not some years in a classroom in his mid/late 20's. For those who might actually get to MLB, almost none of them ever care about returning to school.
Another point to consider is that the money presents an "apples and oranges" situation, because a true college scholarship is viewed as merely a reduction of what would otherwise be an outlay and not subject to income taxation. Distributions from the MLB plan, on the other hand, are a cash emolument provided in exchange for the player's labors and as such the IRS wants to include those in your taxable income.
Hadn't considered the tax part of that. I can see where that would convolute things alot. The handful of kids I know about I now do not believe actually had that in their deal, they either just said they did or put it in there to keep momma happy.
Thanks for the info