Why many HS 1 Round picks go bust in the minors

Dibble

Do you have a problem with MLB scouts?
You are always downing them

What is an overprotected parent?

Please !!!!!!

TR,

No one is bashing MLB scouts but anyone can hit 75 mph fastball with a metal bat. If you are gonna project some as high draft pick, watch how they do against good pitching (college or pro prospects).

to say anyone is a cant miss prospect is just dumb and puts tremendous pressure on a 17-18 yr old player.

Overprotected parents. Is someone who is so smothering they do not give their kid life skills to deal with living on their own. Good example. parents never let their kid go on a date ever, go to the prom, go any where unless under their supervision. View their kid as their pay check and future.

Dibs,

I agree, there are ZERO "can't miss" prospects.

I also agree with some of the reasons you've given as to why some first round picks fail.

However, I can't agree with all that you've stated.

I'm sure you know that it takes much more than one ML scout (unless he's the Scouting Director) to make someone a first round pick.

It takes much more than hitting a 75 mph fastball with a metal bat to be a first round pick.

Most every player now days (high school or college) who goes in the first round has been scouted using a wood bat. If you can't swing wood, you don't go first round.

When a club is thinking about drafting a player in the first round they don't "forget" the times the player looked bad. In fact, they search for any and everything possible that is bad. Then they weigh the good vs the bad and make a decision.

Typically a player a club thinks of as a first round possibility, is followed extremely close right up until the draft. Never to my knowledge, has someone become a first round pick based on one or two performances. Usually the club following a first rounder will see him play/pitch many times the spring before the draft.

The 5 players you mention include three pitchers and two position players. Of the two position players, one had a big drug problem and the other went to prison. The one who went to prison was not even close to a first round draft pick.

Everyone knows that pitchers are the most risky picks, but with high return possibilities. Obviously injuries are the number one risk involved. Of the three you mentioned, one didn't even sign a contact and one suffered a career ending type injury in a bar room brawl. The other is not done yet. However, that one signed for about 10 million, so he better hurry it up.

Scouts do make mistakes, they even know they will end up making some mistakes. You can't score if you don't shoot!

A person looking at it in "hind sight" will be the only one who is totally 100% accurate. Scouts may think someone is a "can't miss" but they're never absolutely sure until it happens. Every scout alive has been wrong once or twice. There's a lot of things that are out of the scouts control. And the best scouts have proven to be right, much much more than wrong.

The others are former scouts.

1) Matt White 1996 Highest Level AAA
battle injuries throughout the career. Told by USA coach he lost composure when he was hit and fastball was straight.

2) Brian Taylor 1991 Highest Level AA
Great arm injured during fight, control and MPH never returned

3) Josh Hamilton 1999 Highest Level AA

Tools with the best of them. Extremely over protective parents. Lack life skills to deal with minors. Drug addiction, depression, 26 tatooes and 3 wrecked cars.

4) Matt Harrington 2000 Northern League.
Got some of the worst draft advice ever. Turned down 4 million and then 5.3 million MLB contract. Goes to the northern league, western and central league gets bombed and released. MPH is not even close to what it was in HS.

5) Joe Toe Nash
Had a front page USA story proclaiming best prospect ever by the mlb scout who signed him, without doing a back ground check on him. Pirates had worked him out first,and passed when they found out he had many drug problems and assault charges. Actually needed permision from parole officer to leave the state to play baseball. Arrested 5 more times after signing and serve time in jail and signed again after released from jail and release after bar room brawl before spring training.

I prefer to think that the reason why some fail is simply: immaturity.

A high school kid signs for millions of dollars, usually paid in installments, and then is sent to a "foreign" part of the US and told to do his best.

Tough for anyone to deal with $20,000 in new-found money let alone millions.

Scouts find as many as they miss. It is an inexact science.

The one big difference in these players is "Toe" Nash was not a first round pick and the D'Rays did not have a ton of money stuck in him. He simply is another player who failed and there are thousands of those.

Benny Latino signed him and knew him better than anyone. He knew there was baggage, but hoped everything would work out. Nash had unreal tools. I believe Benny found him in the Sugar Cane League in Louisiana! I'm surprised that the Pirates or anyone else worked him out as he was considered a secret to everyone except Benny Latino.

I think the main reasons for the so called "can't miss" players failing is. Not necessarily in this order.

1. Injury
2. Satisfaction
3. Mentality
4. Legal Problems
5. Opposite ***
6. Drugs

Note: lack of talent is not on the list.

Parents, I guess, could have a bearing on some of the above. But, it's really a stretch, blaming just parents for failure to reach ones potential. And, yes, I'm very familiar with the Josh Hamilton story. I can't think of another one that is similiar to that.

Nash's bridges
Before we anoint 18-year-old phenom Toe Nash as The Natural, let's see if he can make it to Triple A.


http://archive.salon.com/news/sports/bounds/2001/02/13/toe/

Dibble

Again I ask about "overprotected parents" which you note--- or perhaps it is [I]overprotective parents[I] you mean to cite

I have to agree with PG on the hitting situation --kids hitting 75 MPH are not usually high draft picks if draft picks at all and the top picks are all used to hitting wood--are you saying that kid who is brought in for a workout is hitting with aluminum ??