The Major League Draft

In the spirit of the recently passed 2014 Major League Baseball entry draft, I would like to dedicate this next post to discussing the value of draft picks.  No matter what, there will always be a sense of uncertainty when drafting a player.  There is no possible way to look into the future and determine what type of professional career a young man will have.  Will he only linger within the minor league levels, or might he become a consummate professional at the Major league level.  You can really only make predictions.  There will always be busts, just like there will always be sleepers.

A lot of controversy in the draft stems from deciding between college or high school players.  Maturity and the developmental ceiling of player are always questions when considering a player.  Many people, more than likely including some major league scouts, believe that college players are the safer picks. Thus, I dedicate this blog to the statistical evaluation of MLB players that were drafted out of high school in comparison to those who were drafted from a collegiate program.

To perform these calculations I will consider the first-round picks that have major league experience and were drafted between 2004 and 2006.  I believe that this is a good sample of years because these drafts happened long enough ago, so that all the players have had ample enough time to get through the minor league system. Regarding the position players, I will use batting average and on-base percentage to compare the two classes of position players.  For the comparison of the pitchers, I will use the statistics of earned run average and walks + hits per innings pitched (WHIP).

	High School	College
ERA	4.45	4.26
WHIP	1.45	1.38
BA	0.257	0.260
OBP	0.322	0.325

Looking at the above statistical averages, there is not too much discrepancy between the players drafted from college and the players drafted from high school.  However, in each category, the college players did rank better than the high school players.

I want to delve further into this statistical comparison between these two categories of players.  This time, in terms of the position players, I will compare the average number of games played and average number of at-bats.  Then for the pitchers, I will the use the average number of games played and the average number of innings pitched to draw my comparisons.

	High School	College
Games (H)	470.8	627.1
At-Bats	1605.8	2259.3
Games (P)	74.7	147.5
Inn. Pitched	366.0	590.6

Looking at the statistical averages above, the players that were drafted out of college put up significantly greater numbers in all of the categories.  This leads me to draw the conclusion that the players from college remain on the MLB rosters for longer durations during their careers and receive more playing time than the high school drafted players.

There is one last aspect for comparison of which I would like to address.  This will be the comparison of league-recognized achievements, such as MVP awards, Cy Young awards, all-star team members, etc...  My comparisons will once again be done considering the 1st round picks from the 2004-2006 draft classes.

	High School	College
MVPs	1	2
Cy Young Award Pitchers	1	3
All-Stars	6	12
Silver Sluggers	4	5
Gold Gloves	2	5

*Note that for the above statistics, players were only counted in a category once, even if they won the award more than once.*

As one can see, the College drafted players once again display the better statistics in all of the aspects being considered.

With the evaluation of the three sets of statistical comparisons above, I myself, when going into the draft, would lean towards picking more players from college.  Statistically speaking, the players drafted out of college are more productive and tend to have longer careers at the Major League level. However, I do acknowledge that there have been many players with laudable careers that were drafted out of high school (i.e. Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, and several others).  I am just saying that the safer pick tends to be a college player rather than a high school player.

Many high school level players that are drafted, unless taken in a high round, do not sign and choose to pursue collegiate careers.  This gives them both a chance to augment their draft stock and obtain a college education.  The concept of high school players not signing makes me wonder if high school players should even be drafted.  Should there be restrictions like there are for the NFL and NBA drafts, in which a player must attend college for a certain number of years?  I personally am in favor of players having to go to college, but that is just my opinion.