Interesting piece. Drafting players out of HS seems to be a part of the "baseball tradition". As Michael Lewis talks about in Money Ball, statistically, players drafted out of college get through the minors more quickly than players drafted out of HS and have a higher success rate getting to The Show than players drafted out of HS. Steve Phillips?? While credited with signing some significant current players, he didn't bring the Mets a world series and he appears to be firmly out of baseball. I am struck by the constant armchair GMing of baseball "pundits" who don't seem to look at anything beyond the "baseball tradition" they cut their teeth on, and who seem to be out to show their vehement opposition to some of the theories touted in Money Ball. Not sure why. Either as traditionalists they are offended by Billy Beane and Theo Epstein's success or they are just happier being traditionalists-baseball guys against looking at and analyzing the unending statistics only baseball can provide (put together by the real baseball nerds) to the benefit of the fans and ultimately the game.

Could it behoove players to go pro out of high school and also behoove teams to draft college players? Phillips seemed to be speaking of the advantage that a high schooler has in going pro, not in a team's drafting a high school player.

The reason why a team would draft a college player (at least one from the major conferences) is that he has proven something at a pretty high level of ball (something in between A and AA, I would guess, or maybe just A) and has also revealed whatever advantages he might have had simply by a superior physical maturity (or he may have caught up with the other guys in the converse case), giving a truer picture of what kind of ballplayer he really is/will be.

Also, the reason why it's important to draft college players, as described in Moneyball, if I recall correctly, is to diminish the team's risk of drafting high schoolers who faced dubious competition and who may have already peaked physically relative to their peers, inflating their performance, or who may further change physically, and not necessarily in a good way. The A's drafted college players to minimize their own risks and to find a lesser-tapped pool of talent than other richer/more free-spending teams because they couldn't incur the large signing bonuses that go to top players, especially to high school kids who might flame out.

A high school kid who can get a good signing bonus, however, might as well go pro because he's likely to improve more as a ballplayer in the minors than in college (in theory), and he at least won't be doing it for free.

--"Them is still playing Basked Balls? Why, Daddy?--Buster Kaufman

--"Buster say bask-kedt-ball are stoopidt game! Are it, Daddy?"--Daisy Kaufman (AKA Buster Jr.)