HS Baseball Phenom leaves after Sophomore year... Thoughts

[fatediesel]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

i thought this kid got drafted by the Nationals in last week draft??? i'm not familiar w/how baseball's draft works and when the players can join the team b/c i know on the local radio station they had said the Brewers drafted X # of players and so many were from the high school level.

That was Stephen Strasburg, a pitcher from San Diego State. Players can be drafted once they have graduated high school. If they choose to go to college or are undrafted out of high school and go to college they cannot be drafted again until after their junior year. This only applies to people from the US, Puerto Rico, and Canada. International players can sign whenever. A player can sign and play for a team immediately after the draft, although high round picks usually don't sign until August. If a player doesn't sign by August 15 (August 17 this year because August 15 is a Saturday) then they will reenter the draft next year and the team that drafted them will get the equivalent pick in next year's draft. This means if the Nationals don't get Strasburg signed they'll probably have the top 2 picks, because they'll "earn" the top pick with the worst record and the 2nd pick as a compensatory pick for not signing this year's pick.

Originally Posted by mikejet

I heard about this guy on NPR.

What they should do for all professional sports is require either:
A. An AA or BA degree
B. Be over 21 with a HS diploma and some college

You can fulfill either of those requirements.

That way if someone is good at sports at a young age and just so happens to be a genius too they can play early. If not they have to graduate HS and take some college then they can try out for the pros.

I like baseball's current system, but think you should not be able to be drafted until you graduate high school and are 18 (or will be 18 by a certain date, say August 1). The NBA's age limit is showing what a joke forcing people to go to college is. Players like Derrick Rose and OJ Mayo just get paid under the table and rig their grades to get eligible. If they raised the age limit more players would just go overseas and get paid, or there would just be more cheating scandals. I say go with baseball's rule, where if you go to college you have to stay 3 years. Don't force these players to go to college if they don't want to go or don't have the grades to get into college.