SIGN OR DEGREE
Signing with the big leagues or earning a degree
By Britny Burton
Photo courtesy of Lacy Bursick
The Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft may be months away, but teams have been watching players from all over the United States and Canada for quite some time. Every year the draft features a mix of players straight out of high school and others finishing up or just graduating from college.
The rules for a player to be considered for the first-year draft are more like guidelines, as the Baseball Operations Office can alter them at any time. A player must have just graduated from high school, but not yet attended college. If they have started at a four-year college then they must be at least 21 years old and be of junior or senior standing. Any player enrolled in a junior college can be drafted at any time.
The number of major league players with a degree is slowly dwindling. In 2010, 26 percent of players had a four-year degree, but in 2012 only 4.3 percent did according to Fox Sports.
At the moment on MLB’s top prospect watch, the number of players in high school versus college is tied at twenty five for each. For the top ten prospects more of them are in college, including the top prospect, Mark Appel.
The Stanford right-handed pitcher, is currently number one for the 2013 prospects, but this isn’t his first time on
the prospect list. In 2009 when he graduated from Monte Vista High School, he was the 450th overall pick by the Detroit Tigers. In 2012 he moved up and was the 8th pick overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Graph by Wes Bruemmer
Some players, such as Curtis Granderson in 2003, have chosen to finish their degrees while in still playing baseball. He played for the Class A Lakeland Tigers while finishing up a business degree. A more recent player, Drew Storen, went to Stanford this past fall right after the Nationals season ended to work on courses towards a degree in product design.
With the minimum salary in the major leagues being $400,000, to someone who just graduated from high school this can seem like a large amount. However, most players don’t make it straight into the big leagues and have to start out somewhere in the minors. If they show their skills in the minors then they have a chance of moving into the majors, but that doesn’t always happen. If they don’t make it to the majors then they’re out of not only a baseball career, but also a degree. This leaves the choice for baseball players to decide whether they want to try their luck with the major leagues, and put furthering their education on hold, or go to college and get a degree in hopes that the major leagues will still be interested in them
when they graduate. It's a daunting choice with success stories on both sides of the coin, but it's something for players to think over before signing any agreements.
Graph by Wes Bruemmer
*The charts given above are representative of All-Star pitchers from the past 5 years (2008-2012). Pitchers not included in the study were those who did not attend high school as well as relief pitcher George Sherrill.
*Data on colleges was drawn from thebaseballcube.com and the data for the first chart was taken from baseball-reference.com.
J.D. Martinez, left fielder for the Astros, and his personal experience with deciding between furthering his education or signing a baseball contract.