A sentence never expected to be uttered in any lifetime: “The best thing that ever happened to college baseball was Scott Boras.”
These words came from the mouth of TCU baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle, and when he laid it out all, it was a compelling case that the man known to Mr. Randy Galloway as “The Great Satan” actually did college baseball a big solid.
In an effort to squeeze every single half-penny out of baseball’s owners, Boras, after all of his calculations, has determined that college baseball is better than the pros.
Never has hating the NCAA been more fashionable, or in so many cases justified, but as we approach draft time for both baseball and basketball, all of us would be wise to strongly reconsider the case for class over taking the guaranteed money.
As signing bonuses continue to rise for baseball and basketball draft picks, common sentiment is universally accepted: “It would be dumb not to take it. He has to take it.”
Right now, Schloss is hard-selling southeast Texas prep pitcher and TCU signee Tyler Kolek — expected to be the first right-handed pitcher selected in MLB’s amateur draft Thursday. Any person with a brain would look at the potential $5 million bonus Kolek would receive as a top-five pick and say he would be a fool to attend any college.
What Boras has discovered, and Schlossnagle sells hard to a prospective 18-year-old who is weighing accepting a big bonus vs. playing in college, is that those with brains say no.
The first thing Schloss asks of that kid is, “Do you want to be a professional player, or a major league player?”
The answer to that loaded question is the latter.
“Quickest route — this isn’t my opinion, this is fact — go to college,” he said.
Baseball execs agree with the math, and have for more than a decade — your chances increase exponentially if you play in college rather than go straight to A-ball. Studies of today’s big league rosters, which Schloss sells hard, show that between 52 to 58 percent of today’s big leaguers attended college. An additional 27 percent, roughly, are not from the United States. The rest are high schoolers.
And the most sobering statistic: 2 percent of the players drafted end up in the big leagues. So of those 2 percent that make it, the great majority go to college first.
“This is a business decision,” Schloss said. “That is what we try to stress to them.”
Schloss is loaded with material to sell a kid to stay in school, right down to the breakdown of exactly how much money a prospect will take home if he receives a $1 million signing bonus — $469,000.
To manage that money properly requires discipline and education
The problem is there is a number at which they can’t say no. Maybe it’s $5 million for Kolek.
But what of the prospect who simply has no interest in attending class?
“Those are the guys that need to go to school the most,” Schloss said. “Fight through it, go now and work toward your degree while you are young and not the creepy guy in the back of the classroom.”
College baseball’s scholarship limit — 12.9 per team — severely hurts any college baseball coach’s sales pitches; only the excellent receive a full ride as a baseball player. A baseball player either receives some type of financial aid or is helping pay his own way.
But in basketball, where every player is on a full ride, it’s much the same thing. The top routinely play one season of college ball to apply for the NBA Draft, even though the odds of making it in the league are horrible.
Combined with the righteous anger toward the NCAA, and the lure of a seven-figure paycheck, it makes “more financial sense” for the kid to go pro when the data show the best financial decision, long term, is to stay in school.
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