[THX 1138]

The NFL and MLB drafts are like night and day.

With football, you can make a reasonable approximation of how players will perform at the pro level as opposed to how they did in college. Granted, "sure things" and "can't misses" flop all the time, and guys come out of nowhere to do well.

But drafting high school and even college kids, and trying to project how they will handle big league pitching, or whether pitchers will be able to get big league hitters out, is a total crapshoot.

The thing that makes NFL and MLB projections totally different is the basic difference in the games. There is nothing that compares to the individual confrontation between pitcher and hitter. That is the toughest thing to project.

[copaliscrossing]

The thing that makes NFL and MLB projections totally different is the basic difference in the games. There is nothing that compares to the individual confrontation between pitcher and hitter. That is the toughest thing to project.

You are absolutely correct at least in the pitching department. Hitting seems to be a little more predictable.

Another big difference is the dilution of talent in college baseball because some of the top end high school talent "go pro" instead of college.

My son was drafted out of high school and decided to go to college instead because he was a good student and sees the value of the education. When he was being recruited by a particular college, the coach said the saddest thing is a kid that goes pro out of high school then washes out in the first year. They cannot play the game anymore since their college eligibility has been forfeited. Sometimes the pro teams will guarantee your tuition and books once you "wash out" or finish your pro "career".