| Authored by Andrew Perna - 9th June, 2009 - 7:59 pm
 The names that were called in Secaucus, New Jersey on Tuesday night could one day enter household vernacular, but aside from Mr. Strasburg, their rise to fame will be a very gradual process.
The reason for such a long road to the big show isn't a lack of talent, but perhaps a testament to the difficulty of enduring a 162-game season without many days inbetween to even catch your breath. In addition, the level of competition when a player jumps from either high school or college to the majors is a bigger one than in either basketball or football.
A high school pitcher might reach 85 miles per hour on the radar gun, but any scout or executive worth his weight in scribbled notes will tell you that it's those last few ticks of velocity that really make a difference.
The difference is easy to quantify -- a simple jump from 85 to 93 mph doesn't seem too bad -- but it's similar to playing catch with your nephew and then throwing around in the backyard with Joel Zumaya.
OK, so the level of pitching is drastically different in the thirty professional cities, but what about the hitting?
Imagine playing wiffle ball with your buddies on a nice summer day. You are goofing around, tossing a few back and having an all-around good time.
Without you knowing, your most unethical friend puts away the plastic ball and grabs an official Major League Baseball from his jacket. Try hitting that thing with a plastic bat and not either cracking it in half or hurting yourself in the process.
I've heard that comparison made when describing how much more difficult hitting a baseball is on the professional level.
So, players need a good amount of seasoning before they actually take the field for the team that drafts them. We won't even get into the fact that a given player might not even agree to terms with said team.
There's also a psychological angle.
Like I said, the transition isn't easily. Imagine how it would feel to hit .500 or so for your high school team. Then, suddenly you are in the big leagues. The pitches are faster, the lights are brighter and the attention is magnified exponentially.
Now you are hitting .125, and your confidence has taken more hits than Tom Sizemore. Baseball is such a mental game that now the first round pick forgets how to hit. Who knows if he'll be able to regroup before it's all said and done.
Only twenty players have been drafted and gone directly to the major leagues since 1967, with the most recent being Xavier Nady (Padres, 49th overall in 2000).
He played in one game and made a single plate appearance. He singled and scored a run, but didn't play again at the big league level until 2003.
Of the thirty players taken in the first round of the 2005 MLB Draft, only twelve have advanced to the major leagues and caught on thus far.
In comparison, Deron Williams and Chris Paul have already made a name for themselves four years after joining the NBA, as have Frank Gore, Shawne Merriman, DeMarcus Ware and Roddy White in the NFL.
Teams (and fans) must wait to reap the benefits from their teams draft haul on the diamond, but that doesn't make the process any less exciting for those involved.
The brand-new MLB Network, complete with studios not all to far away from those of the NBA, did a terrific job of making the event a prime-time one for the first time this year.
The set, made more for television than anything else, is better than anything I have seen the NBA construct in my three years (and counting) covering basketball's annual June draft.
The media coverage is also an expanding aspect of baseball's draft. Each June there are a few hundred writers, bloggers and analysts covering the NBA Draft. On Tuesday, there weren't more than three dozen people covering the event in Secaucus.
I'd liken the results to MLB's First-Year Player Draft to that $20 bill you find in an old jacket a few years after the last time you've worn it. You might forget that it's there, but boy are you happy when you find it.
This year, teams are hoping that guys like Donavan Tate, Dustin Ackley and Alex White turn out to be found money down the line.
Andrew Perna is Deputy Editor of RealGM.com and co-host of RealGM's Radio Show. Please feel free to contact him with comments or questions via e-mail: Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com |
