and in further baseball news...
an idea whose time should not have come. yes folks, the baseball draft will finally be televised. aren't you excited? i'm not.
there is a reason why people care about the nfl and nba drafts, but not the mlb draft. that is, those fans will see the players drafted the next year (specially the high picks). whereas where one is drafted by an mlb club has little to no meaning, beyond signing bonuses. still not a guarantee of making the club, ever. and still means at least 2-3 years in the minors. even for high picks. that goes quadruple for pitchers.
baseball is arguably the most skill dependant of all the major american pro sports. talent, athleticism...both important. but one needs skill and needs to develop that skill. this is why there is rookie ball, a ball, aa ball and aaa ball. if you don't go through the instructional leagues, chances are slim you'll make it in the big leagues.
for example, if you can shoot a basketball well in high school and college, chances are high you'll still be able to shoot just as well in the nba (specially considering the emphasis they place on defense). whereas, say a pitcher can blow through high school and college with good heat. but if you never develop another pitch and just rely on the ablility to throw a 100 mph fastball, you will get shelled in the majors. and so on.
anyway, i'm certainly not going to watch it. i'm expecting not many others will either. likely i'm wrong, but you never know.
6 comments:
Hockey's got a pretty robust minor league too. (Or at least they did back when I still followed it.)
I'm always a little suspicious of "skills" arguments among sports geeks, partly because it's sort of like asking if the Hulk could beat Superman in a fight, and partly because there's a sort of defensiveness about it. Baseball fans seem to be the worst offenders (the hardest skill is hitting a round ball blah blah blah).
Maybe they just have more pro-level players than other sports? How old are these guys when they retire? Or maybe it's a game that de-emphasizes physical skills over mental ones to some extent.
well, i think the unspoken and oft-forgotten aspect is that one must be extraordinarily skilled and talented to be a pro in any sport.
but, consider the difference in skill needed to throw a football and to throw a baseball.
a quarterback really only needs to know one grip. the rest is accuracy. yes, one also needs to read a defense and react quickly. one also, however, has the benefit of someone trying to catch what you've thrown. accuracy still has to be very good, but if you're off by half and inch or so, not really a big deal (unless one throws into, say, triple coverage).
hitting gets that reputation because if you get a hit in 30% of your at bats, you're considered great. whereas in any other sport if you were sucessful only 30% of the time you attempted one of your most important skills, you'd, well, not last long as a pro.
there are few guys who get stuck in AAA ball because there is someone else at their position. often they get traded. many, however, never even get past AA ball.
And isn't the baseball draft like 10 rounds long?
actually, it's 50 rounds. so, even duller!
what about golf as a skil sport? must be athletic, at least these days with tiger eatin' all the comptetiion, and must be skilled, amateur, nuke tour. . .
golf does take a lot of skill. but, well, it's golf.
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