College baseball is the best place for a prospect to develop. That might sound like a hot take, but no other ecosystem maximizes a player’s potential the way the highest levels of college baseball do.
MLB owners have proposed eliminating high school players from the draft, and the public reaction has been loud: everyone hates it. Is it bad to strip amateur players of their choice? Yes. Is it bad to cut off financial opportunity for these athletes? Yes. Those criticisms aren’t up for debate.
But where a player’s skill set gets maximized is up for debate. And the case here is that college baseball’s development ecosystem does it better than anywhere else.
The industry is already voting with its draft boards. In the most recent draft, 79 percent (2% JUCO) of picks came from the college ranks, and only 45 of the top 135 selections were high schoolers. This proposal isn’t asking teams to change their evaluation; teams are already prioritizing actionable data to make decisions, which only comes from college baseball. It is proposing something the industry as a whole has pivoted into.
Impact of MLB Draft Proposals on Player Development
The Best Coaches are in College Baseball, not Minor League Baseball
One thing needs to be said upfront: this conversation is about the highest level of college baseball. There are 308 Division 1 programs, and plenty more below that producing pro talent, but the players getting pulled out of high school in this draft debate are being recruited to the top of that pyramid. There’s a massive resource gap between those top programs and everyone else, and it matters here. High school prospects are playing at the top 1 percent of the sport, not an average program, and that alone puts them in a better developmental environment than the bottom rungs of MiLB.
Plenty of people assume an MLB logo automatically means the best coaching. It doesn’t. Nobody’s arguing college beats an actual big league staff; that’s not the comparison. The real comparison is where a young player actually gets developed: college versus the minor leagues. And in that fight, college wins, for one simple reason: money. Top-end SEC assistants make more than MiLB coordinators do, and the only jump that makes financial sense for them is straight to the big leagues, skipping the level where player development happens.
In recent seasons alone, we have seen former Minnesota Twins Pitching Coach Wes Johnson leave the MLB level for the Pitching Coach job at LSU. Arkansas Pitching Coach Matt Hobbs is regarded as one of the best pitching minds in all of baseball. Texas Pitching Coach Max Weiner spent 4 and a half years as the Seattle Mariners Pitching Coordinator before taking the Texas A&M job for the 2024 season. On the inverse, when MLB orgs hire coaches into development roles, they typically come from mid majors or lower levels. Those coaches are elite developers of talent, and collectively make positive impacts on the organization they are hired into, but MLB orgs would love to get baseball minds like Hobbs, Johnson, and Weiner in professional baseball.
The opportunity for prospects to develop under coaches of that caliber, with the resources those programs have access to, is a phenomenal place for a player to maximize their skillset. When ranking the best pitching minds in all of baseball, all three fall into the top 10. That is an opportunity pitchers receive in college baseball, not MiLB. And players have the opportunity to maintain the same pitching coach for multiple years, instead of building a relationship with a AA pitching coach; then the reward for being promoted is a new coach with a fresh perspective. The best organizations maintain consistency across all levels, but nothing compares to the same voice across multiple years.
Development Trickles Up, Not Down
Another misconception in player development is that Major League Baseball is on the forefront of player development trends. All of the modern-day player development trends were started at another level of baseball and maximized by an innovator, then carried into professional baseball. The high-ride fastball? Bat speed training? Variable training and pitching machines? All concepts were created in the college/private sector first, then the MLB gradually latched on. Hitting gurus and pitching labs were voodoo in Major League Baseball until it was proven without a shadow of a doubt that it worked. Those ideologies have been in college baseball for 10+ years, which is shown by how MLB organizations hire and promote coaches.
The late 2010s were a great transition in player development innovation. With the increase in social media, coaches and analysts of all levels started publicizing what they were doing from both a research and player development perspective. This led to a major hiring cycle from all levels of baseball. Starting in 2013, Russ Steinhorn was hired from Delaware State University after they led the nation in HBPs. Kai Correa was hired out of the University of Northern Colorado to be an infield coach with Cleveland in 2018, and progressed into an MLB job by 2020. The Orioles hired Tom Eller from Harford Community College to be a hitting coach in their system. CJ Gillman was hired by the Reds from Air Force Academy as their Minor League hitting coordinator in 2020. The list of coaches hired from all levels of baseball was league-wide. All of these coaches were hired because everything they did in player development was innovative. They were bringing fresh ideas into MLB development because it worked and was improving their player development structure.
Where Major League Baseball can’t afford to take risks in player development, college baseball is ever evolving. The coaches at the college level are always researching and pushing against conventional wisdom. That is how improvement is made. To maximize what a player is capable of, it has to be on the back of fighting conventional wisdom and ever-evolving processes.
The Resources are Better, and More Convenient
On top of innovative player development strategies, the facility arms race in college baseball is real. The dichotomy between college baseball and professional baseball is that when college programs couldn’t pay players, they reinvested that money in facilities. While minor league baseball players were still fighting for a livable wage, the top 1% of college baseball dumped millions into pitching labs, locker rooms, recovery centers, weight rooms, nutrition, and any player development resources needed to be an elite athlete.
We have all heard minor league horror stories. Having to find a local Planet Fitness or a small hotel gym to work out in, traveling 10+ hours on a sleeper bus, eating gas station food, and most importantly sleeping in an apartment with 8-10 teammates just to afford rent. While some of those issues are no longer a concern with the last CBA protecting minor league prospects, the combination of exhaustive travel and lack of local resources is still an ongoing issue. How many MiLB sites have a full pitching lab with Newtforce mounds, biomechanics, and a TrackMan unit all in one spot? How many have a full weight room with a professional weight training staff who oversees all recovery and strength development? How many have a full nutrition center with a full-time nutritionist tracking the food that you eat and when you use it? How many have an athlete-only recovery center with saunas, steam rooms, cold plunges, red light therapy, and a full-time athletic training staff?
While MLB stadiums and spring training sites have all these resources, many minor league venues do not have this level of technology and rehabilitation. So much of development and injury prevention is dependent on the ability to consistently use the player development and recovery resources. In college baseball, a pitcher can throw every bullpen in a lab. Since the travel schedule is not as elaborate as professional baseball, they can build all of their development around utilizing resources at their disposal. On top of that, players have athlete-only dining options that give them the necessary nutrition to aid in their development and recovery. Not to mention the aforementioned recovery tools that the majority of MLB teams can’t afford to house at every MiLB venue.
Recent scientific research has emphasized the importance of sleep, nutrition, and recovery in an athlete’s development. Combine that with the fact that we are talking about 18-21 year old athletes, who have extra nutritional and recovery needs due to increased workloads they have never been exposed to, and the fact that they are still growing. So much of baseball success comes from strength gains. Bat speed, velocity, speed, and arm strength are all improved with just strength. So what is more important? Playing 100+ games of baseball on an everyday basis to just get at-bats or innings, or playing 60+ a year (no summer ball in this scenario) with proper recovery time and having all the resources to make the necessary physical gains to maximize skill sets? The answer is clear.
NIL/Revenue Share Opportunity
One of the main reasons it made sense for high school players to sign professional contracts was the money. How could a player justify delaying guaranteed money in the hope that nothing goes wrong in a player’s career and that money is still there? That opportunity for a guaranteed signing bonus without NIL was a no-brainer. Now it isn’t as clear.
Top college baseball programs are spending between 3 and 5 million on a 35-man roster. Players are making as much as $500k a year. That is more than a lot of players’ signing bonuses on draft day. The safety net for the top players to find financial opportunity in college baseball is much higher than it was pre-NIL. Players now have the opportunity to leverage development opportunities along with a consistent annual income. Wake Forest ace Chris Levonas turned down $1.23 million as the 67th overall pick to attend college. He trusted the development at Wake Forest and enters the 2027 season as a top-10 prospect with a 100 mph fastball and arguably the best stuff in all of college baseball. He finds himself in a position to improve his slot value, all while receiving an education, elite development, and annual income in college baseball.
While NIL doesn’t have a direct, clear impact on development, it does matter in the choices players are making. The main reason it was foolish to turn down guaranteed money at 18 in the past was that there was a chance a player never saw that type of money again. It was an insurance policy. But now players can make money, develop, receive an education, and hopefully find themselves in the same position they were in coming out of high school.
Learning to Compete & “Play the Game the Right Way”
Vanderbilt Head Coach Tim Corbin is one of the best developers of baseball players in the sport. As a program, Vanderbilt has consistently put out “ball players.” If you looked up a ballplayer in the dictionary, you would see an image of Dansby Swanson, and so many Vanderbilt players just understand the game of baseball at a higher level. They control the run game, defend the short game, hit with 2 strikes, and just overall play the right way. That opportunity to learn under a National Championship–winning baseball coach like Tim Corbin doesn’t exist for most of these players, and losing it, year after year, to the draft is a disservice to the overall state of the sport.
There has been no college baseball program impacted by the draft more than Vanderbilt. They lose approximately 5 high school commits a year to the MLB draft. It’s hard not to think that Druw Jones’s outcomes might have been better had he been put into the Vandy player development structure. An ultra-talented prospect with amazing raw talent, being put into an environment where the emphasis is on development in the background and not being thrown to the wolves before a player is ready. So much of minor league baseball is about playing as many games as possible. In college baseball, a player has a full fall competitive period to fail. That experience can be used to make adjustments while stats don’t count. That opportunity and those adjustments can be the difference between a confident player come springtime, and a player in a tunnel of chaos against the highest level of competition they have ever seen.
Another important opportunity in college is competing. So much of minor league baseball is the 1 v 1 matchup between hitter and pitcher, and the ultimate goal is making the MLB. In college baseball, the goal is to win a national championship. It is impossible to look at Paul Skenes, Nick Kurtz, Kade Anderson, Rhett Lowder, Christian Moore, amongst others, and say that competing in Omaha hurt their development. Playing on the biggest stage and competing at the highest level is never going to hurt a prospect’s development.
College Coaches Are Paid to Win & Abuse their Pitchers
This is a completely valid complaint of the new proposal, but not in the way most outline it. Yes, college coaches are paid to win, and are incentivized to do that “at all costs.” But that doesn’t mean pitchers are overworked. College baseball coaches are also conscious of modern-day pitch restrictions and doing everything in their power to prevent injuries.
In an interview, Arkansas Pitching Coach Matt Hobbs discussed the development trajectory of Jake Faherty. Faherty came in as a Freshman and had elite stuff, flashing upper-90s fastballs consistently with a plus breaking ball, but the technology told them he didn’t have the strength to withstand the force he created. Through his first 2 years on campus, he combined to only pitch 1 total inning. He eventually got his opportunity as a Junior and was selected as an 11th-round pick by the Miami Marlins. It would have been very easy to rush Faherty to the mound before he was ready just because he had the stuff capable of helping Arkansas win baseball games. Not only did they have the technology and resources to track that data, but they also had the understanding of what the information meant. Without that data and technology, coaches are just guessing.
In the scenario where the MLB does go through with removing players from the draft, there’s a trump card in all of this: the player’s choice. The beauty of college baseball is the athlete has a choice on where they attend college. No different than choosing the right program to hitch your developmental wagon to, a player also has a choice in who they trust with their health and development. If a program “abuses” their starting pitchers, then the player has the choice not to commit to the college. Unlike in the MLB draft, where a high school prospect can be cursed with being drafted by an organization that can’t develop pitching, a high school prospect has a choice of where they play college baseball. That is what agents/representation are tasked with doing, and it is said to be representation’s responsibility to find the right fit. If a program overworks their pitchers, they would, and should, be negatively recruited against. And if a program can’t land top talent, they will be forced to rework their pitching philosophies.
The main obstacle that is valid when arguing college coaches are paid to win is the transfer portal. An SEC Head Coach has said to me plainly, “age wins in this conference.” While that is a valid argument, said college coach would not turn down elite talent. The elite freshman talent that just happens to make it to college baseball isn’t worth a roster spot over the experienced upperclassman with a ton of college at-bats or innings pitched. The reality is that if high-end talent is making it to campus, coaches will add it. Texas would have done absurd things to get Grady Emerson to campus, and he would have played every single inning for them. The quality of player college baseball is missing on through the draft is such a high level that all coaches would walk over broken glass to get them on their team.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, this proposal is not currently agreed on, and based on the reaction seems like it will not be agreed on. But the reality is that out of all the arguments made, the negative perception about college baseball development is not sound. The reality is the schools that would have these players on campus have the best possible resources to develop talented baseball players. All of the necessary resources and coaching any player could need is under one roof, all a stone’s throw away from their practice field. On top of that, they have true developmental periods, instead of just playing as much baseball as possible. While playing the game is invaluable experience, so many of the most important developmental gains are centered around strength and healthy weight gain. That doesn’t happen with the MiLB schedule. Combine that with the lack of emphasis on true overall development, and college baseball is a great solution for most players.
