Tigers Sign Top Picks, But Should You Care?

The Detroit Tigers signed the three players everyone had their eyes on after the June First-Year Player draft, but should you really care?

High school pitcher Jacob Turner, the Tigers' ninth pick overall, reportedly signed for a $4.7 million bonus, which was much less than the initial pea-cocking of his adviser Scott Boras. 

High school shortstop Daniel Fields was lured to bypass his scholarship to the University of Michigan by an undisclosed seven-figure deal after being taken in the sixth-round.

Second-rounder and Oklahoma State pitcher Andrew Oliver also signed for a low seven-figure deal.

I'm glad the Tigers managed to sign the players they were most excited about.

However, I just don't get that excited over the drafting and signing of amateur players.

You shouldn't either.

Baseball is not like the other sports. Even in football and basketball, early draft picks typically begin their careers at the highest level of the sport. Not all of them turn out, but almost all of them break training camp with the team. They might later flame out spectacularly, but they made it there.

In baseball, there's no guarantee your first-round pick will spend a day in the majors. More and more, teams are doing a better job at evaluating talent and finding guys who will actually make it to the big leagues, but there remains a lot that can go wrong between draft day and a fruitful career.

Especially with pitchers.

Drafting pitchers is like trying to find a Kentucky Derby horse. You look for pedigrees like you look for young talent. You buy up as much as you can afford.

Some never pan out. Some break down. Some succeed.

And then a no-name gelding from New Mexico, who sold for pennies on the dollar, shows them all up on the big stage.

It's hard enough to project a Double-A prospect to the majors, let alone guys who haven't even spent a day as a professional.

There's always exceptions to the rule. In Detroit, we know the exception as Rick Porcello. He was the guy who spent one season in the minor leagues after being drafted as a high school pitcher.

But for most players, there's a long, long road, and there are no guarantees.

In recent years, due to the added publicity for the draft, great media exposure outside the mainstream—which did not spend a lot of time on the baseball draft—and the hype of Boras and other agents, we have begun to blow baseball's draft and signing period out of proportion. I hope it takes a step back soon.

I doubt it will.

So what I'm going to do is sit back and follow the progress of these kids. Because that's what they are...kids. They are not magic bullets that'll solve all the organization's problems.

I hope it turns out well for all of them.

Just don't fall into the habit of talking in certainties, because it might not.