Draft Study: How Likely Are Your MLB Dreams?

It should be fairly obvious that players drafted out of the college ranks reach the major leagues at a higher rate than players drafted out of high school. After all, college players are older and therefore more advanced, with longer track records of performance against a better-known quality of competition. Past studies, such as Allan Simpson’s 2002 analysis of draft results from 1965 to 1995, have shown that college players are more likely to get to the big leagues, and common wisdom suggests those trends haven’t changed.

But common wisdom wasn’t good enough for Rick Karcher, a professor[…]