Baseball America

DOLLARS AND SENSE

Every year, a handful of top high school draft prospects forgo turning pro out of the draft, turning down a large payday to play college baseball and test the market again in three years. But one question remains: How have previous top draft prospects fared by going to college? How often do they end up being drafted significantly higher by going to college? And how often do they fall significantly in the draft?

That’s only one aspect of what is always a complicated decision. We’re not focused on whether a player is emotionally ready to play pro ball. We’re not studying the value of a college education and experience. All we are studying is how the decision worked out financially.

To determine how the players did when they re-entered the draft, we compared their initial Baseball America predraft

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