In MLB is there ANY player who did NOT play college ball?

Question

How do players get discovered other than in H.S. or college?

Is there any player from the USA who was discovered outside of college?

Answer 1

Many, many, many. Robin Yount was one.

Even the players who signed out of college were usually drafted out of high school but declined to sign and went to college. John Olerud was one.

A player who goes to a junior college can be signed any time during his first academic year, until the day before the next draft. At that point, he's eligible to be drafted again. Ernie Whitt was drafted out of a juco.

A player who goes to a 4-year college can't be drafted until he's finished or just about finished his junior year of college. If he doesn't sign then, he can be drafted again after his senior year. Jason Varitek did just that.

Bryan Harvey was signed out of a beer league.

There are amateur scouts (not as in scouting only amateurs but as in not paid for scouting) who act as "bird dogs" in the scouting process. They will watch the local talent, usually high school kids, and alert any given organization that a particular player is wort looking at. The organization will send a low level (in terms of seniority) scout to check such a kid. Recommendations get passed along up the line or not, from that point on.

MLB organizations will also scout various state-wide and regional tournaments, as the best players from any given area will be part of the teams sent to these competitions.

There is a great book on the subject of baseball scouts and scouting, and the ideas in it are applicable to all sports. I'm giving you that information below.

Answer 2

A ton of them didn't play college ball. Most of the guys from the Caribbean, Central and South American and Japan didn't. How do they get discovered other than high school or college? If you're really good, you should play on your high school team. If not, what's wrong with you? The Latin guys get discovered by going to the team sponsored training facilities and playing on club teams. The Japanese guys get "discovered" by playing in the Japanese pro leagues. But American players who don't play HS or college ball won't get discovered.

Answer 3

I once had an elderly lady for a friend. She had a wonderful little dog. A mix of some sort. She had the dog trained well and it behaved very well. Learn here https://tr.im/am6Cw

She kept an uncovered candy dish on her coffee table with candy in it. The dog was forbidden to eat the candy. When she was in the room observing the dog he did not even appear to notice the candy. One day while she was in her dinning room she happened to look in a mirror and could see her dog in the living room. He did not know he was being watched. For several minutes he was sitting in front of the candy bowl staring at the candy. Finally he reached in and took one. He placed it on the table and stared at it, he woofed at it. He stared some more, licked his chops and PUT IT BACK in the bowl and walked away. Did he want the candy, oh yeah. Did he eat it? Nope. They can be trained that well but most, I'll admit, are not trained that well. When I was a young boy, maybe 5 years old. We had a german shepherd. He was very well trained also. My mom could leave food unattended on the table, no problem. She would open the oven door and set a pan roast beef or roast chicken on the door to cool. No problem. He would not touch it, watched or not. But butter? Whole other story. You leave a stick of butter anywhere he could reach and it was gone. He was a large shepherd so there were not many places he could not reach. Really, I think the number of dogs trained to the point they will leave food alone when not being supervised is very small indeed.
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Now if we are talking obedience training, not food grubbing, that is a different story. Way back when I was first learning obedience training one of the final exercises was to put our dogs in a down/stay and not only leave the room but leave the building for 15 minutes. The only person that stayed was our trainer, not the owners. Most of the dogs in my class did not break their stay, which would be an automatic fail. I'm happy to report my dog was one of the ones that passed.

Answer 4

There are several mlb players that didn't play college ball. I would suggest going that route though if at all possible. The experience and coaching you get from playing college ball is very valuable. All mlb teams hold open tryouts every year and if a player thinks he is ready he can go to as many tryouts as he wants. You can find the tryout schedules at the minor league teams websites.

Answer 5

Many, many players. Just looking at last years draft, it looks like 19 of the 44 players selected in the first round were out of high school.

While most players get selected through high school or college, a small number are scouted through extracurricular baseball - summer baseball leagues and amateur ball. IIRC Mike Johnston, who pitched a little for the Pirates in '04, was found pitching in an adult summer league.

Answer 6

A whole lot of MLB players never played in college.

Many organizations (the Atlanta Braves for instance) prefer to draft kids out of high school so they can oversee their development from that point on.

This gets the players used to playing with wooden bats and travelling a lot more and focusing completely on baseball. It also produces younger major league ready ballplayers.

Answer 7

Adrian Beltre-a lot of players are discovered in Latin America playing baseball with sticks, etc.. Other players defect from national teams from foreign countries, Orlando Hernandez for example.

Answer 8

I would say less than 25% of MLB players played college ball.

USA
DE-REK!!! JE-TER!!!
A-Rod

Answer 9

Try-outs and camps

Answer 10

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