Baseball

WHITHER THE COLLEGES?

The 1984 Olympic team was probably the best collection of college baseball talent ever assembled. Three years later Mark McGwire is leading the American League in homers; Cory Snyder, Oddibe McDowell, Will Clark, B.J. Surhoff and Barry Larkin are big league regulars; and Bobby Witt and Scott Bankhead are starting pitchers.

But don't be misled. The colleges are not going to become the main (and free) supplier of players to the big leagues. They won't replace the minors, no matter what an occasional owner may say after looking at his balance sheets. Two reasons: 1) College and pro baseball are two different games played with different equipment; 2) college baseball coaches have little or no chance of becoming pro coaches or managers. Thus they have little or no incentive to cooperate with pro baseball front offices.

Thanks largely to ESPN, college baseball has become more popular in the last several years, and there are more major leaguers with college experience today than ever. In the first rounds of the 1965 and '66 drafts, for instance, clubs selected 36 high school and 4 college players. In the '85 and '86 first rounds they chose 24 high school and 28 college players. The trend continues: After this year's draft on June 2-3, the pros will sign more college than high school players. "But still," says one National League scout, "teams prefer high school prospects. By the time you've professionalized a college player he's 24, and it's make-it-or-be-released time. What you see is what you get with a college kid, with little chance of improvement. You can see a good college player and know he'll play in the big leagues, but you don't win pennants with the Terry Franconas [Arizona] of the world. Where do the best players come from?" Last year's All-Star teams offer a possible answer: Thirty-seven were signed out of high school, 13 out of four-year colleges and 6 out of junior colleges.

"This year's draft [see box, page 74] is basically a high school draft," says Mets VP Joe McIlvaine. If teams based their picks solely on talent, at least the first five picks would be high schoolers: outfielders Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark Merchant, and pitchers Willie Banks, Mike Mussina and Dan Opperman. However, a club like the Mariners, which will pick first, may want more immediate help and select Cal State-Fullerton pitcher Mike Harkey or Stanford's Jack McDowell. (The Pirates went for immediate help last year and, choosing first, took Arkansas third baseman Jeff King, who has been a disappointment, over Tampa high school shortstop Gary Sheffield, a potential superstar chosen by Milwaukee.) Mussina intends to enroll at Stanford in the fall, so the price for changing his mind is steep, and Opperman has raised some concern because of arm trouble.

The only major college player considered to have star ability is LSU outfielder Joey Belle, and he may not be drafted until a late round. (He has been suspended three times this season, most recently after going into the stands to confront a heckler.)

One reason that pro ball clubs like to sign hitters before they play in college is the aluminum bat. "They develop terrible habits, because with an aluminum bat it's possible to drive a ball when it's almost past the batter. And the pitchers throw five miles an hour slower than major leaguers," says Toronto scout Tim Wilken. "If a kid goes to college, he has an additional three or four years to develop those bad habits." The Red Sox drafted outfielder Scott Wade out of Oklahoma State in 1984, and it took until this spring to break his college habits.

Aluminum bats are also hurting the development of young pitchers. "If you jam a hitter, he can still drive it with a metal bat, something he can't do with a wooden bat," says Mariners pitcher Mike Moore, the first draft pick in 1981, out of Oral Roberts. "In college, you learn to pitch away and with a lot of breaking balls. In the big leagues, if you can't establish your fastball inside, you're in big trouble." Mcllvaine, who is considered to be one of the brightest judges of talent in the business, says. "It goes beyond that. Too many of the major colleges are simply sore-arm factories. A kid's arm should be developing at the ages of 18 to 20, which is why most pro clubs have pitch and innings limits. How many of the top pitchers came out of the big college baseball factories?"

Very few. Of the current major league pitchers who have won or saved 10 games in a season, 59 signed out of high school and only 25 came from big-time college programs, where teams can play 80 or more games from September through June. Sixty-nine played at smaller colleges or junior colleges, which play fewer games, under less pressure. "In many cases, it's selfishness on the part of coaches, who overwork their kids," says Mcllvaine. Tigers G.M. Bill Lajoie scouted Matt Williams at Rice in 1981 and watched him throw 100 pitches in five innings of one game and come back and throw 199 more in nine innings of relief the next day. Mets pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre yanked his son Todd out of Nevada-Las Vegas because he thought Todd's arm was being blown out. Then there's Richie Lewis of Florida State. "He's not throwing anywhere near as well this year as he did last," says one scouting director. "Everyone's afraid he's been blown out." Coach Mike Martin used Lewis in five College World Series games in 10 days last year; in a game against LSU this season, Lewis threw 198 pitches.

"What's unfortunate is that there is so little cooperation between the pros and colleges," says Pirates G.M. Syd Thrift. "A lot of coaches won't tell scouts when a kid is going to pitch, so the scouts have to go directly to the kid, and it creates problems. It's too bad there can't be more cooperation, because we can help one another."