The Chosen Controversy

OK, the talk of the Royals' pitching is going to be put off until tomorrow. But I do have a few numbers that just might change the way you look at the season so far, so I hope you'll come back.

For now, this Bryce Harper story has my attention. He's Sports Illustrated's latest Chosen One, and seem aghast at his decision to skip his junior and senior years of high school, earn a GED this summer, enroll at a junior college, and enter next year's draft where he will presumably be taken first overall by the Nationals and cash a ginormous check.

Bryce and his family are taking heat from a lot of places, but the points about him turning the education system on its head, about missing out on the wonders of childhood, about being forced to grow up too soon, well, those arguments just miss a lot of obvious points here.

First, what is the kid missing out on? Senior prom? Open lunch at Burger King? Keggers out in the country if someone from his English class can find a fake ID? His dream is to play pro ball, not flirt in homeroom, and if he's good enough to do it now why not?

The truth is this kid hasn't lived a normal childhood for some time now. He's effectively lived the life of a professional baseball player for some time now, with the travel and well over 100 games per year. It's just that now he's going to start getting paid for it a year earlier.

Harper is a 6-foot-3 catcher whose fastball has been clocked at 96 mph, hit .626 with 14 homers and 55 RBIs, hit the longest home run in Tropicana Field history*, and is fast enough that he supposedly scored from second base six times this season on wild pitches.

* With a metal bat, but still...

This is normal? What is that high school competition doing for him? How is it making him better? How has he not outgrown it, especially when you consider he'll only be a year older, a year bigger, and a year better next spring?

If he's good enough to be the first player drafted by Major League Baseball next year, what business does he have in high school, playing against kids who pop zits between innings?

If this plays out the way the Harpers and most observers think it will, Bryce will be drafted one year earlier. Is a 17-year-old really much worse off than an 18-year-old?

Prodigies develop faster than the rest of us. The Philippinne-born Kiwi Alejandro Danao Camara finished an undergraduate degree at 16 and graduated Harvard Law School at 19. He turns 25 tomorrow and runs his own law firm in Houston.

Here's another thing that bugs me about this. It's a bit of a tired argument, but where is all this condemnation when tennis and golf prodigies leave their families to focus on their sport before they're even teenagers?

Our schools exist to make us smarter, to prepare us for whatever career path we choose. Harper's career path is professional baseball.

His high school can no longer do anything for him, he can't become any more valuable than he is right now, so, really, it would be foolish of him to wait longer than he needs.

Baseball is such a fickle game. Can't-miss prospects miss in baseball more than any other sport. He's potentially worth $20 million next year so why should he wait a year longer to see if it will drop to $10 million? Or lower? What if he breaks his leg?

This process is obviously drawing a lot of attention, and it all may make Harper's success more difficult. But there is every reason to believe that he and his family are going into this with their eyes open.

The problem isn't that Harper has found a loophole to exploit a system for several generations' worth of wealth by the time he's 17.

If Harper truly is the once-in-a-generation talent that so many say he is, he just might make it a happy story.

No, the problem is in the precedent he sets for the next round of prodigies who present higher risk and lower reward, both for themselves and whatever team decides to draft them.