Will Bubba Starling Pick Baseball Or Football?

June 10, 2011

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Bubba Starling recently graduated from high school and has committed to play quarterback for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  Starling is also one of the top baseball prospects and was selected 5th overall in this year’s baseball draft.  The kicker?  He was picked by his hometown Kansas City Royals.

Starling has a decision looming.  He can choose to sign with the Royals and spurn the Huskers.  He can spurn the Royals and stay with the Huskers. 

Or he can do both.  The NCAA allows an athlete to participate as a professional in one sport while retaining amateur status in a different sport.  The football/baseball combination is by far the most common due to relatively small season overlaps.  While it’s not exactly common, it’s also not particularly rare.  For example, Clemson starting quarterback Kyle Parker was a first round pick of the Rockies in 2010 and continues to play both sports.

However, either the Huskers or the Royals could give Starling an ultimatum and force him to pick one sport or the other.  The football injury to Bo Jackson may be fresh in the minds of many in the Royals organization, so they may not be eager to see Starling lining up at quarterback.  The Huskers, too, would prefer to have Starling focus on just one sport – but as an outfielder, his injury risk is relatively low.  (Conversely, if he were a pitcher, he’d be more prone to arm injuries, which would hinder his ability to player quarterback).

Of course, the one thing that the Royals can offer that the Huskers can’t is money.  (Hey, this isn’t Ohio State!).  How much?  I wouldn’t be surprised to see an offer in excess of $5 million, considering the leverage that Starling has as a two sport athlete.

My advice?  Take the money.  If you can balance both sports, great.  But there is no guarantee that Starling will ever make a dime from football.  There are a lot of highly touted high school quarterbacks who never make it to the NFL.  If Starling choose to forgo college at this point, he can negotiate inclusion in Major League Baseball’s College Scholarship Program and pursue his degree at a later date.

If Starling doesn’t sign with the Royals, he wouldn’t be eligible for the draft again until 2014, unless he transfers to a junior college (JUCO players are eligible after their freshman and sophomore seasons).

The Royals wouldn’t be left completely high and dry if Starling doesn’t sign.  They would receive a compensatory pick in 2012 immediately following the pick of the team with the 5th worst record.  This most likely would be pick #6, but could be lower (if players picked in the top 4 spots don’t sign with their teams and thus yield compensatory picks for those teams).

In other draft news … teams really seemed to be shying away from injured players.  TCU pitcher Matt Purke was picked #14 overall out of high school in 2009.  He actually agreed to a $6 million bonus with the Rangers, but Major League Baseball had veto power because of the Rangers’ troubled finances, and they nixed the deal.  Purke eventually opted to go to college.  He was 16-0 as a freshman for the Horned Frogs.  This year, he has been fighting bursitis in his shoulder.  He was a draft-eligible sophomore (due to the fact that he was 21 before the draft) and slipped all the way to #96, where he was snapped up by the Nationals.

I understand the concern about the injury, but this is clearly a guy with elite talent.  Sure, he might not make it to the majors because of injuries, but it’s quite likely a lot of the guys ahead of him won’t make it simply because their talent level isn’t high enough.  Why are teams willing to take a gamble on a guy with a lower talent ceiling and no injury history than guys with higher ceilings but some injury history?  To compound the situation, a lot of the “healthy” guys will encounter career-ending injuries.

And, off the diamond, former Major Leaguer Lenny Dykstra is in the news again.  This time for his arrest on grand theft auto and a variety of drug charges.  Dykstra was always a guy who colored outside the lines, but his life has been in a tail spin for several years.

2 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. Squeaky
    Jun 10, 2011 @ 09:49:13

    Kos, that is the question that all of us Nebraska fans are waiting to have answered. We’ll hope and pray that he decides to stick with college and pursue an education with sports. If I were in his shoes, I’d be chomping at the bit to earn $5 million+ per year. I don’t think there there would be a college in the world that could keep me from taking that MLB deal.

    Bubba, we hope to see you playing on TO field this fall!

    Reply

  2. kosmo
    Jun 10, 2011 @ 10:52:12

    It’s not actually 5M/year. It would be a one-time bonus of 5M. At that point, he’d make standard minor league wages. This would be a max of $1100/monthy and gradually increases. He wouldn’t see another big payday until he hit the majors. Then he’d make about 400K his first year. After he has more than 3 years of of service, he’d get arbitration, and after 6 years of service, he’d be eligible for free agency. (Note: the top 17% of players with between 2 and 3 years of service are also eligible for free agency. These are known as “Super Twos”. Service time is the numbers of days on the roster.)

    (I’ve referenced this a few times in various articles. I really need to pull it out into its own article at some point.)

    Reply

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