As a first-round draft pick, Milwaukee Brewers farmhand Kodi Medeiros is a prized prospect, and so is Tampa Bay Rays minor leaguer Kean Wong, who’s being fast-tracked.
But for other players with Hawaii ties, they face long odds in reaching the big leagues, and luckily some who wash out end up on TV, such as KHON2’s Sam Spangler, a former University of Hawaii pitcher.
Baseball America once did a study and found that one in six picks, or 17 percent, from the Major League Baseball June draft will reach the big leagues.
No surprise, the success rate is higher for first-round picks, around 73 percent, and falls off a cliff from there, down to 7 percent after the 20th round.