Remember When The Detroit Tigers Drafted Patrick Mahomes?
By this point, everyone knows Patrick Mahomes. He's the Super Bowl winning NFL MVP of the Kansas City Chiefs. But before all of that, high schools sports fans in the Ark-La-Tex knew him as a two-sport superstar (let's say he was a "star" in basketball too, but he got drafted in baseball and football, so...) at Whitehouse High School in Whitehouse, Texas.
Mahomes was a great baseball player, and that makes total sense. Because Mahomes' father...also Pat Mahomes...is a former MLB pitcher. He played for plenty of teams in his career, including the Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and Chicago Cubs (among others). The younger Mahomes clearly inherited his dad's baseball skills. He played in the Little League World Series, and was throwing in the mid-90s in high school.
MLB scout Tim Grieve once told MLB.com that Mahomes was special. He said:
"He was one of the better athletes I've covered in East Texas in my 15 years."
Grieve went on to say that if Mahomes would have focused on baseball instead of football, he would have been throwing in the mid-90s in high school. But added that he was also a great outfield prospect too.
But Grieve said Mahomes was up front with scouts and MLB teams that he was a football-first prospect, and that he intended to pursue a football career before he ever went all-in on baseball. The scout said that moved him way down MLB Draft boards. But it didn't stop all teams from considering him.
In fact, during the 2014 MLB Draft, the Detroit Tigers made Mahomes their pick in the 37th round of the draft.
Yes, the MLB Draft does have that many rounds. But the reason they do is because of this exact Mahomes situation. Teams can pick players, but that doesn't mean they keep all of them. In the MLB Draft, high school players, like Mahomes was at the time, are eligible. But those high school players can forego their MLB teams and head to college. Which is what Mahomes did, even though when he picked Texas Tech over the Detroit Tigers, he was also picking football over baseball.