Can you guarantee?

“Can you guarantee me he’s going to be in the big leagues?” Oakland Athletics’ Owner Ken Hofmann asked Billy Beane.

It was Billy Beane’s first year as A’s general manager, he just used the first round pick to select left-handed pitcher Mark Mulder and then Beane found that the budget to sign Mulder was not enough. Ben had to go to meet the A’s owner Hofmann to solve this problem.

MLB draft is not like NBA or NFL, the players selected in the draft normally spend some years in the minor league before making it to the big league. If players are selected in the first round, it usually indicates that team front offices are impressed with their skills and believe that they have great potentials to play in the big league. Lots of Hall of Famers, such as Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr. and Chipper Jones, were selected in the 1st round.

However,

“There’s no way I can guarantee that, Ken,” Beane replied. “In this business, you can’t guarantee anything.”

Indeed, nothing is guaranteed in baseball. Even you are picked in the 1st round, there's still a long way to make it to the big league. Also, no one can guarantee when the baseball will be back at this moment :(

In total, Mark Mulder pitched 150 games for the Oakland Athletics from 2000 to 2005, he was a 2-time All-Star and finished 2^nd in the Cy Young voting in 2001, earning 21 wins that year. Later his career, Mulder joined the Cardinals and played for 4 years in St. Louis.