Or does he simply want to experience college that much?

I truly think the answer is yes.

but we can’t possibly know all of his thoughts and intentions about the future. But the odds of him increasing his draft stock over the next two years are pretty slim, and he has delayed his development and the time clock on arbitration and free agency.

He is taking a huge gamble unless he’s just not that committed to playing baseball at all.

But the Rangers front office also made the wrong decision, or at least miscalculated what it would take to sign Purke. I very much appreciate having a front office willing to take those kinds of chances, but in hindsight it looks like they should have taken Miller or White or someone they could sign. On the other hand, if I offered a HS pitcher that kind of money and a chance to join an org on the upswing, I’d just be shaking my head if he turned it down.

he will go to TCU and hook up with mike maddux’s daughter and laugh

maybe he went to find our lord and savior?!?!?! Maybe his family/fellow churchies influenced his decision?!?!?

He is taking a chance that he’ll be offered a deal better than the 5th highest bonus in the draft in 2011? To go to college? Crazy. Good luck to you, Mr. Purke. I hope you don’t spend the rest of your life regretting that or wondering what if.

wanted to get paid like Porcello, he truly messed up.

The Rangers could select him again in 2-3 years and he could end up with half or a quarter what he was offered last night.

There have been HS players that were drafted in the lower rounds due to signability. Don’t know if they were 1st round talent. They let it be known that they were going to college so don’t draft me. If Matt was set on college then he shoiuld have said so. He didn’t. The Rangers just didn’t meet his price. Fine. So be it. His loss.

I also think he made a foolish decision, but he only graduated from high school a couple of months ago. In my mind his advisers bear the brunt of the blame on his side. Whoever either told him to be completely inflexible on his signing bonus or whoever didn’t aggressively counsel him to be more flexible on his demands is most likely going to end up costing this kid a good chunk of change. And that may be the least of it…an injury could end up costing him way more than just a discounted signing bonus.

As for whether or not he really wanted to go to college from the get-go, either his side kept this on the down low or, if the Rangers knew, they just colossally fucked it up by thinking they could money whip him out of it. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that this was about money, not about preferring college over baseball right now.

At the end of the day, someone who says they want to get paid like Porcello doesn’t prefer college over pro ball. He most likely got some bad advice and ultimately made a decision that, at the least, will likely cost him some money. He would’ve been much better served getting paid almost like Porcello right now rather than even less like Porcello in 2011 or later.

I hope he likes the taste of Ranger ass, because he’s going to get to taste a lot of it in Fort Worth. He’ll get to see this team’s success and hear about the organization’s being on the rise and how great the team chemistry is while he pitches at the whiffle ball park down the road.

I don’t know if you can really analyze the decision making process of an 18 year old kid. Most of us are grown-ups who don’t ever see the potential for making fat cash in any job, much less $4 million in one fell swoop. If someone said “change your plans and move to Hickory for $4 million dollars,” it wouldn’t be a hard decision.

But he’s an 18 year old kid. Maybe he wants/needs some stability in his life that college will offer that traveling on minor league buses won’t.

Maybe he wants to be a huge fish in a little pond at TCU, where he is loved and admired by his teammates for rejecting the money as opposed to resented by his minor league teammates for being a bonus baby.

Maybe he’s just cocky and thinks he can be the next Stephen Strasburg, making him look like a genius in 2 or 3 years.

Or maybe he’s just stubborn, rejecting the Rangers out of pride and waking up this morning realizing he’s an idiot.

Who knows. It probably isn’t worth trying to figure out which one it is. What is done is done, and I wish him luck at TCU, and I hope the Rangers sign Scheppers this week.

and refused to cash in the ticket. did anyone tell him there are a lot of hot college chicks in AZ he could hit on? could have impressed them with a porsche 944 with a/c and a quadraphonic blaupunkt.

NO

College experience at that age is something you will never get again.

Why is everyone so money hungry here, maybe money isn’t the most important thing in life?

Why do you have to knock down a kid that wants to be like other kids his age and have a good time and instilling relationships that will last the rest of his life?

I take some of that bonus money, go to Scheppers and say here you go!! Send him to fall ball to get him going again before starting him in Frisco. Then HE can be in Arlington in 2012 and Purke will be POSSIBLY in A Ball or rejecting another deal from his second team that drafted him in the 6th round.

I would also save whatever is left after signing Scheppers, add it to the 15th pick money in 2010 and sign Aaron Crow since he won’t get signed again.

I wish Purke luck, but if he went to TCU because he wanted an extra million. He just blew it. The bonuses go DOWN from here NOT up.

that this was going to happen.

I don’t think it’s a very wise decision by Purke though.

sure, there’s a chanve he get’s a better deal out of college, and there’s a chance they stay together, but why take the risk? if you’re gonna get that better deal in 2 years, you gonna be on pace to get paid anyway. and if the couple is still together at 30 they would’ve been together had they waited until 28 to get married