If only because of the increase in cost to sign those same players. A Shelby Miller or a Tyler Matzek may be a more reliable bet than high school pitchers drafted at the same spots 20 years ago, but they’re costing like 8 times as much.

I think there’s still a lot of risk involved with high school kids, because they’re just that, kids. A lot of there ability is based on what they’ll be like once they reach adulthood.
However when you look at some of the best pitchers in the game right now, a lot of them have come out of high school or were international free agent signings at very young ages.
Greinke, Halladay, Johan Santana, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, Josh Johnson, etc.

Although I don’t have anything to really back me up on that. I definitely wouldn’t be afraid to take a HS starting pitcher in the first round and I completely disagree with the “safe” college pitcher route. Those guys seem to get injured just as often as High Schoolers.

For the Dodgers, they take a HS pitcher in the 1st round almost religiously. They do this because they have more trust in their coaches than a college coach. If you dont trust your coaches to develop pitchers, then Id stay away from the HS pitchers. Some of the best young guns were signed as IFAs or HS pitchers at the HS age. I dont think there is any more risk, except that maybe you have a pitcher for longer in the organization and therefore there is more time for an injury…

It’s simply that teams have learned to keep them healthy.

I’ve got a study (which I really should post here) of pitchers ranked 1-10 in BA’s Top 100 (or 11-15 who went to MLB next year) that’s mind-boggling. Twenty+ years ago, essentially every such prospect suffered a major injury except Pedro Martinez, who was babied in his critical years. The injury rate has declined steadily since then.

If you approach the question from a decision-making standpoint then I would say that, yes, there is much less risk today in drafting high school pitchers than 20 years ago. The sheer volume and complexity of information teams have at their disposal (as well as two more decade’s worth of historical data) cannot compare to where baseball was in the 1990s.

From a developmental standpoint all the risks associated with a HS pitcher that were prevalent 20 years ago (injury, attrition, flameout, etc.) are still prevalent today. Attrition is natural and unavoidable; no matter how well you prepare and develop all your players, there’s no way you’re going to get a 100% conversion rate. Injury risk and early flameout are still a major issue but, with the advancements in modern exercise, nutrition, and medical procedures, teams are losing far fewer players to career-ending injuries nowadays.