A substantial portion of the book Moneyball concerns itself with the 2002 baseball draft. Due to trades and compensation for free agents taken from their roster, the Oakland Athletics had seven of the first forty draft picks in this draft and figuring out who to pick was of great important to general manager Billy Beane. Both in the book and the movie, it is noted that Beane was drafted straight out of high school and did not live up to his potential. The A's that year did not draft a single high school player, preferring to get players from the college ranks.
It makes for a more dramatic story line to say that Billy Beane was doing all he could to not draft another Billy Beane, but there is another explanation that should be considered. As is noted in both the book and the movie, the A's were cheap. (And they still are, for that matter.) If you were trying to cut corners in a scouting organization, you could decide to only focus on college players or only focus on high school players. Because there are less colleges, the thriftiest decision would be to just scout the colleges.
The A's seven choices were four position players and three pitchers.
Position players: The A's first pick in the draft was the 16th pick overall and has to be seen as a great success, Nick Swisher. Their next two picks, John McCurdy (26th overall) and Jeremy Brown (35th overall), did not suceed, McCurdy never making it to the big leagues and Brown getting six total bases in 10 official at bats and one walk. Their last pick in the first round was Mark Teahen (39th overall), who is a solid major leaguer but not a big star.
It's hard to compare the A's picks of position players over this stretch because from the 16th to 39th pick, only the A's were looking at college position players. It's not fair to look at the high school players they could have picked up, since we can assume they didn't scout them at all. In hindsight, the best college prospects that they didn't take in these early round picks include the major league successes from the second round, Joey Votto (44th overall), Christopher Snyder (68th overall) and Curtis Granderson (80th overall). As evidence of what a crap shoot the draft can be, the greatest college success in the late rounds is Howie Kendrick, the 274th overall pick with a respectable 1490 total bases in his career so far.
Pitchers: The A's got one major league pitcher in their three first round picks, Joe Blanton, the 24th overall pick. Their other two picks did not make the majors, Ben Fritz (30th) and Steve Obenchain (37th). They could have done much worse, as the Chicago Cubs demonstrated. Like the A's, the Cubs were going only for college players and they had a total of four first round draft picks. The went entirely for pitchers and non of them made the major leagues.
If the A's decided to eschew high school drafts due to Billy Beane's worries about getting another kid like himself, the numbers don't back this up. High draft picks are hit or miss regardless if they come for high school or college ball. As it happens, the very first pick in the 2002 was a pitcher out of college, Bryan Bullington, whose overall major league record was 1-9 with and ERA of 5.62. On the opposite side, the entire first round produced some great players out of high school, including pitchers Matt Cain, Cole Hamels and Zack Greinke. For position players, the high school draftees from the first round include Prince Fielder, Jeff Francoeur, B.J. Upton and James Loney.
To conclude, the A's draft that year wasn't stellar and completely ignoring high school players is not a good strategy overall, but it might be the best strategy if you are trying to cut costs in the scouting department.
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