I don't know what to choose...

I've been in this back-and-forth battle between two choices for a while now. I don't know what I want to do in the future. I cannot do both options at the same time because if I choose to do something, I will go all in.

Baseball

A baseball player goes through high school ball and afterward could either get drafted by a team out of HS or go on to play in a college or some independent league. The best case scenario for me is that I get drafted out of HS or college. I go to work in the minor leagues(development farm system in baseball for prospects to rise to the majors), for about 5-10 years. And say if I get promoted to the top, and I do well, then that's great! The average MLB salary is about 5 million per year, and the league minimum(for majors only, not including other levels of minor leagues) is 740,000.

If I get promoted to the majors and underperform, I will be demoted back to AAA and probably released by the organization, and my career is most likely over. For context, most players in the minors do not make it to the top, and even if they do, few stay there. It is fair to say that making it to the top is hard enough, but staying there is even harder.

As I mentioned before, it takes on average 5-10 years to get to the top, and that means I would be spending most of my 20s and early 30s on baseball. Minor league salary is not great either, averaging 51,000 per year. Now by no means is that poor, but it's not the best.

Also:

1-2% of D1 players make it to the majors.

0.01-0.03% of HS players make it to the majors.

In conclusion, if I don't make it to the majors, pursuing baseball is not really worth it. If I go this route I am taking a gamble at the future.

2. Not baseball

I am currently pursuing research and stem. This is the more steady path. The only downside to this is that I am not really an academically precocious kid. I would be competing with the "geniuses" of the world. This path is more reliable nonetheless.

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