The first two picks in the 2015 draft were college shortstops -- Vanderbilt's Dansby Swanson went first overall to the Arizona Diamondbacks and LSU's Alex Bregman went second to the Houston Astros. Three other college shortstops went in the first round. According to scouting reports, all five have a chance to remain at shortstop in the pros, although Bregman is more likely to move to second base.

If any of this group develops into a major league shortstop, it would be a pretty rare achievement in recent annals: The last college shortstop drafted in the first round to have a major league career as a shortstop is Troy Tulowitzki, drafted way back in 2005.

This doesn't mean the majors are completely devoid of college shortstops: Marcus Semien of the A's went to Cal; Brandon Crawford of the Giants went to UCLA; Brad Miller of the Mariners played at Clemson; Zack Cozart of the Reds went to Mississippi; Arizona's Nick Ahmed played at Connecticut; and Pittsburgh's Jordy Mercer went to Oklahoma State. Miller, Cozart and Ahmed were each second-round picks; Mercer went in the third round; Crawford in the fourth; Semien in the sixth. Note that each played at a big school in a major conference, so it's interesting that each slid past the first round. The one small-college starting shortstop is Andrelton Simmons of the Braves, a native of Curacao, drafted in the second round by the Braves out of an Oklahoma junior college.

Still, that's only seven college shortstops including Simmons, and Semien's error-prone season means he might eventually move to second base and Mercer has been losing playing time to Korean import Jung Ho Kang.

Of course, one reason there aren't many college shortstops is the best shortstop prospects are drafted out of high school. Carlos Correa, just recalled by the Astros, was the first overall pick out of a Puerto Rico high school; Addison Russell, now playing second base for the Cubs, was a high school draftee; top shortstop prospects Corey Seager of the Dodgers, J.P. Crawford of the Phillies and Francisco Lindor of the Indians were all drafted in the first round out of high school.

The other reason there are few college shortstops is that most starting shortstops are Latin. Of the 30 shortstops with the most plate appearances this season, 20 are Latin (including Simmons). Only two of the 30 shortstops were high school picks: Ian Desmond and Jimmy Rollins. (Ryan Goins, drafted out of Dallas Baptist, is also in the top 30 of most plate appearances, as he filled in for the injured Jose Reyes in Toronto.)

What's interesting about this is that shortstops are often the best athletes on the team in high school or college. So how come so few of them end up at shortstop in the majors? In college baseball, even the best players often switch positions in the pros, such as Evan Longoria, a shortstop at Long Beach State, or Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler, who moved to second base in the minors. Do American kids place more emphasis on hitting than fielding? Maybe too many of them bulk up and have to move off the position? Do major league teams simply have a bias against bigger shortstops? Are the Latin players simply more athletic?

I don't know; it's probably a little of all of that. We'll see if the draft of 2015 reverses this drought of first-round college shortstops.