Baseball prospect writing’s self-hate

Scouting baseball prospect writing’s self-hate

It’s really hard to miss anymore. Spending years getting my feet into the world of scouting minor league baseball players has led to a number of connections across Major League Baseball as well as multiple great friendships with those who cover the game in the minors. There is a rift beginning within that last group, however, and it’s turned what had always been an amazing, supportive industry into one that is tough to be part of anymore.

The crux of the issue

I suppose there should be some definition as to what exactly we’re talking about before I get up on a soapbox, huh?

I’ve been a baseball fan since I was barely potty trained (and likely before then, but I simply don’t remember). My first fantasy league was when I was still not yet an adult, sending in a check to an organization that required you to pick a certain team out of a listing on the Baseball Weekly. I dug hard through every edition of Baseball Weekly, and I especially was intrigued by the development of players, so roughly 20 years ago, I recruited a number of guys from an Atlanta Braves message board on ESPN to join a dynasty baseball league where we had to host the scoring on a separate site and hold the league’s rosters on yet another message board site because there simply wasn’t anything for dynasty leagues at that time online.

My interest in prospects and development in farm systems remained as I finished college, began my first career, and then transitioned to another career. While working in social work, I was offered the chance to write about the Braves on the side for a FanSided website. I was already in my mid-30s, so my ability to do the unpaid internship thing for a MLB team was out the window, so this was my way into the game.

My writing quickly leaned into evaluating minor league players through MiLB.tv, something not a lot of people were watching at that time, but being in South Dakota, it was my lifeblood to minor league baseball, as the closest minor league team was hundreds of miles away. One of those first pieces was noticed by a retired MLB scout, and he worked with me over the next few pieces that I did to help me with what to look for on video that I can see by watching over and over that someone at the game can’t, meanwhile, he also versed me on what I simply cannot see through video.

This was 2014-2015, and while some video scouting had been done in the most forward-thinking MLB organizations, most still were very set on the model of relying only on those who were at the ballpark.

I was married in 2014 and in 2016, my wife and I began providing foster care with the intention of adopting to begin our family. At the same time, my scouting reports done via game footage on video were beginning to receive plenty of notice, leading to multiple interviews with big-league clubs, but each time, the job offer required moving to the team’s headquarters, something I simply could not do with our burgeoning family.

Still, the rift continued to grow, and by the time the Astros brought home their title, there was an underground roar of division among those who wrote about prospects regarding the value of in-person versus video views. A big reason for the increase in the volume of the argument had to do with the knowledge in the industry that the Astros utilized video scouting within their model, and they had one of the more successful development systems in the game at the time.

A continued fight

The part that has always been nuts to me is that there is a fight at all.

Over my years writing about the game, I’ve sourced dozens of amazing people who get an opportunity to be at the ballpark. My mentor told me what I couldn’t see through video, and I have always been quick to talk with those who have seen players to ask about those things.

However, he was also quick to point out that the ability to re-watch over and over an entire game and to utilize multiple games in writing a single scouting report would lend significantly more credibility to the review of the attributes seen than a single viewing of a player that is often entrusted by so many clubs from an in-person scout.

There truly is value in both.

Recently, the arguments began again over “couch scouting” and “game scouting” as if someone watching the game through video isn’t putting in the time. I will assure anyone who is attempting to downplay quality video scouting that one scouting report that I put together often required dozens of focused viewing hours of that player – and that was WITH the ability to fast-forward to his at-bats each inning, the defensive plays he’d make, etc, which cuts out watching the entirety of the game.

Next generation

Every MLB team now employs at least one person in the realm of video scouting at the amateur/minor league level. Pro scouting had used video for years. The multiple angles provided by broadcasts now at minor league games, college games, and amateur events allow for significantly better viewing.

While I would love to spend my day writing video reports and evaluating players, I also have four children that I’ve adopted now, and I would not feel right uprooting them from what they’ve known as a safe situation after the backgrounds they had before they came to our home. That means that, unless a job comes to me in South Dakota, I’m likely not pursuing full-time MLB scouting employment, but to say that someone who wants to hone their scouting eye via video couldn’t have the opportunity to work in MLB is simply not correct. The opportunities are there – and they’re growing every year.

With the MLB takeover of minor league baseball, one would expect that minor league broadcasts will step up soon as well, allowing for even better overall viewing and more information presented during the broadcast that can help with a scouting report.

The teams that have the best success currently are the ones that blend together their in-person scouting, analytical development, and video analysis the best. If that’s what’s working at the big league level, it’s probably wise for the prospect writing community, in general, to put aside in-fighting and begin looking for ways to expand and embrace ways to work together to evaluate players with video, in-person, and statistical models together driving player evaluation because that is where the industry is – and it’s only going stronger toward that collaboration, not further from it.