First of all, I love high school baseball. We have a crew of guys running around the country scouting high school games. They are on the road right now. If there is a well known prospect the game will get scouted heavily. If there are no well known prospects it’s not likely there will be any scouts in attendance. That doesn’t make HS baseball any less important. The game is not about how many scouts are in the stands.
Regarding Jupiter WWBA in October. There is no question that it has the highest number of scouts, college coaches and agents of any baseball event in the world. Most every scouting director, crosschecker, area scouts, and nearly every major college will have two coaches there. They would have more but two is the NCAA rule. Many of the top Jucos are also there. The MLBSB is also there. And there are well over 100 agents, from Boras group on down. Most MLB clubs will send 14-15 or more scouts, some send 20 or more. We know because they register ahead of time and place orders for golf carts and scout packets. We run out of golf carts every year and many have to walk between fields.
In the interest of accuracy; 100% of all MLB scouts is not 240 scouts. Actually there are roughly 1,000 fulltime MLB scouts. For convenience let’s use the Texas Rangers as an example. In addition to the Scouting Director and assistant and 3 crosscheckers, they have 8 pro scouts, 18 area supervisors, plus some international guys. So the Rangers have over 30 fulltime scouts and that doesn't count the part time guys. The Rangers even put a scout team in the tournament. Some clubs have more scouts than the Rangers. The Blue Jays sent 36 scouts to Jupiter last year which was a record amount for one club.
I’m not sure how many are at any one game, but if a game is played at night it is very likely 600 or more easily could be watching that game. There are only 4 games being played at that time and there are some 900 scouts and recruiters at the event. When all the fields are being used, you might have a game with a dozen or two dozen scouts while another game could have 300 or more. I remember back when Scott Kazmir pitched it was during the day with all fields being used, but there were around 400 scouts at that game he was pitching in.
The breakdown goes kind of like this, around 450 MLB scouts and 450+ college coaches plus over 100 agents. You would have to be there to really get the picture. It is very unusual! Those that have been there know. I can see why it would be hard to understand if a person had not been there.
That said, why compare it to high school baseball? These two things serve completely different purposes. One is a strict scouting event and the other is the greatest baseball of all IMO. The number of scouts isn’t what makes a game important. I love it when our guy is the only scout at the game and nobody knows who he is.
BTW, for those who want to jump on this as some kind of money making promotion, please don’t go there. There is absolutely no reason to promote this event in October. There are well over 200 teams that we have to turn away every year. That has caused many headaches and lost friendships that are not so good for business.
Not trying to argue anything, but this is one subject I happen to know something about.