Order a scout today, be there tomorrow???

2020dad posted:

I've known a lot of cops.  Got a lot of cop friends.  I back the badge...  however...  they too see what they want sometimes.  And they are not always fair minded.  I remember being out one night at a local watering hole with a few cop friends and them telling me how they were 'going to get' a friend of mine I taught and coached with.  I am not saying he was completely innocent but the point was they had their mind made up and they were out to get him.  So there was no objectivity left in them.  The mind is truly a powerful thing and if you expect to see something sometimes you will.  I still trust the machine.

As for some of the things you mention that cant be measured...  I would say not so fast.  Some of these things may very soon be able to be measured.  Now admittedly I am getting out of my realm here but medical science is showing more and more our DNA makes us what we are.  And in many cases its hard to ever change.  I can't walk away from a good debate like this (especially when it has been respectful like this has been - nice job everyone) its just who I am.  I have always liked to debate, its in my DNA.  Soon they will be able to diagnose all of this and you will know who can make it through a season or who is likely to have a better work ethic etc.  By the way - and I admit I have not researched this before opening mouth maybe I should have - but my memory tells me Lenny Dykstra when put to metrics was actually NOT a very effective player.  Am I wrong?  

As I said, context and credibility matter.

Your example of cops making a conscious choice not to be objective doesn't seem germane to this discussion. 

Re: Lenny Dykstra. A 13th round pick, his 42.2 WAR in 12 seasons indicate he was a very effective player. 

real green posted:

If we can define success as one complete season as a starter in the MLB, than what is the succes rate of draft rounds?  I would guess 1st round drafts have a higher success rates the 2nd round and so on.  It doesn't matter if the success is only 10% for 1st rounders as long as 2nd rounders are only 7% than the scouts did their job.  

Don't agree Real.  I would bet safely with doing no research at all that 1st round success is better than 2nd and 2nd better than 3rd etc.  At least it better be!!!  The question is man vs technology.  If technology would hit on 75% and scout on 50% in the first round then it is argument over.

Swampboy posted:

2020dad posted:

I've known a lot of cops.  Got a lot of cop friends.  I back the badge...  however...  they too see what they want sometimes.  And they are not always fair minded.  I remember being out one night at a local watering hole with a few cop friends and them telling me how they were 'going to get' a friend of mine I taught and coached with.  I am not saying he was completely innocent but the point was they had their mind made up and they were out to get him.  So there was no objectivity left in them.  The mind is truly a powerful thing and if you expect to see something sometimes you will.  I still trust the machine.

As for some of the things you mention that cant be measured...  I would say not so fast.  Some of these things may very soon be able to be measured.  Now admittedly I am getting out of my realm here but medical science is showing more and more our DNA makes us what we are.  And in many cases its hard to ever change.  I can't walk away from a good debate like this (especially when it has been respectful like this has been - nice job everyone) its just who I am.  I have always liked to debate, its in my DNA.  Soon they will be able to diagnose all of this and you will know who can make it through a season or who is likely to have a better work ethic etc.  By the way - and I admit I have not researched this before opening mouth maybe I should have - but my memory tells me Lenny Dykstra when put to metrics was actually NOT a very effective player.  Am I wrong?  

As I said, context and credibility matter.

Your example of cops making a conscious choice not to be objective doesn't seem germane to this discussion. 

Re: Lenny Dykstra. A 13th round pick, his 42.2 WAR in 12 seasons indicate he was a very effective player. 

I feel its germane because I believe scouts go in with preconceptions and biases.  Not that they are bad people - we all have biases as in the type of player we prefer.  We may be right and we may be wrong but we have preconceptions and its hard as heck to keep those under control and be objective.

I do not know  much about WAR, but if I were a GM I would!  Does it take modern fielding metrics into consideration?

Swampboy posted:

SanDiegoRealist posted:

Swampboy posted:

The fact that eyewitness testimony can often be wrong does not mean courts shouldn't admit it at all.

The fact that subjective insights and observations can often be wrong does not mean baseball executives should banish them altogether from their consideration.

A wiser approach is to attempt to understand the value and limits of each kind of information.

Exactly! Which is why the probative weight (value) of eye witness testimony is much less than objective evidence that can be scientifically proven (DNA). This supports 2020's and 2019's arguement. This case has been decided in favor of the plaintiffs, 2020 and 2019!

Exactly wrong.

Some kinds of eyewitness testimony are notoriously unreliable; others can be highly reliable.

Witnesses trying to describe and identify a subject seen only briefly and in surprising circumstances can report wildly different and conflicting information. 

However, the eyewitness testimony of a trained, experienced, dispassionate observer, such as a police officer describing what he saw, heard and smelled in the course of a drunk driving arrest can often make the difference in obtaining a conviction.

Context and credibility matter.

When Buck O'Neil watched Bo Jackson's first batting practice with the Royals and told a colleague he had only heard the ball come off the bat with the same sound from two other hitters--Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson--he provided rare historical perspective beyond the grasp of technology about Bo Jackson's value.

You would have blown him off because you don't have any bat sound metrics and you think if it's not in your toolkit, it must not be worth knowing.

I continue to maintain that some observations in some circumstances can complement the objective information available in determining the potential of players: how quickly and how well they make decisions, whether a gifted athlete will put in the work to develop and maintain his gifts, how well a player reacts and improvises, how natural and coordinated movements are, how badly a player wants to play and win, how a player handles adversity, whether a player has physical and mental toughness to endure an MLB season, how coachable a player is, whether a player has a high baseball IQ.

You do not, and that makes you an extremist who willingly blinds himself to the possibility that anything he cannot put in a spreadsheet might be worth knowing. 

And by the way, what kind of kangaroo court do you think you're running where you get to appoint yourself judge, argue the case for one of the sides, and peremptorily cut off the discussion? 

Let me close by noting the irony of the Michael Lewis citation by one of the parties you favor. Go back and read Moneyball. Billy Beane is the player your methodology picks based on metrics alone. His minor league roommate Lenny Dykstra is the player you'd pass on because his confidence, mental focus, and competitive zeal don't have numbers attached to them.

In TODAY'S environment his exit speed would have been recorded, objectively, rendering the anecdotal reference by a. Scout moot.

Swampboy posted:

SanDiegoRealist posted:

Swampboy posted:

The fact that eyewitness testimony can often be wrong does not mean courts shouldn't admit it at all.

The fact that subjective insights and observations can often be wrong does not mean baseball executives should banish them altogether from their consideration.

A wiser approach is to attempt to understand the value and limits of each kind of information.

Exactly! Which is why the probative weight (value) of eye witness testimony is much less than objective evidence that can be scientifically proven (DNA). This supports 2020's and 2019's arguement. This case has been decided in favor of the plaintiffs, 2020 and 2019!

Exactly wrong.

Some kinds of eyewitness testimony are notoriously unreliable; others can be highly reliable.

Witnesses trying to describe and identify a subject seen only briefly and in surprising circumstances can report wildly different and conflicting information. 

However, the eyewitness testimony of a trained, experienced, dispassionate observer, such as a police officer describing what he saw, heard and smelled in the course of a drunk driving arrest can often make the difference in obtaining a conviction.

Context and credibility matter.

When Buck O'Neil watched Bo Jackson's first batting practice with the Royals and told a colleague he had only heard the ball come off the bat with the same sound from two other hitters--Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson--he provided rare historical perspective beyond the grasp of technology about Bo Jackson's value.

You would have blown him off because you don't have any bat sound metrics and you think if it's not in your toolkit, it must not be worth knowing.

I continue to maintain that some observations in some circumstances can complement the objective information available in determining the potential of players: how quickly and how well they make decisions, whether a gifted athlete will put in the work to develop and maintain his gifts, how well a player reacts and improvises, how natural and coordinated movements are, how badly a player wants to play and win, how a player handles adversity, whether a player has physical and mental toughness to endure an MLB season, how coachable a player is, whether a player has a high baseball IQ.

You do not, and that makes you an extremist who willingly blinds himself to the possibility that anything he cannot put in a spreadsheet might be worth knowing. 

And by the way, what kind of kangaroo court do you think you're running where you get to appoint yourself judge, argue the case for one of the sides, and peremptorily cut off the discussion? 

Let me close by noting the irony of the Michael Lewis citation by one of the parties you favor. Go back and read Moneyball. Billy Beane is the player your methodology picks based on metrics alone. His minor league roommate Lenny Dykstra is the player you'd pass on because his confidence, mental focus, and competitive zeal don't have numbers attached to them.

I was joking about deciding the case, swampboy. Simmer down big fella. 

Just to be clear, what I was saying -- and what Daryl Morey said in that book -- is not that scouts have no value. It's just that we have to be aware of the biases and cognitive errors that all humans are subject to. Blindly trusting "experts" is not the way forward. But that does not mean that there is no value in scouting.

The chapter in that book gives two germane examples: (1) Marc Gasol, who was rated very highly by Morey's model and low by scouts, turned out to be a fantastic player; (2) DeAndre Jordan, who was rated poorly by Morey's model and highly by scouts, also turned out to be a fantastic player. It's not so simple.

And I agree with Screwball. You don't need an expert to tell you that Hunter Greene is a good prospect for the 2017 draft. It is the out of consensus call that provides value. Think of a money manager -- if all he does is match the market, why are you paying him? It would be cheaper to just buy an index fund. And most money managers -- indeed nearly all -- can't beat the market over a long time period. And they are experts, with years of experience in their field. That doesn't mean you'd hire a novice to manage your money (or a novice surgeon to perform your operation, etc.). But it does mean that you should be aware of the limitations of their expertise.

Think of it this way: half of all scouts are below average at their jobs. 

2019Dad posted:

Just to be clear, what I was saying -- and what Daryl Morey said in that book -- is not that scouts have no value. It's just that we have to be aware of the biases and cognitive errors that all humans are subject to. Blindly trusting "experts" is not the way forward. But that does not mean that there is no value in scouting.

The chapter in that book gives two germane examples: (1) Marc Gasol, who was rated very highly by Morey's model and low by scouts, turned out to be a fantastic player; (2) DeAndre Jordan, who was rated poorly by Morey's model and highly by scouts, also turned out to be a fantastic player. It's not so simple.

And I agree with Screwball. You don't need an expert to tell you that Hunter Greene is a good prospect for the 2017 draft. It is the out of consensus call that provides value. Think of a money manager -- if all he does is match the market, why are you paying him? It would be cheaper to just buy an index fund. And most money managers -- indeed nearly all -- can't beat the market over a long time period. And they are experts, with years of experience in their field. That doesn't mean you'd hire a novice to manage your money (or a novice surgeon to perform your operation, etc.). But it does mean that you should be aware of the limitations of their expertise.

Think of it this way: half of all scouts are below average at their jobs. 

Have read a few articles about how one's investments (401-k type stuff) might best be managed by a robo adviser.  Sounds really scary, but if the fees start approaching zero and the returns are close to market returns (which is quite doable with these models), the the lower fees actually result in a higher net return.

2020dad posted:

real green posted:

If we can define success as one complete season as a starter in the MLB, than what is the succes rate of draft rounds?  I would guess 1st round drafts have a higher success rates the 2nd round and so on.  It doesn't matter if the success is only 10% for 1st rounders as long as 2nd rounders are only 7% than the scouts did their job.  

Don't agree Real.  I would bet safely with doing no research at all that 1st round success is better than 2nd and 2nd better than 3rd etc.  At least it better be!!!  The question is man vs technology.  If technology would hit on 75% and scout on 50% in the first round then it is argument over.

^^^^^^^^

Read more at http://www.baseballamerica.com...#eGAX6IIo4jYI0b33.99

only half of all second rounders even sniff mlb and 16% play 3 years or more.  That is an awful record that would get people in any other business fired.  If technology cant do better than that I would be shocked.

SanDiegoRealist posted:

2020dad posted:

real green posted:

If we can define success as one complete season as a starter in the MLB, than what is the succes rate of draft rounds?  I would guess 1st round drafts have a higher success rates the 2nd round and so on.  It doesn't matter if the success is only 10% for 1st rounders as long as 2nd rounders are only 7% than the scouts did their job.  

Don't agree Real.  I would bet safely with doing no research at all that 1st round success is better than 2nd and 2nd better than 3rd etc.  At least it better be!!!  The question is man vs technology.  If technology would hit on 75% and scout on 50% in the first round then it is argument over.

^^^^^^^^

Whatever the definition of success really is is irrelevant in my opinion.  The pool of players is the same for all scouts.  What is a scouts job?  To evaluate the talent within the pool.  The organization takes those evaluations and determines which meets the organizations needs.  Of course I am so far away from the nuts and bolts my view is pretty ignorant.  I would guess the most valuable guy in an organization is the guy that reviews the evaluations and can see 5 moves ahead the value of a draft pick for his organization.  For example, a trade two years down the road that involves this years 3rd pick.  

Is there really that much talent difference between the 50th pick and the 60th pick?  Or the 5th and 10th?  It's really dependent on the needs of the organization.  Are scouts missing much of anything?  Can we really argue that technology at some point will be able to "find" a measurement that bumps a player from the 300th pick to a top 20?

Than of course that 6th tool that is missing in sabermetrics and the 5 tools has to be also considered which a have a hard time believing.  

you know a depressing thought entered my mind...  We are focusing on identifying top talent...  What if science gets so exact they can test you when you are 10 and tell you that 82mph is the max you could ever throw no matter what you did?  And you love baseball..  and you know it isnt going to end well...  depressing.  Maybe technology isn't always the best thing...  As we continue to crack the genetic code less and less is left to mystery.

2020dad posted:

only half of all second rounders even sniff mlb and 16% play 3 years or more.  That is an awful record that would get people in any other business fired.  If technology cant do better than that I would be shocked.

There is only a finite number of available spots to fill.  It's impossible to expect greater numbers as a pool.  You would have to compare a specific scouts success to another.  If scout A recommendations for 2nd round draft made it 11% of the time and scout B's made it 19% of the time than scout A is performing below average.   

2020dad posted:

you know a depressing thought entered my mind...  We are focusing on identifying top talent...  What if science gets so exact they can test you when you are 10 and tell you that 82mph is the max you could ever throw no matter what you did?  And you love baseball..  and you know it isnt going to end well...  depressing.  Maybe technology isn't always the best thing...  As we continue to crack the genetic code less and less is left to mystery.

I hope a computer doesn't start assigning life time job assignments at age 10

2017LHPscrewball posted:

2019Dad posted:

Just to be clear, what I was saying -- and what Daryl Morey said in that book -- is not that scouts have no value. It's just that we have to be aware of the biases and cognitive errors that all humans are subject to. Blindly trusting "experts" is not the way forward. But that does not mean that there is no value in scouting.

The chapter in that book gives two germane examples: (1) Marc Gasol, who was rated very highly by Morey's model and low by scouts, turned out to be a fantastic player; (2) DeAndre Jordan, who was rated poorly by Morey's model and highly by scouts, also turned out to be a fantastic player. It's not so simple.

And I agree with Screwball. You don't need an expert to tell you that Hunter Greene is a good prospect for the 2017 draft. It is the out of consensus call that provides value. Think of a money manager -- if all he does is match the market, why are you paying him? It would be cheaper to just buy an index fund. And most money managers -- indeed nearly all -- can't beat the market over a long time period. And they are experts, with years of experience in their field. That doesn't mean you'd hire a novice to manage your money (or a novice surgeon to perform your operation, etc.). But it does mean that you should be aware of the limitations of their expertise.

Think of it this way: half of all scouts are below average at their jobs. 

Have read a few articles about how one's investments (401-k type stuff) might best be managed by a robo adviser.  Sounds really scary, but if the fees start approaching zero and the returns are close to market returns (which is quite doable with these models), the the lower fees actually result in a higher net return.

They're called equity index funds.  No stock picker analyst, just statisticians and actuaries.  A fund tracks the performance of a group of stocks (dow industrials, Wilshire 2000 etc,)  Expenses are much lower.  Trades are only made within the fund to match the indices.  Management expenses are between .0025 to .005 compared to the 2%-3% load of a heavily managed and traded fund.  My 401k has been in only index funds for about 25 years. Around 12% of publicly held stocks are held by equity index funds and their hybrids.

real green posted:

SanDiegoRealist posted:

2020dad posted:

real green posted:

If we can define success as one complete season as a starter in the MLB, than what is the succes rate of draft rounds?  I would guess 1st round drafts have a higher success rates the 2nd round and so on.  It doesn't matter if the success is only 10% for 1st rounders as long as 2nd rounders are only 7% than the scouts did their job.  

Don't agree Real.  I would bet safely with doing no research at all that 1st round success is better than 2nd and 2nd better than 3rd etc.  At least it better be!!!  The question is man vs technology.  If technology would hit on 75% and scout on 50% in the first round then it is argument over.

^^^^^^^^

Whatever the definition of success really is is irrelevant in my opinion.  The pool of players is the same for all scouts.  What is a scouts job?  To evaluate the talent within the pool.  The organization takes those evaluations and determines which meets the organizations needs.  Of course I am so far away from the nuts and bolts my view is pretty ignorant.  I would guess the most valuable guy in an organization is the guy that reviews the evaluations and can see 5 moves ahead the value of a draft pick for his organization.  For example, a trade two years down the road that involves this years 3rd pick.  

Is there really that much talent difference between the 50th pick and the 60th pick?  Or the 5th and 10th?  It's really dependent on the needs of the organization.  Are scouts missing much of anything?  Can we really argue that technology at some point will be able to "find" a measurement that bumps a player from the 300th pick to a top 20?

Than of course that 6th tool that is missing in sabermetrics and the 5 tools has to be also considered which a have a hard time believing.  

 

Taking this '6th' tool thing seriously...  Yes it will be able to be measured.  Again we are cracking the DNA chain and part of that is the guy predisoposed to working hard vs the lazy one.  The injury prone vs. the non injury prone.  We have to step out of our comfort zone here.  What if you told someone in 1850 that we would be able to do this thing called an ultra sound to tell you if you are having a boy or a girl?  That  you could take a small sample from the womb to tell you if the child has birth defects?  That we have discovered galaxies a jillion miles away?  Ever watch MI movies?  Look it up, most of that technology really exists.  Some of it is not as powerful as made out in the movies but soon will be.  Like the gloes to scale a skyscraper.  Those are a real thing!!  Probably within 20 years we will be able to take a blood sample or something and tell that 10 year old how hard his body can throw a baseball at full maturity.  Then when there is that guy with the capability to throw 97 but is a little lazy and currently throwing 89 vs the guy throwing 91 who is capable of 92 but he is that gritty grinding hard worker with the '6th' tool....  guess who's going to get drafted?  Maybe its because scouts have focused on the '6th' tool so much that only 16% of 2nd round choices play at least three years in mlb.  Maybe they should spit the tobacco out and get in the computer lab!!!

2017LHPscrewball posted:

2020dad posted:

you know a depressing thought entered my mind...  We are focusing on identifying top talent...  What if science gets so exact they can test you when you are 10 and tell you that 82mph is the max you could ever throw no matter what you did?  And you love baseball..  and you know it isnt going to end well...  depressing.  Maybe technology isn't always the best thing...  As we continue to crack the genetic code less and less is left to mystery.

I hope a computer doesn't start assigning life time job assignments at age 10

Agreed, but what if it could?

SanDiegoRealist posted:

I was joking about deciding the case, swampboy. Simmer down big fella. 

I know. I was joking around, too. Sorry it wasn't clear. If I'd said it in person over a beer, there'd have been no misunderstanding. This is all in good fun.

2020dad posted:

only half of all second rounders even sniff mlb and 16% play 3 years or more.  That is an awful record that would get people in any other business fired.  If technology cant do better than that I would be shocked.

This is completely ignoring the nature of the business model and the nature of the life cycle of a baseball player.  It is nature of the beast that numbers brought in are high and numbers that succeed are low, regardless of whether man or machine is driving the decision making process (as 2019dad illustrated).

Some of my work is connected to outbound sales methodology.  I am frequently exposed to seminars, demonstrations, presentations, etc. of the latest practices, business models and yes, technological software tools.  Cold calling for most industries, by nature of the business, has a low success rate.  The numbers can appear disgustingly bleak to an outsider.  For many industries, just call response (let alone a successful sale) is less than 10%.  Technology offers great opportunity for increased efficiency and higher success.  But, in practice, the increase is often only a few percentage points.  While, on the other hand, if you don't have highly competent people there to handle those calls and convert them into sales, the drop in success is significantly more staggering.

I repeat, technology is an awesome tool.  Let's not discount the value of dedicated experienced professionals.

2020dad posted:

real green posted:

SanDiegoRealist posted:

2020dad posted:

real green posted:

If we can define success as one complete season as a starter in the MLB, than what is the succes rate of draft rounds?  I would guess 1st round drafts have a higher success rates the 2nd round and so on.  It doesn't matter if the success is only 10% for 1st rounders as long as 2nd rounders are only 7% than the scouts did their job.  

Don't agree Real.  I would bet safely with doing no research at all that 1st round success is better than 2nd and 2nd better than 3rd etc.  At least it better be!!!  The question is man vs technology.  If technology would hit on 75% and scout on 50% in the first round then it is argument over.

^^^^^^^^

Whatever the definition of success really is is irrelevant in my opinion.  The pool of players is the same for all scouts.  What is a scouts job?  To evaluate the talent within the pool.  The organization takes those evaluations and determines which meets the organizations needs.  Of course I am so far away from the nuts and bolts my view is pretty ignorant.  I would guess the most valuable guy in an organization is the guy that reviews the evaluations and can see 5 moves ahead the value of a draft pick for his organization.  For example, a trade two years down the road that involves this years 3rd pick.  

Is there really that much talent difference between the 50th pick and the 60th pick?  Or the 5th and 10th?  It's really dependent on the needs of the organization.  Are scouts missing much of anything?  Can we really argue that technology at some point will be able to "find" a measurement that bumps a player from the 300th pick to a top 20?

Than of course that 6th tool that is missing in sabermetrics and the 5 tools has to be also considered which a have a hard time believing.  

 

Taking this '6th' tool thing seriously...  Yes it will be able to be measured.  Again we are cracking the DNA chain and part of that is the guy predisoposed to working hard vs the lazy one.  The injury prone vs. the non injury prone.  We have to step out of our comfort zone here.  What if you told someone in 1850 that we would be able to do this thing called an ultra sound to tell you if you are having a boy or a girl?  That  you could take a small sample from the womb to tell you if the child has birth defects?  That we have discovered galaxies a jillion miles away?  Ever watch MI movies?  Look it up, most of that technology really exists.  Some of it is not as powerful as made out in the movies but soon will be.  Like the gloes to scale a skyscraper.  Those are a real thing!!  Probably within 20 years we will be able to take a blood sample or something and tell that 10 year old how hard his body can throw a baseball at full maturity.  Then when there is that guy with the capability to throw 97 but is a little lazy and currently throwing 89 vs the guy throwing 91 who is capable of 92 but he is that gritty grinding hard worker with the '6th' tool....  guess who's going to get drafted?  Maybe its because scouts have focused on the '6th' tool so much that only 16% of 2nd round choices play at least three years in mlb.  Maybe they should spit the tobacco out and get in the computer lab!!!

Agreed that technology is racing forward so fast it's hard to grasp the possibilities.  The 6th tool is much more about the ability to accomplish a task in game situations.  As an example.  Player A runs a 6.5 60 and player B runs a 6.8 60.  What the number doesn't tell you is that player A can't get a good read off a pitcher, or the ball off the bat, or recognize RF is cheating the line, etc...  The 6th tool is not a measurable number, or at least not today.   

One final shot before I stop goofing off and get some work done.

Everyone who responded to examples of subjective talent discriminators by saying that x or y could be analyzed through DNA or detected by Star Trek sensors or was written about by some genius professor was implicitly conceding that actual scouts are the only source of such information until those new tools and techniques are deployed to the scouting community. 

P.S. I've seen more than a few scouts, but I've never seen one spit tobacco. And if I did, I wouldn't interpret it as a sign of defective scouting skills.

Agreed that technology is racing forward so fast it's hard to grasp the possibilities.  The 6th tool is much more about the ability to accomplish a task in game situations.  As an example.  Player A runs a 6.5 60 and player B runs a 6.8 60.  What the number doesn't tell you is that player A can't get a good read off a pitcher, or the ball off the bat, or recognize RF is cheating the line, etc...  The 6th tool is not a measurable number, or at least not today.   

Some of this stuff can be quantified in part today - thinking Trackman where a player's actual movement is tracked in relation to the ball.  Stolen bases will no longer be simply a number, but rather all stolen base attempts will have a group of measurements to go along with it that address pitcher's ability to hold the runner (time to plate) as well as the runners start time (where is the ball when he starts his attempt) and his speed and then perhaps his sliding ability on those where the ball is delivered appropriately (success rate at avoiding tag).  This is really today's technology that simply needs to be enhanced - and then perhaps made vastly less expensive such that it gets rolled at at lower and lower levels (eventually reaching t-ball such that inside the park homeruns can be better analyzed).

This won't work at a showcase type event as you would want as many observations as possible, but oer the course of 30-40 games, you should at least get a sense for many of these things.  Maybe less applicable to baserunning, but I have seen it used pretty extensively already on outfielders movements to the ball (the ability to "read the ball off the bat" is getting quantified at the MLB level).

I watched a HS Varsity game last night.  A player with good measurables that is missing that 6th tool.  Trying to beat out a throw on a ground ball to the 5-6 hole he slid into 1st base.  The ball was air mailed but by the time the dust settled and the runner got to his feet it was to late to advance to second.  If he would have been able to process more data while running down the line he would have easily advanced to second.  Next batter laid down a good bunt down 3rd baseline, R1 advanced to 2nd, 3rd was not covered but the runner didn't give himself a chance to take the next bag, again by the time he realized he had a shot at 3rd it was to late.  Next batter the pitcher spiked a curve ball in front of the plate that the catcher easily handled and threw out the runner trying to advance to third.  He had what I would call three running errors where another casual observer good have seen a player going all out and just running into bad luck may be even giving him a higher "6th tool" rating for being aggressive on the bases.  

Obviously the talent disparity of the 6th tool at the HS level is much greater than the pool of players drafted.  The disparity is much easier to see in HS.  I would argue a "good" scout can see the disparity between players much clearer than I when the measurables are very close. 

real green posted:

... Agreed that technology is racing forward so fast it's hard to grasp the possibilities.  The 6th tool is much more about the ability to accomplish a task in game situations...  The 6th tool is not a measurable number, or at least not today.   

... Obviously the talent disparity of the 6th tool at the HS level is much greater than the pool of players drafted.  The disparity is much easier to see in HS.  I would argue a "good" scout can see the disparity between players much clearer than I when the measurables are very close. 

There has been some solid observations here and some way out there. Real Green, IMHO, has touched the reality of scouting in his last two posts.

"The 6th tool is not a measurable number, or at least not today."

1. We are not likely to see Statcast (Trackman plus Video system) deployed at high school fields in our lifetime; certainly not in the next ten years. The cost is prohibitive and the net return too slight at this point.

2. The lesser product - Trackman/Flightscope type of systems - will/are being deployed more readily in upper level amateur tournament circuits, the true value of those systems has yet to be determined. True, players A, B, C etc recorded X, Y, Z data, but what is the true value of that data based on the variables? There is disagreement in the scientific community but there is enough agreement that there MAY be value so there has been limited deployment of Trackman in the NCAA. Perhaps we'll see a full roll out across D1 schools over the next 10 years. Doubtful, but perhaps.

"I would argue a "good" scout can see the disparity between players much clearer than I when the measurables are very close."

3. Perhaps we will see the extinction of area type scouts as we know them over the next 10 years. Clubs simply have no desire to 'find' U.S. talent anymore - talent either rises to the top in known events or the unknown kid down the street doesn't get found. Amateur non-professional 'scouting' networks are a definitively larger group - and run significantly deeper (to younger ages) today than just five years ago.. no need for area ground grunts, clubs argue, even if the output data from these groups is highly questionable.

4. Without consistent & reliable measurables available across amateur scouting services over a "good" scout's evaluation (ie: one combine has digital 60's with automated start times, the next combine has digital 60's but it starts the recording on the green light and not on movement, the next combine uses pro scouts with stopwatches, the next combine uses college players with stopwatches, etc // or even better yet, one service uses amateur employees to scout games and write up players, one service uses college players and those type of interns to scout and do write ups, another service might use ex-players or high school coaches, the next event may employ associate scouts, the next event may employ ex pro scouts, etc), bad data in = bad data out. 

Simply put, there is nothing available today that can replace a professional scout in the amateur world. Period. End of story. Science is evolving around the game but it is - at best - complimentary to professional scouting. Another tool to be used for consideration, if you will. And the lower the age you go in amateur baseball, the more this is true. 

But that's my 2cents.