Scouting HS Players in an Area

Area Scouts often have a large territory to cover.  Since they cant be everywhere at one time they rely on Associate Scouts and sometimes unofficial "bird dogs" to help them. 

While all area scouts are known to each other, there is no hard and fast rule for how they comminicate with each other. Area scouts change constantly - some may be there for years as others come and go. As such, long term guys develop friendships and may share some info, but still each of their respective opinions of players is proprietary. That having been said, when you sit amongst scouts you will find most (experienced) scouts to be a cynical bunch who will share info on the weaknesses of players before they share info on the strengths of players.

The way it really works is area scouts create a network of people who "tip" them about players. The network includes HS coaches, college coaches, associate scouts (aka bird dogs) who work for free unless a player is signed (then they get a few hundred dollars), local instructors, and even commercial batting cage owners - essentially anyone in  their area who has info on a potential prospect. (Note that some of the network is exclusive to the AS (associate scouts)  while the rest of the network isn't (e.g., college coaches who will seek out every scout to see their player).

Generally the longer a scout has an area, the more extensive the network; and the more extensive the network the easier it is to cover an area.

While there may be certain obvious hotbeds of talent (e.g., JUCOS which are baseball factories), an area scout's network will lead each to virtually every potential prospect in that area. (S played for a small High school which had a hard time fielding 9 reasonably competent players in a small school league likewise situated. I want to say that over his last season virtually every AS saw a game or three. His coach was a part of the "network" of the various AS's.)

No potential prospect in an area will go undiscovered. And while opinions are not fully shared, a pro prospect isnt that hard to spot and will be spotted and scouted regardless of their school. (So, while it may seem that the opinion of the few becomes the opinion of the many, in reality each is seeing the same skills and most will independently reach similar conclusions.)

Great post's above. Baseball people want to find good players. Baseball people want to help Coaches and players. Just because a kid is not a Draft guy or at least believed to be a draft guy that doesn't mean the information is not passed on. Many times college coaches are alerted about a player from a scout or associate scout who tips them off. Sometimes it is validation that they were right as well. Basically there is an entire network that works to find players, validate information, share information, etc etc. Some of the most valuable resources in a given area would surprise you. Being the type of person that people want to share information with goes a long way to your success. 

As Buddy Bell, who at the time was running the scouting organization for the White Sox, told me, "if a player is out there we will find them and know about them".  He went on to explain that a good scouting organization has feelers out everywhere as its their job.  Surprisingly to me he knew about my kids travel organization well enough to have passing knowledge of the team my son played on.