Scouting questions

The frustrating part of the recruiting scheme is that you never know what the scouts see or like or dislike. They know what they are looking for. From my very marginal experience, it seems they are looking for character, poise and ability. How a player carries themselves, their athletism and grades are foremost. You can drive yourself crazy wondering. The clipboard guys with the radar guns are so fun to see...but you'll never know exactly what they see. We told our son..look like you want to play this game like it's the last game you'll ever play.

If a coach is interested in a player, he's not going to be "turned off" because of one lackluster game. Remember that these guys can recognize ability and talent beyond one poor performance. Also, they typically collect information from more than just one game that they're attending.

I know someone who continues to be mad years after their son has graduated because they wanted him to attend KY. KY's coach was at a game (actually watching another player), but the parents remain mad at the HS coach because their son didn't play and missed his chance to play for UK. It doesn't work like that unless you're a player not known by the coach and he happens to like what he sees and continues to follow you. Otherwise, recruiting is made up of steps and a coach looking at several different pieces. Sounds like there is no reason for this coach to not continue to follow your son IMO.

Scouts don't always come to watch a whole game. They may be there to see something they may have missed or give another report. This usually happens as draft approaches.

As far as great performances each time they come, they expect that most players have good days and bad days. This is usually true in the case of position players. They may have stellar days at the plate but in the same day, not get it done defensively or vice versa. You may think they are looking for stellar performances, but they most likely are looking for other things, for instance tools and those attributes mentioned above.

Lafmom, I know of a similar situation where a player was not seen by a coach he thought was coming to see him. The parent was so mad, he pulled his son from the team that day. We found out later the coach was not there to see him.

The bottom line is you never know what they are thinking, so just enjoy the experience and not worry about it.

TPM.. Like the new Cardinal moniker!

I agree with TPM, scouts are looking for present ability not necessarily present performance. Remember, the best MLB baseball teams that go to the playoffs win roughly only 60% of their games.

Don't be insulted or feel disrespected if a scout leaves. Scouts see in a few pitches or a couple of swings, or even in the infield warmups what they want to see. They do not have time to see a whole game, nor do they have to if they only came to see one or two players. Althugh its nice to have your son do well when the scouts are there, failure at the plate or a fielding miscue is not the key to recruiting. As other posters have stated, it is what happens after you fail or boot a ball that is important. One college coach told us he recruited a kid despite seeing him strike out 3 times in 2 separate games, because the at-bats were great, and he liked the kids approach. Obviously that coach had heard enough about the player to come see him play, and you can't strike out every time, but its an indication that PROJECTION is what scouts do best.

When I was a kid my dad would occasionally take me to a game while he was scouting. There are a few things I picked up from him over the years.

1. With pitchers he will put the radar gun on him during the first inning and focus on mechanics in the second without the gun. The gun comes back out for a few pitches in the third and then goes away until later innings if the pitcher gets that far. If my dad leaves early he has either seen enough or he's had enough. With pitchers it is very valuable for a scout to see the pitcher have a tough outing (not that anyone is hoping for this) to get a feel for how he does under pressure. Can he get out of the inning with runners in scoring position without giving up any runs? At the first sign of trouble does he huff and puff or dig in and pull out of it?

2. With position players it is very important to take infield/outfield warmups seriously. This may be the only time all day he will see a player field and throw (especially if he decides to leave early). The gold glove third baseman with a cannon for an arm may not have one ball hit to him, but if he works hard in warmups he's already given everyone a good look at his skills.

3. With batting my dad is not a believer that there is one right or wrong way to hit, so do what works best for you and do it well. Even if you go 0-3 on the day, how did you get out? Three strikeouts aren't real impressive. Neither are weakly hit grounders and popups. But if you ground out to the shortstop on a hard hit ball and hit a 350 ft. foul ball up the left field line, you have shown something.

I agree with the statement on projection. The question isn't, how good is this player? It's, how good is this player going to be?

Thanks so much for all your replies. It really helps me to understand what scouts are looking for and thinking. My son just got an email from the recruiting coordinator of aforementioned school and he said the coaching staff will be at son's next tourney to watch him play again, so I guess they haven't lost interest!