All –
I had an interesting thing happen today. I was invited to a sales presentation at US Cellular Field by a vendor we do business with. They invited a really small group of people (about 25). Part of the draw to get us down there was BP on the field. What I didn’t realize was that I was going to get the chance to have a conversation with Buddy Bell. For those of you who are unaware Buddy is now the VP in charge of player development and scouting for the White Sox. We actually spent some time talking about youth sports and MLB scouting. I found what he had to say pretty interesting and figured I would pass along what we talked about.
-Kids today coming up are way “over coached”.
What he meant by this was they specialize way too early and don’t spend enough time playing the game to have fun. He said this is causing some problems at the MLB level in that it’s harder and harder to work with players and get them to make changes to the way they do things. He also mentioned that some kids are passed over when the scouts see them because after investigating the player they find out he has been playing travel baseball and pitching 365 days a year since the kid was 6. When they find people like this they tend to lack upside. His basic advice was to let kids be kids and play for fun. If in HS they want to start specializing then middle HS is about the right time. If they are good enough the scouts will find them. He also stressed the importance of playing multiple sports or taking some time off every year to “be a kid”.
-MLB scouts will find you if you are good enough.
Each team has 35-40 scouts working for them. They are afraid of overlooking a player. Many of them do not want an owner to find out about a player before them or they are fearful that they may have missed someone who is being drafted by another team. He said they are looking pretty much everywhere. You may not know it but they may be at the local park watching a LL game just to make sure they did not miss anyone.
-Stats don’t matter to them.
Yes they see the stats and it may attract them to take a second look at a player but they really don’t care about stats. As he said “if they are a good enough player the stats will take care of themselves”. If they do look at a stat it’s the ratio of innings pitched to number of strike outs. The only other thing that they really pay attention to (but barely) is number of ground outs and pop outs. As far as a batter goes the only stat they pay attention to is OBP. They don’t really care how you get on base but they want you on base.
-They start noticing kids as young as 14U.
They will take notice of some kids at 14U. It may not be the stud pitcher or yaya hitter everyone around the neighborhood is talking about. It maybe the more athletic kid on the team or the fastest, etc. Though for the most part they will not really take notice of kids until they are middle to end of HS.
-They do look at MLB scouting combines and showcases
No big news here but they do watch these things.
-Size matters
Most likely they are going to pass on a 5’6” kid who is hitting bombs. He basically said sorry but size does matter.
