The Jacksonville Suns (AA Affiliate for the Florida Marlins) and the Montgomery Biscuits (AA Affiliate for the Tampa Bay Rays) just finished a 5 game series last night. As a part of my interest in becoming more acquainted with the scouting world I attended Games 1, 2, and 4 of the series. The Suns won Games 1 and 4 by scores of 3-2 and 6-2, while Montgomery took game 2 by the score of 9-3. However, any scout (or wannabe scout such as myself) will be quick to note that the results of any minor-league competition are far less important than the process that individual players show while at the plate, in the field, or on the mound. Similarly, the responsibilities of managers and assistant coaches at the minor-league levels are different than those of say Bruce Bochy, as minor-league coaches are more concerned with cultivating players' development (physical, mental, emotional) and preparing players for the rigors of playing high-quality professional baseball day in and day out. One thing that stood out to me in particular was the willingness of managers to let pitchers pitch through trouble. In all three of the games that I attended I noticed that the managers for both teams would tend let their relievers finish out innings regardless of batter-handedness and if the pitcher had been struggling with command. This rarely happens in MLB, unless the game is a blow out, but again these decisions show that managers are not as concerned with winning as they are about pitchers learning to get themselves out of trouble and face all kinds of hitters. Furthermore, such decisions allow scouts and player development personnel to evaluate and try to predict whether or not certain pitchers will cut it against RH or LH batters at the major-league level.
Although I tried to view these games as a scout would I must make note of the fact that I am not a scout. I'm sure people would be quick to tell me that I have little idea about true talent evaluation as I am only a blogger with 14 twitter followers, and for the most part they would be correct. However, I attended these games in order to become more accustomed to scouting a minor-league game and am only writing this blog to explain my observations and develop my scouting acumen.
I am usually very observant and even when I attended games as a "fan" I was constantly making observations about players, situations, talent level, etc., but attending the game as a "scout" has a whole different feel about it as one has to be constantly tuned in to every minute detail.In Games 1 and 2 of the series I sat down the RF line near the visitors bullpen. They were quality seats from a fan perspective as I was pretty close to the action, but it was difficult to scout position players while they were in the field, especially for an amateur like myself. Additionally, the radar gun at the stadium was not active so I could not get an entirely accurate assessment of pitch velocity. However, I still feel that I was able gain some valuable insight on players from both squads despite these minor limitations. Furthermore, towards the end of Game 2 I was able to view the last few innings from behind home plate so I was able to get a little better feel for what I was seeing. In Game 4 I decided to sit behind home-plate in a section where it was nearly only scouts. While at games 1 and 2 I noticed that there were very few scouts in attendance, but in Game 4 there were quite a bit more as they were on hand to see a solid pitching prospect for the MTG Biscuits perform in one of his first appearances at the AA level. Sitting behind home-plate in the scouting section made things a bit easier as I was able to peek at their radar guns and see the depth and movement of breaking pitches.
This entry was just an introduction (see title) as I just wanted to provide some insight into the games that I attended and explain the vantage points that I had for each game. As I have noted throughout, I am not a true scout and it would be foolish of me to play one at this point. Therefore in my next entry (the aptly named Pt. 2), in which I actually provide some observations on Suns and Biscuits players, I am going to do my best to avoid applying labels and grades to prospects (ex: plus arm or C+ prospect). I will also make note of works of established writers/scouts such as Kevin Goldstein, Jason Parks, and John Sickels to provide some background information and professional evaluation of "tools" in general and specific players.
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