Eight Lessons from My Long Weekend as an Impostor Scout

Between last Friday and this most recent Wednesday, the author visited the greater Phoenix area with a view towards watching Arizona Fall League games and, with the help of lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel — as well as other FanGraphs contributor Eric Longenhagen — to better understand how to perform evaluations of baseball prospects. Between the tutelage of those two and a small collection of strangers who mistakenly talked to me of their own volition, I’ve left Phoenix with a deeper (if still mostly imperfect) understanding of prospect analysis and its various challenges.

What follows is a collection of eight lessons from that visit, of varying degrees of merit and arranged in senseless order.

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1. Batting practice is an ideal opportunity for grading raw power.
By the end of their respective batting-practice rounds, most players are swinging at maximum effort or close to it — and, in many cases, harder than they might otherwise swing during games. This serves as an opportune moment to get a sense of the raw power each player possesses. For certain players — particularly those for whom power is an integral component of their overall offensive value — raw power might be roughly equivalent to game power. For those who possess more of a contact-oriented approach, that raw power is unlikely to appear in game play.

Here’s a rough guide to batted-ball locations during BP and how they translate to raw power on the 20-80 scouting scale:

Raw Power 2

The indicators here are for a right-handed batter. If he hits the ball just over the fence down the left-field line, that’s an example of roughly 40 power; to the left-field alley, about 45 power; to the deepest part of center field (but not over the fence), that’s a 50; over the fence to center, a 60. One makes adjustments based on the distance by which the ball clears the fence.

McDaniel and I saw left-batting Tigers prospect Steven Moya, during the AFL All-Star BP, hit balls comfortably to deep left-center field without utilizing any sort of stride at all — and over the center-field fence by some distance at points later in his BP session. He exhibited something like 70 power on the 20-80 scale.

One should note, of course, that this rubric doesn’t apply to balls hit in a game and, moreover, is just a guide. A number of other factors (size of the stadium, effort in the swing, wind conditions, recent injuries, etc.) require one to make adjustments on the assessment of raw power. This represents merely a strong starting place.

2. Grading a fastball, on the most basic level, isn’t entirely complicated.
There are mitigating factors, but the fastball grade (on the 20-80 scouting scale, where 50 is major-league average) is based largely on velocity, according to the following rubric.

Grade MPH
20 84-
25 85
30 86
35 87
40 88
45 89
50 90-91
55 92
60 93
65 94
70 95
75 96
80 97+

As is the case with the raw-power rubric above, this oughtn’t be regarded as the end of the conversation. Scouts will make adjustments up or down based on the relevant pitcher’s command and movement and deception — or will otherwise make it clear in their reports how those qualities (or the lack of them) influence the effectiveness of the fastball in question. Again, though, this is a good foundation.

3. It’s not necessary, but highly advised, to wear a synthetic polo.
One isn’t technically required to wear any sort of uniform whilst performing the duties of a scout. That said, a number of scouts at the Arizona Fall League — and in deference to practical concerns, most likely — appeared to favor something which I believe is known as a “performance polo.” This is a collared, short-sleeve shirt made from some manner of material designed to “wick away” moisture. Unfortunately, I do not own this kind of shirt and was unable to wick away anything over my four-plus days in Arizona. Fortunately, the temperature was quite reasonable for the duration of my stay, and I was allowed to proceed in general comfort.

4. When grading a secondary pitch, consider its margin for error.
This past Monday, I watched left-handed Angels prospect Nate Smith induce a number of swinging strikes by means of a changeup which, in many cases, exhibited almost exclusively vertical — and no horizontal — break. While the pitches were effective in and of themselves, it was suggested to me that, when pondering what sort of grade to put on Smith’s changeup, that I should also consider what might happen were Smith to miss up in the zone with it. Because it featured just one plane of break (depth, in this case), the margin of error for this version of Smith’s changeup was much smaller. So, even if the pitch registered as a 55 or 60 at its very best, it resembled more of a 30 in such cases as Smith accidentally located it up in the zone. Ideally, Smith would throw more of those changeups which also exhibited some manner of armside horizontal break, thus making him less susceptible to hard contact.

5. When grading a secondary pitch, consider the rest of the repertoire.
Just as Smith doesn’t always repeat the best version of his changeup, neither does right-handed White Sox prospect Francellis Montas necessarily always produce the best-case scenario of his slider. Despite the fact that both pitchers are contending with some manner of weakness, however, doesn’t necessarily render both situations entirely analogous. For while Smith sits at about 87-90 mph with his fastball, that’s also more or less the range in which Montas throws his slider — while his fastball, on the other hand, sits more in the mid-to-high 90s area. Because hitters are forced to contend with the prospect of Montas’s fastball, his slider needn’t be as fine for it to be effective.

6. Not every scout is terrifying.
At the start of the second of his Duino Elegies, late Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke declares that “every angel is terrifying.” While I would have previously said much the same about scouts, that appears to be not entirely the case. For example, on Monday, it became abundantly clear that I hadn’t entirely mastered the art of measuring home-to-first run times with a stopwatch when I recorded a time of 4.0 seconds for Angels prospect Chad Hinshaw. For a right-handed batter, a four-second run time from home to first is equivalent to an 80-grade for speed. While Hinshaw has produced some above-average stolen-base totals, for example, he’s not a elite in this regard. Indeed, others around me measured his time at about 4.2 seconds.

Having already noticed how I’m an idiot — but at least the harmless kind of idiot — a real-live pro scout sitting in front of me provided an impromptu lesson on how to refine my stopwatch skills. “Here,” he said, “during this next pitcher’s warmup tosses, start your watch when the catcher receives the ball and stop it when the pitcher catches the toss back.” He led me through this exercise a number of times, comparing his time to mine until such a point as it appeared I’d become slightly less incompetent in this particular area.

7. Bring snacks.
Because there are six teams in the Arizona Fall League, most days feature three games — two generally scheduled for an earlier time (12:35pm local time) and one a later (6:35pm). As such, it’s possible — and, indeed, common — to watch two whole games in one day, starting with the home-team batting practice for the first game at 10:00am and ending with the last pitch of the second game (at around 9:00pm). Because there’s hardly any down time and ballpark food is famous neither for its friendly prices nor overwhelming health, one is advised to pack a collection of easily transported comestibles such as peanuts or high-quality beef jerky.

8. Use the word “shoved” in a sentence, if possible.
Were one to have attended tonight’s Mark Appel’s start last night against Mesa and saw Mark Appel dominate his opponents during that same game, it would have been appropriate in scouting parlance to say that Appel had “shoved.” It’s possible, McDaniel thinks, that this is a truncation of the very colorful expression “to shove up one’s ass.” Regardless of the specific origins, the idea is that the one doing the shoving has acquitted himself nicely.

So far as employing the term among others, it’s probably best to use restraint — a concept of some difficulty for the present author. I, for example, had to resist the urge on a number of occasions to say that this or that pitcher, after having thrown one or two decent innings, had shoved. Poor form, is what that would have been.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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Pirates Hurdles
9 years ago

For point 8, I recommend Tony Sanchez’s twitter fee (@tony26montana).

Ex. “SHOVE sesh brought to you by @BCumpton:

Ex. “Volquez was throwing Donkey Fuzz”