Let's Honor Scouts This Week

[Mass Haas]

From the Cincinnati Enquirer

Cushy job? Not if you're a scout

By Tom Groeschen

tgroeschen@enquirer.com

Chris Buckley, Reds senior director of scouting, figures he travels between 150 and 200 days a year.

 

Dodgers scout Marty Lamb said he drives an estimated 40,000 miles a year to watch baseball games.

 

Brian Hiler, a Cincinnati-based scout for the Kansas City Royals, said the scouting life is short on glamour and truly a labor of love.

 

"I can't remember the last time I sat down and ate a meal," Hiler said recently, speaking by phone from parts unknown. "There's a lot of motels, a lot of fast food. You don't see a lot of good, in-shape scouts."

 

Yet …

 

"I get paid a pretty good chunk just to be a part-time guy," Hiler said. "You have to love it."

 

Hiler recently had a day when he scouted a game in Vincennes, Ind., at 11 a.m., then drove five hours to somewhere in Ohio to see another game. Same day. Then, back to the hotel to write reports.

 

Buckley, who oversees the Reds' scouting of amateur players, was back in Cincinnati recently for just one day.

 

"Guess I'd better do some laundry," Buckley said.

 

Not seeing family

 

Lamb, who advanced to the rank of East Coast cross-checker for the Dodgers, opted to switch back to regional scouting this year because he was not seeing his family as much.

 

Lamb said his current gig scouting Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky and part of Indiana means 60 fewer travel days per year.

 

Lamb, married with three young children, is 43 years old. He is, like many scouts, a former player (Ventura, Calif., Junior College) who wanted to stay in the game.

 

"I'm not sure it's always the smartest route, all this travel," Lamb said. "If you do find (prospects) and they make it, you get that satisfaction."

 

No financial bonus, even if your player turns into Albert Pujols?

 

"You don't always get something for that, depending on the team," Lamb said. "Just the good feeling that you were a part of it."

 

Some teams do offer financial bonuses to scouts if a prospect makes it, depending on what level the player achieves.

 

Associate scouts, known variously also as area scouts or part-time scouts, usually get paid expenses and other compensation, depending on the organization.

 

Anecdotal evidence, interviews, Internet research and other sources say scouts above the part-time rank can start in at around $20,000 per year and that scouting directors for most teams top $100,000 per year.

 

Area scouts/part timers might not get much more than gas mileage and expenses.

 

Experience matters

 

The book "Inside Pitch," by former Detroit Tigers farmhand George Gmelch, said the Baltimore Orioles had a system in which they paid associate scouts $100 when their player was signed and kept on a roster for 90 days; another $100 if the player advanced to Double-A ball; $200 if he reached Triple-A; and $500 if he reached the majors.

 

Most scouts are men, with baseball a male-dominated industry consisting of many former players from various levels.

 

Teams such as the Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers have employed female scouts, but most scouts are predominantly male.

 

"It's a very hard business," the Reds' Buckley said. "Practical experience is pretty important."

 

Hiler, also general manager of the Cincinnati-based amateur powerhouse Midland Redskins, said it helps to have an understanding family.

 

"(Wife) Nora loves me," said Hiler, married with one child and another on the way. "I'm lucky."

 

Scouting involves lots of driving and, once you get there, lots of standing around.

 

If there is no room to stand behind the backstop, you might have the pleasure of sitting on those hard, back-wrenching high school bleachers.

 

You do sometimes get a virtual hero's welcome, when you pull up with the Juggs radar gun and your briefcase.

 

"The high school coaches almost always oversell their kids," Hiler said. "They're usually pretty glad to see you."

 

Guarding trade secrets

 

High school fans are sometimes atwitter when they notice a gaggle of scouts behind the backstop, which is usually the best vantage point to evaluate both hitters and pitchers.

 

Scouts generally wear windbreakers and/or polo shirts, sneakers or casual shoes. Some wear shirts or hats with their team's embroidered logos. Others go lower-key, with just a business card or maybe a team sticker attached to a briefcase.

 

Rarely do scouts talk to the media, at least for the record. Some scouts interviewed for these Enquirer stories had to get approval from their teams before commenting.

 

Trade secrets are guarded with a Fort Knox-like air. Are the Cubs scouting that guy up in Indiana? Are the Brewers on that guy from Kentucky? How many guys were scouting that CovCath-Beechwood regional title game?

 

Tom Keefe, who scouts parts of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been in the business for 17 years.

 

"I employ the total-immersion theory," Keefe said. "I go to as many baseball games as I can, to try to get a feel for what's out there."

 

Keefe is also proof that someone need not be a baseball lifer to be a baseball scout.

 

Keefe played Knothole ball before gravitating to swimming at St. Xavier High School, where he still is an assistant varsity swim coach. Keefe also is vice president/general counsel for Patriot Signage, a Northern Kentucky-based firm.

 

Keefe returned to baseball in the early 1990s as a college summer league administrator and was urged to get into scouting by friends such as former UC assistant coach and current Moeller assistant Mike Jones.

 

"Over time, you can begin to identify players and build a database," Keefe said. "You learn what to watch for in players, their makeup, how they react in certain situations."

 

Keefe, one of the more visible scouts on the Cincinnati scene, also meets and greets as many local high school coaches as he can.

 

Keefe was involved in the scouting process for Chad Billingsley, the current Dodgers pitching ace from Defiance, Ohio.

 

Yet Keefe, who also has scouted for the Florida Marlins, also found it rewarding when he recommended former Western Hills High pitcher Mike McNutt in the early 2000s.

 

McNutt had little fanfare, with a radar pitching speed in the upper 70s out of high school. He went on to the College of Mount St. Joseph, where Keefe continued to see something. McNutt eventually reached the Triple-A professional level.

 

"He ended up being a low-90s (mph) guy," Keefe said. "It doesn't take a great baseball mind to determine Junior Griffey was a good athlete. Evaluating the guys that don't necessarily stand out, then seeing them progress … it's really gratifying."

 

Moving up the chain

 

Once an area scout identifies a player, he might recommend the player to his scouting supervisor.

 

In Keefe's case, that supervisor is Lamb, who has been a Dodgers East Coast cross-checker among several roles with the club.

 

"Guys like Tom Keefe are invaluable because they know so many people," Lamb said.

 

If a player merits more than a look-see, Lamb notifies the Dodgers' office. Meetings upon meetings, data upon data, printouts upon printouts, and then comes the draft each June.

 

Lamb, with Keefe's help, made the call on Billingsley right before the 2003 draft.

 

One of Keefe's assignments was simply to attend one of Billingsley's final starts and report which other clubs were there scouting. Billingsley wound up going in the first round (24th overall).

 

"We got that one right, but sometimes you don't always get the chance to pick the guy you want," Lamb said.

 

Most drafted players will not make it to the majors. Only 5.6 percent of high school players will even play in college, and only 0.5 percent of high school seniors are drafted by major-league teams.

 

The odds are slim, but the scouts keep chasing.

 

"It's a grind out there," Lamb said. "Some guys can make it, some can't, and that's what you've got to try to figure out. You try to make an educated guess with athleticism, tools and makeup, but with 18-year-olds, you just don't know.

 

"It's a high-stakes poker game, and only the strong survive."