BA covers scouting in a trio of pieces

[TheCrew07]

Top 10 Future Scouting Directors

 

Scouting Is Only Part Of The Equation

edit. Here's the Brewers' portion.

The Brewers' manager of amateur scouting, Amanda Kropp, has similar responsibilities. She doesn't book travel for the scouts, but she does help manage their expenses while they're on the road. She also helps scouting director Bruce Seid coordinate scheduling, looking for the best matchups and keeping tabs on the weather so Seid and his crosscheckers can decide where to go.

 

"It gets pretty crazy at the end of March, early April, just trying to stay on top of it," Kropp said. "With the high school season kicking in, the player reports are really coming in. The offseason is much slower, which is good for that balance, but I also handle our college scholarship program, for any player that may have been awarded that. So that usually is very busy in the summer and early fall with registration."

 

Kropp also takes in and organizes the video that scouts send in and works closely with Tod Johnson, the Brewers' assistant director of baseball research for scouting, does statistical analysis on college players, looking for trends and similarities to players in the past. The Brewers' draft room is equipped with several SMART Boards, and Johnson's goal for this year is to eliminate the regular magnets with player names and replace them with movable names on interactive touch screens.

 

"We do our own park factors and I do my own strength of schedule stuff," Johnson said. "And then just some analytical analysis of what types of previous performances have resulted in guys who were successful at the professional level. Just trying to understand the stats and then putting them into correct context with the new bats, the parks, competition and all those various other things. That's just a piece and a tool that we use here to come up with questions to ask."

 

Before joining the Brewers, Johnson spent nearly five years at Microsoft. He started out in Milwaukee's information technology department and showed a knack for statistical analysis., and he got involved with the baseball side of things at the urging of former assistant scouting director Tony Blengino. The Brewers sent him to scout school in 2008, when he was still in the IT department.

 

"It was a great thing for me to kind of get out and see what our scouts deal with at games," Johnson said. "It gave me a really good appreciation for what they do and an understanding of what goes into scouting reports."

 

Times Change, But Scouting Remains The Same

PEER REVIEW

Baseball America posed this question to every amateur scout we could track down: Who is the best current scouting director? We allowed scouts to list up to three choices (in no particular order), and of the 276 votes we got back, here are the scouting directors who showed up on the most ballots:

32.6% Tim Wilken, Cubs

29.7% R.J. Harrison, Rays

26.8% Stan Meek, Marlins

26.4% Marti Wolever, Phillies

20.3% Damon Oppenheimer, Yankees

Money Matters

 

Managing people is only part of it, though. Rising to the level of scouting director means you're also managing the organization's money. There are salaries, travel budgets, and oh yes, the minor matter of the signing budget.

 

Teams typically set their yearly scouting budgets in the fall, and the last thing a scouting director ever wants to do is have to take a scout off the road because he underestimated costs. Most teams budget between $800,000-$900,000 for their scouts' hotels, airfare, rental cars and meals for the year.

 

Then come the salaries. Depending on experience, area scouts typically make $35,000-$70,000 a year. Regional crosscheckers make $65,000-$85,000 and national crosscheckers earn about $85,000-$125,000. Scouting directors make $125,000-$275,000.

 

The real explosion in spending has come in signing budgets, however. In 2011, 231 drafted players signed for more than Ken Griffey Jr. did when he was drafted first overall in 1987 ($160,000)—and 41 of those players were taken in the 11th round or later. In 1990, the average first-rounder signed for $252,577. The average topped $1 million for the first time in 1997, and last year the number reached an all-time high of $2,653,375. Teams spent a shade over $228 million to sign draft picks last year, with 10 teams spending more than $10 million.