- By 6 p.m., he wore his reading glasses over his shades, checking his phone and his notes. And in front of him, a Duke pitcher named Drew Van Orden stifled Georgia Tech, taking a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth. “Finish it up, big boy,” Kline said. When Van Orden did, allowing five hits without a walk while striking out eight, Kline and Gonzales had added something to their file they didn’t have when the day began — a senior right-hander with slightly above-average major league stuff, working his way up their draft board.
“Learned something today,” Kline said.
“Rizz is always on us,” Kline said. “ ‘There are big leaguers out there. You can find a big leaguer in the 30th round. Go do it.’ ” By 6 p.m., he wore his reading glasses over his shades, checking his phone and his notes. And in front of him, a Duke pitcher named Drew Van Orden stifled Georgia Tech, taking a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth. “Finish it up, big boy,” Kline said. When Van Orden did, allowing five hits without a walk while striking out eight, Kline and Gonzales had added something to their file they didn’t have when the day began — a senior right-hander with slightly above-average major league stuff, working his way up their draft board.
“Learned something today,” Kline said. :DDuke and Georgia Tech played next. The Blue Devils don’t traditionally provide many players for the draft, and the Yellow Jackets endured a bit of a down year. Dozens of scouts left the stadium, maybe catching a break before Miami played Clemson in a sexier matchup at night. Kline grabbed a cheeseburger from the concession stand (a “30” of a burger on the scouting scale, he said) and he and Gonzales took seats behind the plate. Who knew what they might see?
I'm still reading this because it's amazing but that's bullshit, no scout in the world gets into a guy like they're into Reed for years without knowing his most basic split info.“I have to figure that out,” Kline said as he got up. Where does that one game fit into the whole picture of the kid? How does he “profile,” as scouts say? When he finally got to his computer the next day, Baca scrambled to look up Reed’s splits against left-handers in case he had a glaring weakness the Nationals had overlooked.
I love reading about scouts on the ground and front office details (like here). Best part of that <-- article was when the Astros scouts and quants are all sitting around moving prospects up and down their draft board and someone says, "hey, we're losing to the Angels right now," and the GM just shrugs and keeps talking.