THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Brilliant. Credit to Doug Mapson…

Although to be fair, we’d really need to evaluate Mapson’s entire record…

"This is why we needs scouts.” Really?  Did all the players in the first round not get scouted?  Did Maddux have terrible stats in HS?  Said scout wasn’t so right about his control in the long-run.  This was the Cubs second pick in the draft, so obviously Mapson’s superior (who seemingly is also a scout) didn’t think of Maddux as highly.  All this nitpicking of course, but just saying.

And that being said I love seeing old scouting reports like this and I think the original point was damn Mapson made some good judgment here and even with said good judgement/scouting players are unpredictable to a point (his control became legendary).

I feel like I can find about as many things wrong on this sheet as I can find right, but I guess I’m a skeptic.

Also, I love the “needs to be a little more consistent with the curveball”.  Can you not say that about every single major league pitcher in the
MLB?  Let alone high schoolers.  This guy would be great at writing horoscopes.

Agree with Sean. 

Also, what does “Dollar Value 85M” mean?

"This was the Cubs second pick in the draft, so obviously Mapson’s superior (who seemingly is also a scout) didn’t think of Maddux as highly.  All this nitpicking of course, but just saying. “

Well, the 1st round pick was a number 3.  The scout obviously knew they would not pick him that high due to they had someone else in mind that high.  He did say he thought Maddux should go in the 1st round.

“Also, I love the “needs to be a little more consistent with the curveball”.  Can you not say that about every single major league pitcher in the MLB?”

Maybe you can, but if it is true, it should be said.  He did say he threw a couple of CB that were as close to a 10 as he had ever seen.  His overall rating for the CB was simply above average (7), probably due to the consistency issue.  Reading between the lines, Maddux would have been rated a 9-10 CB if he could consistently throw it, which shows potential upside. There is information there for the unbiased, and it proved right on with regard to the CB.

“Also, what does “Dollar Value 85M” mean? “

85 M means 85 thousand. M is a Roman numeral for 1000.  Today M means million. Must be inflation.
Google is your friend.

Mapson actually thought Maddux was probably the best player in the draft (no way he could know for sure because obviously most are out of his area), not just a 1st rounder, so that is where he deserves praise.  But that is one scout, compared to the all the area scouts who probably also saw him multiple times as a probably consensus top 200 prospect and I’m guessing most crosscheckers saw him.  And it’s because his own crosschecker (Jorgensen) didn’t think of him quite as highly that he didn’t go #3.  If they both thought he was the best player in the draft they would obviously have used the #3 pick on him.

It just doesn’t make sense to say “this is why we need scouts” to me when literally every scouting department got it wrong, even the team that picked him as they should have used the earlier selection on him and even Mapson said if we get lucky enough to pick him with our 2nd pick.  And again, I realize I’m nitpicking Tango who probably didn’t think some lunatic would take probably a throwaway comment so seriously.

Google is your friend.

A little unnecessary, don’t you think? I am not sure how I could have googled “M” and gotten that information.  I had no idea that scouts used to use roman numerals in this context.  “M” has meant million for as long as I’ve been following baseball.

Thanks for the information, regardless of you being an ass for no reason…

Yeah, or have a combine where the kids throw with pitch f/x tracking them.  That might also work.

7/Sean - It makes no sense to say the Braves should have selected him earlier. If you are sure that no other team will pick him, even if he is the best player in the draft, you draft other players first.

Ken did you not read the report where Mapson didn’t think Maddux would last to their 2nd pick?  And the Cubs drafted Mapson…

Ryan, at least until 2000 (and perhaps beyond) M has been used for thousand and MM for million in regards to US corporate circles.  An example would be 56MM bbl of oil. 

M stands for the Latin prefix milli-, while k (brought into the language via computer terms via the SI I believe) is from kilo- which is a French bastardization of the Greek word chilia- (changed because it was too close to a French word for defecation).

I ran into the same problem as you back in 90’s, as the M confused me at first because I came from a computer and science background.

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It would be interesting to see the scouting report for Drew Hall, the Cubs first round pick who had a career WAR of -1.8, whose BR page says he was 6’4” 220lbs

Troy Aikman’s baseball scouting report is interesting as well.

Basically, it says “great control, needs more velocity”. Wow, how many times has Aikman heard that in his life?

I’d like to read Mark Buehrle’s scouting report.

"It would be interesting to see the scouting report for Drew Hall, the Cubs first round pick who had a career WAR of -1.8, whose BR page says he was 6’4” 220lbs”

Or Earl Cunningham. I saw him play at Peoria, IL a few times. I am sure he hit the hell out of HS pitching though. *grin*

I can imagine that Kyle Farnsworth’s scouting report just has a sketch of a hard on.

Seriously, Farnsworth is the type of guy that goes to a “baseball combine” and comes out 20M richer.

With baseball there is just FAR too much to scout. HS, JuCO, NCAA, international, etc.

A blown-up copy of this document, and a few others (Smoltz, Glavine) is posted inside Turner Field.

To me, a great example of “scouting” is Miguel Cabrera. Very highly regarded Venezuelan signee. Struggles in the minors for three years until suddenly he doesn’t - and he’s been on a HOF career track ever since.

The Twins scout “Brownie” is from my hometown, and sat in our dugout during HS baseball games. Elsworth Brown was the guy that saw past physical limitations and signed Kirby Puckett.

To me, that’s the value of a scout. Noting that Greg Maddux was a first round pick is sort of obvious.

I mean if we need a high level scout to tell us whether Roger Clemens is the poop or not, we’re screwed. Being able to tell your organization that a guy is a 1st round pick or a 5th round pick and be right about it is a big deal, both in talent gained/lost and in money saved.

When Pujols can have ~400 people drafted ahead of him, and have him hit like crazy EVERY year of MiLB and MLB ball, we have to take scouting with a grain of salt.

Who gets credit for Adrian Gonzalez? Everyone knew he was awesome, struggled and failed with multiple teams then all of the sudden as a Padre is awesome.

Interesting scouting is Chicago taking Simpson at 16. I know of him because I was following a kid I coach through his D2 AA season, and Simpson was always on the same leaderboard as the guy I was following. Small guy, D2, mid 90s.

It’s sort of like advanced statistics in that regard. The same guys that advanced stats say are “the best” are the same guys that every casual fan knows is “the best”. That’s not where the value is. The value is in knowing that while Ryan Howard is good, he’s not 27M/y good.