Hi there, my title is Brendan Gawlowski. I may do the Troy McClure factor and checklist all of my earlier bylines, however I’d favor to only say that it’s a pleasure returning to FanGraphs after practically 4 years away. Again in early 2022, I took a job as a professional scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates and I’ve been scouting minor leaguers ever since. In just a few instances, I had a job in bringing gamers to Pittsburgh. It was a blast and I’m grateful for the expertise.
However for as a lot enjoyable as I had, the job wore on these round me. I spent greater than 80 nights on the street final 12 months, a grueling schedule that’s tough on households in any state of affairs and was more and more unreasonable in mine. Once I joined the Pirates, I used to be 30, childless, and able to stretch my legs after two years of mendacity low and masking up. Within the intervening years, a collection of great occasions made it exhausting to stability my ardour for scouting with my obligations at residence. My spouse and I had a child. A 12 months later, we discovered ourselves going through a most cancers prognosis and long-term remedy. Our mother and father began battling their very own medical issues. By all of it, I attempted to be round as a lot as I may, however the realities of my schedule led to aggravating compromises. The logistics of doing the job whereas being greater than a replacement-level member of the family have been exhausting to handle. This previous July, I pulled an all nighter and drove from Corpus Christi to Houston to catch a 6 AM flight again residence to Seattle, stepped inside for a fast bathe, after which bolted two hours north to Bellingham for a party. Throughout that final stretch, my spouse made her annual mild suggestion that one other path was potential.
And what a path that is. FanGraphs’s popularity as a frontrunner in baseball evaluation is properly earned, notably within the prospect house. For so long as he’s been at it, Eric has performed an unbelievable job of protecting the panorama. From my perspective, the breadth, depth, and nuance of his evaluation is definitely worth the worth of a Membership all by itself. I discovered lots from him earlier than, throughout, and after our time working collectively in my first stint right here. The itemizing for this place got here on the excellent time and I utilized with gusto: I liked working as a scout, however the alternative to hitch Eric in a full-time capability, to proceed evaluating baseball gamers whereas additionally getting one other couple of months at residence, was too attractive to cross up.
The timing was proper for one more motive as properly. Past the “comply with your ardour with out changing into a stranger to your canine” angle, I’ve additionally felt the itch to write down just a little bit. About gamers, actually: I’m trying ahead to gushing about Kevin McGonigle’s expertise and weighing the deserves of throwing a Ben Zobrist comp on Roldy Brito in public. Maybe much more although, I need to write concerning the recreation and the business. I discovered lots in my time with the Pirates and grew immensely as an evaluator. I need to share what I can from these experiences.
I additionally need to write about scouting itself. It has at all times felt just a little foolish that some people affiliate the job with the inventory characters they noticed in Moneyball, as if scouts are a gaggle of geriatric luddites scheming methods to maintain Jonah Hill out of the kitchen. In actuality, they’re an endangered species as groups shrink headcount and more and more prioritize goal measurements. The scouting neighborhood has misplaced dozens of jobs lately, and may subsequent 12 months’s CBA negotiations lead to one other lockout, it should nearly actually deal one other blow to the business. On this world, we’re all line gadgets on somebody’s stability sheet, and in baseball, scouts are among the many first squeezed off the spreadsheet.
That will be comprehensible, if nonetheless unhappy, had the juice properly and actually been squeezed from subjective analysis, if we’d collectively reached the purpose the place a participant’s biomechanical data and efficiency on the sector gave us all we have to make sound choices. It’s taking nothing away from the quantitative methodologies we’ve got to say that we’re not there but. Not even shut. Holistic participant analysis is the correct cocktail, and whereas each franchise strives to try this to at the very least a point, groups are more and more leaning exhausting on a kind of elements on the expense of the opposite.
We lose one thing important once we diminish the significance of subjective seems to be. You possibly can’t probably sit and hearken to Sean McNally and Doug Unusual speak about hitting, or Jeremy Powell and Andrew Lorraine consider leg mechanics, and conclude that their perspective belongs outdoors the room. I might argue the other: In a world the place groups are on an more and more even analytical enjoying area — I’ll pause right here to direct everybody’s consideration to the underside of the standings as a approach of noting the immense penalties for those who have fallen behind on this explicit arms race — good professional scouting is usually a aggressive benefit.
I’m keen to write down about why that’s. I need to cowl the methods wherein knowledge can be utilized to judge and challenge baseball gamers, and in addition the place and the way it falls quick or may even mislead. By that lens, I’m excited to debate prospects and the minor leagues in methods that may inform and entertain readers. Specifically, I need to write about fashionable participant growth, discover how groups use evaluative and acquisition fashions, and spotlight the enduring significance of fine scouting in an more and more analytical business.
Earlier than getting began, a remaining word for Pirates followers: It was an honor to be part of your crew. I didn’t want to go to typically to see that the town loves its sports activities and can again a successful baseball membership to the hilt. The baseball operations division is a proficient and aggressive group determined to construct a winner in Pittsburgh. I’ll be rooting for his or her, and your, success from afar.