In professional sports , scouts are experienced talent evaluators who travel extensively for the purposes of watching athletes play their chosen sports, and they determine whether their set of skills and talents represent what is needed by the scout's organization. Some scouts are interested primarily in the selection of prospects; younger players who may require further development by the acquiring team, but who are judged to be worthy of that effort and expense for the potential future payoff that it could bring, while others concentrate on players who are already polished professionals, whose rights may be available soon, either through free agency or trading, and who are seen as filling a team's specific need at a certain position. Advance scouts watch the teams that their teams are going to play in order to help determine strategy .
7-616: The Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau is a centralized scouting resource that operates under the auspices of the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball . Headquartered in Ontario, California , the MLBSB's efforts supplement the independent, proprietary amateur and professional scouting operations of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs. In 2012, the MLBSB employed 34 full-time and 13 part-time scouts in
14-410: A career just of being scouts. Skilled scouts who help to determine which players will fit in well with an organization can be the major difference between success and failure for the team with regard to wins and losses, which often relates directly to the organization's financial success or lack thereof as well. Scouts tend to have to perform one of two tasks, either scouting opposition teams to research
21-580: The United States , Canada and Puerto Rico . In 2010, it announced plans to expand its activities beyond Puerto Rico to other countries in Latin America . According to MLB.com, the MLBSB's scouts "provide information on amateur prospects as a part of its mission to support the efforts of MLB clubs in the First-Year Player Draft . The MLBSB also provides professional scouting services, including
28-449: The collection of video footage of players throughout the professional ranks, both domestically and internationally." It maintains an eligibility file on amateur players — many of them teenagers — and holds 35 tryout camps each June in its countries of operation. The current MLBSB was founded in 1974 by outgoing Milwaukee Brewers general manager Jim Wilson , and became part of the commissioner's office in 1985. However, its roots date to
35-567: The founding by Major League owners of the Central Scouting Bureau in 1968, a period of time when many big league clubs were downsizing their scouting departments. The CSB's first director was Jim Fanning , former farm and scouting director of the Atlanta Braves . In August 1968, Fanning resigned after seven months with the CSB to become general manager of the expansion Montreal Expos . He
42-644: The opposition's players and tactics, or scouting individual players to identify their level of skill and to keep track of potential new signings. Contemporary Major League Baseball teams usually classify scouts and their differing responsibilities as follows: According to Tony Lucadello , considered by some to be the greatest scout ever, the four kinds of scouts start with the letter 'P': Lucadello estimated that five percent of scouts were poor, five percent pickers, 85 percent performance scouts and five percent projectors. Modern day scouts are becoming more and more reliant on computer programs to aid and assist in
49-564: Was succeeded by former Chicago Cubs "head coach" Vedie Himsl for two years. Then, the CSB was temporarily dormant for almost four years until it was revived, as the MLBSB, by Wilson. From 1998–2014, the MLBSB was supervised by director, and then senior director, Frank Marcos. He announced his departure from the bureau in October 2014. He was succeeded by former Major League executive Bill Bavasi . Scout (sports) Many scouts are former coaches or retired players, while others have made
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