The Scouting Classroom #40 WHY SCOUTS LOVE BAD GAMES Most people assume scouts enjoy watching great performances. Truthfully, some of the most valuable evaluations happen when things go wrong. Anybody can evaluate success. The challenge has always been evaluating the response to failure. Over twenty years in professional baseball, I learned that bad games often reveal more than good ones. A player can fool you on a night when everything is working. A couple of barrels, a home run, or seven shutout innings can send everybody home excited. But baseball isn’t played on the best days. Professional baseball is built on how players handle the other days. The days when the timing disappears. The days when velocity beats them. The days when they don’t have their best stuff. The days when confidence begins to leak. That’s when the evaluation becomes interesting. WHEN THE MASK COMES OFF Failure has a way of exposing things success can hide. That’s when scouts begin paying attention to details that may not matter to the average fan, but can matter greatly over the course of a career. • Body language. • Competitiveness. • Response to coaching. • Emotional maturity. • Ability to make adjustments. • Accountability. • Toughness. • Leadership. • Resilience. Anybody can smile after going 4-for-4. What happens after 0-for-4? How does he carry himself after striking out with runners in scoring position? Does he point fingers or accept responsibility? Does he continue competing, or does he mentally leave the game? Professional baseball guarantees failure. The best players in the world make outs seven times out of ten. Great pitchers get hit. All-Stars get booed. Future Hall of Famers experience slumps. Nobody escapes it. THE SECOND LOOK MATTERS Some of the best reports I ever wrote came after bad performances. Not because the player played poorly, but because of how he responded. A scout may leave disappointed after the first look and then come back weeks later to see if the player adjusted. • Did he learn? • Did he compete? • Did he improve? Those questions often separate prospects with similar tools, because tools may get two players to the same level, but character often determines which one keeps climbing. SCOUTING THE PERSON This is where experience matters. Scouts aren’t simply evaluating swings, arms, and running times. They’re evaluating people. And people reveal themselves over time. Sometimes the greatest compliment a scout can give isn’t, “He had a great game.” Sometimes it’s: 👇 • Nothing bothered him • He stayed present • He never stopped competing • He made adjustments • The game sped up, but he didn’t ∙ Anybody can evaluate talent by itself…👇 The hard part has always been evaluating how talent responds when things stop going according to plan. That’s why scouts don’t fear bad games. Sometimes, they love them. Because failure has a way of revealing things success never will. And there is a difference! #BehindTheRadarGun 🔎 – at Hurricane, UT