stroshow3 wrote:

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Greek, there's a pretty significant difference between stats and performance. Scouts may not care much about stats but they definitely care a lot about performance.

I agree, but I'd use a different word. What scouts have to ignore is results. If a hitter with a long, loopy swing manages to connect with a fastball middle in (in much the same way a blind squirrel connects with a nut) and hits the ball hard, a scout has to ignore the result (the hard contact) and focus on the performance (the swing). That's a grossly simple example that ignores evaluation of tools, instincts, projectability and makeup, but if that's the gist of what TGG is trying to say, then, in general, it's difficult to disagree.

On the other hand, over the long term and at the highest levels of competition, results and performance evaluation have to correlate pretty closely. If they don't, it's the evaluation of the performance that's in error, not the results. If a kid with a long or otherwise seriously flawed swing makes consistent hard contact and continues to be able to make hard contact with that same swing as he progresses through levels of increasing quality of competition, at some point a scout has to stop ignoring the results and begin to question whether his evaluation of the performance is wrong or to posit that the kid possesses some rare and unobservable skill or combination of skills (preternaturally quick pitch recognition or unusually close hand-eye coordination, for instance) that allows him to succeed despite the flaws in his swing. At some point, a scout has to recognize that the limited set of things he can see and evaluate, however usefully predictive they might be in the majority of cases, are not the only factors in play. In the last analysis, if there's disagreement between performance and results, results have to win.

Anyway, I've lurked here for a long time and I've come to respect TGG's opinion, except when he camouflages it amid insults, sarcasm and condescension and I can't figure out exactly what fundamental point he's trying to make. But if he's saying that, as a general statement, scouts should and do ignore results, then sure, I agree, as long as he acknowledges the probability that some scouts don't always conform to that ideal and that in rare cases, even a correct scouting evaluation will steer a front office in exactly the wrong direction.