The months of April and May are traditionally some of the busiest for the baseball scouting community.
It's the time to travel to tournaments, a chance to get another look (or three) at a player, an opportunity to finalize reports and get closer to decisions for the June draft.
It's still busy now, but in a much different way. There's no travel because, well, there are no games to attend, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, like everyone else in the game, scouts are working just as hard, but doing it from their homes. And instead of sitting on a folding chair behind home plate, their radar guns at the ready, they're doing their work from home, laptops fired up, poring over video.
Welcome to the brave new world of scouting remotely.
"It's obviously very unique in so many ways,'' said Mike Rikard, the Red Sox vice president of scouting. "It's an uncommon circumstance to say the least. But we're just trying to do our best at this time -- do all the work so that we're prepared for whichever direction Major League Baseball wants to take this as far as the guidelines, rules and parameters.''
Rikard, newly-promoted scouring director Paul Toboni and the team's roster of amateur scouts and cross-checkers are flying by the seats of their pants. They don't know exactly when the draft will be held -- only that it will be held sometime between June 10 and July 20. They don't know how many rounds it will feature -- only that it could be as few as five.
And because they don't know exactly how many rounds there will be, they don't know the exact amount of their draft signing pool allotment -- dictated by a number of factors, which include where a team finished in the standings, whether they receive revenue sharing and whether they were over any luxury tax thresholds. Various reports have the Red Sox slotted for approximately $6 million in a five-round draft.
Beyond that, it's anyone's guess.
"It certainly presents unprecedented levels of challenges,'' Rikard said. "But one of the things that we're comforted by is that we've always gone to great lengths and taken great pride in how we scout the summer leagues (like the Cape Cod League) and the fall seasons. You're never prepared for something like this, but you do make sure you prepare for injuries and you want to always do your best to build up a really extensive background history with each player.
"We're really confident that we're going to be prepared for those reasons. We've got a lot of players who we got really good looks on in the summer and the fall. While it's not ideal to not have to those last looks, we still feel that in many cases, we know the players very well.''
What's missing, however, is a chance to see, say, a high school pitcher who may have made huge strides since his junior season, evolving from an interesting prospect to more of a certified one. Rikard cites former first-rounder Michael Kopech as someone who would have once fit that description.
"That happens quite a bit with high school pitchers,'' said Rikard. "They can kind of evolve quicker than other demographics. And then there's always that college player who you always liked, but kind of turns the corner by the end of his (junior) season and has moved into a different grouping.''
For all college players and the vast majority of high schoolers, there's ample video to evaluate, and scouts can do that from home. But it doesn't begin to replicate seeing a player in person.
"The video part of it is tremendously helpful,'' said Rikard, "but it still doesn't supply the whole picture. A lot of times, you don't get the angles that we typically like to see when we're at the ballpark. There's a lot of things that we look for, from a scouting perspective, between innings -- not only with pitchers, but hitters and fielders. You miss the interaction in the dugout, kind of outside-the-lines, that can be very important.
"Just as importantly or more, you're not getting batting practice, workouts, infield and outfield practice -- a lot of those things that can be revealing in putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Video doesn't fill in all the blanks.''
Another element being sacrificed in the coronavirus-era is getting to know a player away from the field. Scouts like to familiarize themselves with a prospect's family, friends, off-field habits and interests and personality.
"The more intimately a scout can have a relationship with the player,'' said Rikard, "the better chance we have to be right on makeup and character traits. Ever since I've been here (Rikard's history with the team dates back to 2004), dating back to Theo (Epstein) and Jason McLeod (former scouting director), we've always considered that part of our process to be very, very important.''
One fascinating element to this draft will be what happens after the five or so rounds, when the rest of the players are available to sign as undrafted free agents and creating a mad scramble among teams to sign players capped -- this year -- by maximum signing bonuses of $20,000. In that regard, it could more closely resemble the pre-draft era (1965), when a free-for-all existed for all the available amateur talent.
One unintended consequence from this year: a number of very good high school players -- those not quite good enough to go in the first five rounds -- may choose to honor their college commitment rather than accept just $20,000 in bonus money.
Another potential fallout is that some college juniors could elect to return to school for their senior year. Even with no real leverage as seniors, many college players could expect to do better than $20,000 if they're drafted in 2021, when a sense of normalcy begins to return to the draft process.
Teams always emphasize "signability'' -- the likelihood that a player will agree to something close to his prescribed slot value -- in the draft process, and that won't change for 2020.
"You always have to focus really hard on that,'' said Rikard, "because if you do make a mistake and select a player you're unable to sign, it can really ruin your whole draft pool. That's always been a huge part of the process. At this point, you sort of generalize in regards to the signability possibility, and then as you get closer, you start narrowing in with the player, family and agent.''
Given that this is such an atypical draft, the Red Sox will be relying -- even more than usual -- on the evaluation skills of their area scouts. With fewer in-person opportunities to evaluate the margin for error slimmer than ever, evaluation and projection become that much more critical. More than ever, the Red Sox have to trust the scouting acumen of their staff.
"Absolutely,'' agreed Rikard. "A lot of the onus falls back on what our process has been and the people who spearhead that have always been the area scouts. The scouts and the processes where we've built up a good background and had strong convictions, those are the players, in the end, we'll have the most comfort with. The momentum for our better picks has always been generated by our area scouts.
"In the scenario we're in now, that's never been more important. The upper level of our staff -- our cross-checkers and people like myself -- are not going to have that chance to get those second or third looks in most players. The staffs that have the best process and have a really strong group of area scouts, like us, will put themselves in the best position to hopefully have a good draft.''
One positive consequence of the Red Sox' disappointing 2019 season is that the Sox will draft at No. 17, their highest spot in the draft since 2016, when they were coming off a last-place finish. Correspondingly, they'll have a much bigger draft pool of available signing bonus money to spend, giving them a chance to further rebuild a system that has been ravaged by a number of trades made by Dave Dombrowski.,
"In comparison to the other clubs, we're going to be in a really good spot to do some good things,'' said Rikard. "I'm confident, personally, we're making really good progress in restocking our farm system. We're getting there. It doesn't happen overnight. But I'm still confident that this draft is going to enable us the opportunity to continue to layer on some other really good prospects.''
_____________________
- Alex Bregman (29th round, 2012 draft)
- Mike Yastrzemski (36th round, 2009 draft
- Hunter Renfroe (10th round, 2010)