Another teaching point enforced by Ryan was to always be working on building relationships with personnel within the industry. Especially coaches and MLB scouts. You can focus all you want on the players, but having a good report with coaches and MLB scouts will assist in recruiting any player. You have to understand the hierarchy of seniority within MLB organizations in order to fully grasp the important parts. An MLB organization has their main front office personnel who have gained the trust of the President and Vice President of the team. From here, you have a level under the front office that are in the office and on the road half the time. Below this level, you have the professional scouts and amateur scouts who are under the Scouting Director for the team. Then you have the national scouting director who supervises the regional scouts who then supervise the area scouts.
Some teams have more “middle-men” then others, which can make things a little more difficult. For the most part, this is how the chain of command works for these organizations and provides how many people information must travel through to get to the top. Building relationships with scouts is a two-way street. If you can help them sign players they recommend to be drafted, they can help with which players they are looking to draft. Odds are if they are going to draft a player, there are a few more teams that are also looking to draft that player. This can help with finding players that may not be on your list of prospects. Area scouts are the ones who you will see most as they are looking at the same players you are. This makes it easy to get to know them and to begin building a relationship with them. One drawback from having a relationship with an area scout is that fact that they looking to show their worth to their organization by signing the best players for the least amount of money. So, beware of what scouts may tell you and sometimes you have to let information from them go in one ear and out the other. Having a good relationship with a scout is definitely a good thing. They will be able to give you information on a player that the player will not normally be able to get. This is where the agent has the advantage and can use for leverage when recruiting a player.
Some teams have more “middle-men” then others, which can make things a little more difficult. For the most part, this is how the chain of command works for these organizations and provides how many people information must travel through to get to the top. Building relationships with scouts is a two-way street. If you can help them sign players they recommend to be drafted, they can help with which players they are looking to draft. Odds are if they are going to draft a player, there are a few more teams that are also looking to draft that player. This can help with finding players that may not be on your list of prospects. Area scouts are the ones who you will see most as they are looking at the same players you are. This makes it easy to get to know them and to begin building a relationship with them. One drawback from having a relationship with an area scout is that fact that they looking to show their worth to their organization by signing the best players for the least amount of money. So, beware of what scouts may tell you and sometimes you have to let information from them go in one ear and out the other. Having a good relationship with a scout is definitely a good thing. They will be able to give you information on a player that the player will not normally be able to get. This is where the agent has the advantage and can use for leverage when recruiting a player.
RSS Feed