After taking a look at how scouts evaluate players when they have a bat in
their hands, today I'll look at the "non-bat" tools, and how those tools are
weighed once you have a complete feeling for a player's abilities.

Running:

Pretty self-explanatory. Can he run fast? Is he a burner or a base-clogger?
The overwhelming majority of this score is measured by the player’s recorded
time from home plate to first base. Average (50) is generally considered 4.3
seconds from the right side, and 4.2 from the left. Times under four seconds
earn the rare 80, while times over 4.5 can get 20. Speed is one of the only
tools in baseball where there are a number of players in the major leagues
with 20s. Another unique aspect of speed is that it is the only tool where it
is somewhat common to find scouts awarding a future score that is lower than
a player’s present score. While power may be the last tool to arrive, speed
can be the first to go as players fill out and their body matures. Scouts
need to be able to look at a player's build (some even look at their parents)
and recognize those who will keep their speed well into their career and
those who will not. Other considerations--such as a player’s instincts on
the base paths and ability (or inability) to read pitchers and steal
bases--can bring this grade up or down a tick.

Some Prospects With Very High Running Scores: Brett Gardner, Eric Reed,
Denard Span, Corey Wimberly.





Scouting pitchers is generally a more difficult proposition than evaluating
position players. With young pitchers, scouts are required to place that much
more of their projection on their anticipation of a player's future, leaving
more room for error. Because of the built-in risk for failure, either through
injury or lack of performance, more pitchers are drafted than needed, and
therefore an inordinate amount of the scouting budget is spent on hurlers, in
order to have just a few reach the big leagues. While the average team
carries 11 or 12 pitchers on their active rosters, a full 55% of the first
100 picks in the last two drafts have been pitchers, so the failure rate is
higher.

The Scouting Scale Returns:

The 20-80 scale is also used for pitchers, only this time, individual pitches
are graded. Over the last two days I used Joe Ballplayer as our example, so
today let's take a look at our top high school draft pick, Tommy Throwhard.


TOMMY THROWHARD, P   PRESENT   FUTURE
Fastball Velocity      60        70
Fastball Movement      40        50
Curve                  --        --
Slider                 45        60
Changeup               30        45
Other                  --        --
Control                35        50
Command                40        50

Young fresh raw arms, on sale this week at Target! Without even going into a
full explanation of each category, we can see a few things here about Tommy.
Tommy throws hard. Tommy already has a pretty good breaking ball with plenty
of promise. Tommy has just two good pitches, and has problems throwing
strikes with his power stuff.