Yesterday On Barstool Radio I Was Asked To Write My Baseball Background In Blog Form, So Here It Is
But the conversation quickly turned to my baseball background. I found it funny that Dente took such a curiosity to my coaching history, but it took the convo from me fucking up to me doing something worthwhile so I’ll take it all day long. Prior to that Kayce asked for me to blog my baseball past in long form. Truthfully I had no intention of doing so at the time, but after letting it stew I said fuck it and gots to writing.
I’m going to make this brief as possible and not turn it into a dick sucking type deal, but just know that though I’ve mildly referenced this stuff in the past, if I wanted to suck my own dick this blog would have came out years ago. That said, it’s long, but it goes like this:
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I played for the Bulls Sox Academy travel teams in HS. We were pretty goddamn good and believe it or not I wasn’t anywhere close to dead weight on those teams because I played balls to the wall every pitch. But I knew I was always destined to play d3 ball even though we had a lot of D1 players on the team. The three things I excelled best at were throwing (91), calling a game as a catcher (shake/shake/change), and delayed steals. I would take second base almost anytime I was on first with delayed steals. It was kinda funny because I wasn’t fast, but it was an easy gimme for me. Turned singles into doubles on the reg, bitch.
But anyways…
My coach from that team eventually got “called to the show” and started scouting for the Cubs a year or two after I graduated HS. He loved me as a player because I gave it my all on the field in spite of being a midget without any projectable talent past HS, sans D3 ball. We still stay in touch almost daily and yes, he’s still scouting. I owe him a LOT. He’d spend hours on hours with me at his house teaching me what to look for in a swing, pitching mechanics, how to project a player years down the road, and more. Anything and everything baseball we talked about.
I then went to North Central to play. I SUCKED there. All I did was party and didn’t care about playing anymore. When I was done at North Central, I wanted to stay involved in the game somehow because the love of the game itself never left, only my desire to play it did. My aforementioned HS coach just started a new travel program and wanted me to partner with him, so I did. It was really good ancillary income and I was around the game. Perfect.
In the offseason, I’d spend my weekends going to HS showcases to recruit players to form teams with. At these showcases I’d gather rosters and sit amongst college coaches and in some cases pro scouts. I’d eavesdrop on them as they were scouting and would offer my opinion on any given player any chance there was an opening to do so. Most of the time they’d brush me off, but sometimes we’d get into long conversations about the art of swings, pitching mechanics, player frames/projectability, etc.
I’d exchange contact info with these coaches and scouts as much as possible. I always made it a point to do this for two reasons:
1. I was getting paid to promote my players and teams to guys like them and that’s how I made my money and
2. I learned I wanted to get into pro scouting myself eventually
I LOVED picking their brains on any given player on the planet. Could be Mike Trout on TV, could be the HS junior that was throwing 87MPH that we looked at earlier in the day.
Well in the meantime I got “hired” by Barstool to cover the White Sox. It was a fun outlet where I could talk about baseball and the team I loved, but I never in a million years thought would turn into a gajillion dollar company that has my dumbass employed full time. Put a pin in this paragraph for now***
Anyways – there were two pro scouts in particular that I hit it off with right away. I’d run into them a few times a year. One was with the Astros, but subsequently moved on to the Braves shortly after we met. Looking back, I would bet this explains the Mike Foltynewicz trade. The other was with the Brewers. Both took a liking to me way back in 2012-13 or so.
I think they liked me because they respected how I was 22-23 years old and always hustling around recruiting kids to play for my baseball program. But they also knew in our baseball convos that I had a good eye for talent. They wouldn’t give me the time of day if they didn’t think that, and that’s because of my HS travel coach/scout spending hours and hours a week breaking down every nuance of players with me in the year or so before I met those guys.
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After 6ish months of our acquaintanceships, I finally mustered up the nerve to separately ask them what I’d have to do to get into pro scouting. Both helped put me in touch with the appropriate people with both theirs and a handful of other organizations. I then sent reports on about 30 random MiLB and MLB players to various teams as a kind of test/resume/highlight reel so to speak. This was so the organizations could assess my eye for talent. Phone calls were exchanged and two organizations in particular also took a liking to me, at least enough to contact me back right away. I was insanely excited. I was going to be a pro scout! But after all the clerical bullshit, they dropped the “you’d be making about ~$22,000 a year to start” bomb on me.
Well, being about $75K in debt from NCC I couldn’t do that. Dream = crushed before it started. That was that. Was a fun week of thinking I was on my way to being someone important in baseball while it lasted. No big deal though, I could still make money in baseball in other ways, like coaching HS travel ball.
4-5 years go by and these 2 (3 if you count my old coach) scouts and I are still texting weekly. You remember the James Shields scoop? Yeah, that wasn’t me throwing shit at a wall. That came from someone pretty important believe it or not. I eventually developed a decent network of scouting contacts in various organizations across the league, one of whom is now a higher up with the Yankees (he gave me the Tulo scoop last winter) and another who’s the top scout of an entire organization. I’d say in any given week I’m talking to about a half dozen scouts with a few agents sprinkled in about literally anything; baseball, Barstool, El Camino (he hated it), whatever. It’s a good circle to be in. Prior to the draft one scout will even send me video and ask me what I like/dislike about whatever X prospect’s swing. He won’t tell me what he thinks of the swing whatsoever, just lets me use my own brain. Then we’ll break it down over FaceTime together. It’s a great way to learn.
***Fast forward to yesterday and I shot one scout I met about two years ago a text asking what I’d have to do to get into scouting right now, not because I want to, more just to prove a point: Here’s the convo.
PS – there are a few realms of baseball that I am currently trying to get better understanding of. Obviously writing is one, but another few are the finances of baseball, international market rules, and advanced stats. All areas I can without a doubt improve on. I would NOT consider myself some baseball savant, but I do make it a point to pick the brains of people I do consider baseball savants in one realm of the game or another as much as possible. Never hurts to keep learning, as this game is ever evolving.
~fin~