Jay Weitzel
Northeast Area Scout
Minnesota Twins (14th Year)

Through the Eyes of the Scout

A breakdown of what professional scouts look for by position

As a professional scout, there are many things that I look for in a potential position player, but the most influential are the five tools of baseball: fielding, throwing, running speed, hitting for average, and hitting for power.  While each of these tools is important, the position of the potential player dictates the order of importance of these tools.  Remember, this is the template used to scout players and there are always exceptions.

Corner Outfield - I apologize for the delay in this article.  We are in the middle of our very busy time of the scouting process as we are drawing close to the draft.  Because they are so similar in nature, I am going to write up the corner outfield positions together.  As I mentioned about first and third base, the corner outfield positions are offensively dominated positions.  People that play these positions must be able to hit and hit for power.  One of the reasons for this is because of the thought that these positions can be played with relative ease.  It goes back to our saying from first base, it may be easy to play a corner outfield spot, but it is hard to play them well.  The next tool that is looked at is fielding.  I know it may seem weird for me to say this because of what I just mentioned, but this demonstrates how much focus is placed upon the offensive skills of these players.  The next tools that are scouted actually profile differently in the corner outfield positions.  In left field, running speed is the fourth tool looked at and throwing arm is the last tool.  Conversely, in right field, throwing arm is the next tool scouted and running speed is the last.  Lots of people will tell you that it is important to have a strong throwing arm in right field.  I, however, believe that a need for a strong arm in the outfield is vastly overrated.  Very seldom will you seen outfield assists at the big league level, which is why I prefer to look at the fielding and running speed abilities of the player more than the throwing arm.