Evolution in evaluation of prospects

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The player personnel chief for an American League contender, responding to a request for how his team ranks Boston's top 10 prospects, sent along his list, then added this kicker:

''The Red Sox hit the Latin market strong three years ago and have since backed off -- big mistake. They are overpaying guys in the draft and should have overpaid guys in Latin America. We are happy they are doing it this way."

It is all part of doing business in baseball, not only evaluating your players, but making judgments on what other teams have and how they go about their business, indispensable information for when it's time to make trades. The teams that do it best are the ones that often come away with a player who was supposed to be a marginal prospect and winds up making it to the big leagues, such as Lew Ford. One American League club, for example, likes Cla Meredith, the Red Sox' rookie reliever who was rushed to the big leagues last season, one year out of Single A, did not pitch well, and gets only passing mention from other teams.

''Our kind of guy," that team's assistant general manager said. ''A logical comparison is Chad Bradford [Meredith, like Bradford, is a righthanded submariner]. Good minor league stats, in terms of strikeouts to walks and ground-ball outs."

For what it's worth, the Sox don't think they've backed off in Latin America at all. There was a transition period when Louie Eljaua, the team's director of international scouting who followed owner John W. Henry from the Marlins, left to go to Pittsburgh in December 2003, but while Craig Shipley, who oversees international scouting as part of his broader duties, is reorganizing the team's Venezuelan staff, the club still puts a high priority on finding and developing Latin players.

Before you can evaluate other people's talent, you have to have a good handle on your own. The Red Sox, for example, this spring are meeting with the roughly 165 players they have in the minor league system, new director of player development Mike Hazen and field coordinator Rob Leary with the position players, Hazen and vice president of player personnel Ben Cherington with the pitchers. Out of those meetings, they draw up a program for each player, outlining specific goals and means to reach those goals. One of Shipley's principal roles as a key adviser to GM Theo Epstein -- he has been promoted to vice president of professional and international scouting -- was to evaluate the entire Sox system.

During the season, Sox minor league managers, all given laptops, are required to file reports after each game, which keep the home office apprised not only of how prospects are doing, but allows space for information on top players on other clubs. The Sox also rely heavily on sabermetric measures, statistics that go far beyond the usual standard batting average and earned run average. Things such as equivalency average and VORP (value over replacement player), strategies for analysis devised by Bill James and the generation of stat crunchers who have followed, and a greater emphasis on such measures as on-base percentage and high strikeout rates as predictors of future success.

Here's James, writing on major league equivalencies, which factor in park adjustments and league adjustments, plus translations to the majors: ''Baseball men generally believe that minor league batting statistics are not a reliable indicator of how a player will hit in the major leagues. After studying the issue extensively, I concluded that minor league batting statistics predicted major league performance with the same accuracy as previous major league batting statistics."

The Sox' dedication to the numbers is reflected by the fact they hired James as a senior baseball operations adviser shortly after Epstein became GM. In a new book, ''The Mind of Bill James," by Scott Gray, James's wife, Susie, describes how James reluctantly went down on the field after the Sox won the World Series and encountered Henry, the man who had recruited him for the job. ''John poked his index finger repeatedly into Bill's chest and said, 'You're a world champion,' " she recalled.

Numerous teams employ their own sabermetricians. Those that don't can always turn to Baseball Prospectus, which publishes an annual rating of players and is available on a daily basis on the Internet (baseballprospectus.com). The Oakland Athletics, as celebrated in ''Moneyball," were one of the first teams to use statistical analysis extensively to help shape their draft day and trade decisions. ''But when we were talking with Boston and Chicago about a possible trade for Mark Kotsay in 2004," said David Forst, the assistant GM of the Athletics, ''we had two scouts, Billy Owens and Matt Keough, following those teams on a daily basis for a month and a half."

Baseball America, the trade publication that regularly publishes lists of top prospects based on comprehensive surveys of scouting directors, GMs, and personnel directors, is another tool. And while baseball people use it as such -- ''anyone who says they don't look at it is lying," one AL talent evaluator said -- they also acknowledge that they treat some of the information there with skepticism. ''Everyone overrates their own players," said one special assistant to a National League GM. ''And there are times we say stuff about a player to Baseball America because we want to market a guy."

Still, as former Sox GM and traditionalist Lou Gorman, who helped train one of the best, Atlanta GM John Schuerholz, when both were in Atlanta, says: ''You still have to eyeball a player."

One American League club divvies up major league teams among its scouts by division. But the scout who has the AL East, say, is responsible not only for the Yankees, but the Yankees' Triple A and Double A clubs. Amateur scouts, once the June draft is finished, are assigned to the team's Single A and rookie league levels.

''We use the 2-8 grading system," said the special assistant to the GM of this club. ''Many clubs do, of course, but there are variations in the values assigned. For us, 8 is off the charts. Roy Halladay is an 8. Randy Johnson in his heyday was an 8. A-Rod [Alex Rodriguez] and [Albert] Pujols are 8s. Seven is a consistent All-Star, in the upper echelon. Derek Jeter is a 7, but when you throw in makeup and leadership, he's an 8. Manny [Ramírez] for me is a 7, because I don't like his makeup and defense.

''Six is an occasional All-Star, well-above-average major league player. Five is an average major league starter, four a below-average major leaguer." With prospects, he said, a team will assign two grades, one a present indicator, the other a future predictor. ''[Jonathan] Papelbon might be a 4/6," he said. ''Hanley Ramirez, a 4/7."

Some GMs want detailed reports from their scouts. Others don't have time to read them and want summaries. The baseball men who still put their faith in old-fashioned scouting maintain that the experienced scout, with his infinite network of contacts -- trainers, ex-players, other scouts, college and high school coaches -- still is vital. That's why the Sox were so successful in the late 1970s and '80s, said former Sox farm director Bob Schaefer, because scouting director Eddie Kasko relied on veteran scouts to take the measure of a man.

''You need both," Cherington said of the scouts and the numbers. ''The numbers are a tool. But you still need the good scout willing to drive the extra miles to see a kid at a junior college game."