Dick Groch, scout who signed Jeter and helped transform Brewers, dies at 84

Dick Groch, the scout who signed Derek Jeter to the Yankees before a long tenure with the Brewers as a high-ranking evaluator, passed away on Wednesday in Port Huron, Mich., his family said. He was 84.

Giants general manager Zack Minasian, Brewers assistant GM Karl Mueller and Angels pro scouting director Derek Watson are among the Major League officials who learned player evaluation under the tutelage of Groch in Milwaukee, where he was a longtime lieutenant to GM Doug Melvin and helped transform the Brewers from a cellar-dweller to a perennial contender by the time he began to transition into retirement in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

But Groch will forever be remembered as the man who convinced the Yankees to take a chance on Jeter in 1992. Groch had been tracking the standout shortstop from Kalamazoo Central High all over Michigan, weathering a bitter spring to chart the progress of a player that he had already decided was destined for Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees had interest in Jeter, but scouting director Bill Livesey had heard that Jeter was strongly considering a scholarship offer from the University of Michigan.

"He's not," Groch insisted. "The only place this player is going is Cooperstown."

Groch, of course, was right. Jeter played all 20 of his Major League seasons in a Yankees uniform, made 14 All-Star teams, won the World Series five times and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020 after receiving 396 of a possible 397 votes.

First, the Yankees had to get him.

Five other teams passed on Jeter before New York could call his name in the ‘92 Draft, and Groch knew they'd all made mistakes.

"It's the difference between going to the Kentucky Derby and the state fair," Groch once said. "When you see Secretariat, it takes your breath away.”

The promise of finding the next thoroughbred drove Groch his entire baseball life. Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1940, he was a star basketball player at Olivet College and was named first team NAIA for four consecutive years. After beginning his professional career as a high school teacher and coach, Groch moved to St. Clair Community College, where he coached basketball, baseball and cross country. His baseball teams produced more than 40 professional ballplayers while making three appearances in the Junior College World Series, and Groch was Junior College Coach of the Year in 1970, 1972, and 1976.

He then moved into scouting with the Expos and then the Yankees, hired in New York by Melvin, who was assistant scouting director at the time. Groch stayed with the Yankees until October 2002, when he agreed to join Melvin in Milwaukee to try to turn around a Brewers team coming off a 106-loss season.

Besides working to repopulate Milwaukee’s system with winning players, Groch helped develop the next wave of talent evaluators including Melvin’s own son, Cory, who is a professional scout with the Yankees. The Brewers front office, too, has prominent officials who began under Groch, including Mueller, special assignment scout Scott Campbell and special assistant to scouting Bryan Gale.

“He gets the accolades for Jeter, and that he should, but I liked Dick because he created good debate in meetings,” Melvin said. “He didn’t just sit there and agree with everybody. He made you debate from the other side of the table to make sure you’re right.”

Groch never left a ballgame before the final out, Melvin said, and took pride in his work ethic. He was listed in the staff directory of the Brewers media guide as late as 2021, and while his duties waned at the end, he was known to drive the hour or so from Port Huron to Detroit to scout Tigers games just for the joy of it.

“He would go into his office at home at 8:30 in the morning, close the door and tell [his wife] Nancy, ‘I’ll see you at lunch time,’” Melvin said. “You’d better not interrupt him when he was doing reports.

“He was a throwback, and these types of guys, there’s a lot of them out there who had great careers and helped a lot of teams. I still think teams can use those kinds of people.”

Melvin learned of Groch’s passing from Groch’s son, Brian, after trying to connect via telephone in recent weeks. Groch is survived by Nancy, his wife of 63 years, along with three children and nine grandchildren. He is to be buried in Port Huron on Oct. 8.

The family suggested that fans who would like to memorialize Groch do so with a donation to the Blue Water Area Humane Society or Blue Water Hospice.

"From a scouting standpoint, you're always in a position to sell your players," Groch once said. "If you don't believe in your players, then the people who have to pull the card and make the decision aren't going to have much strength and conviction in your player. They have to feel as strongly as you do."