ST. PETERSBURG -- The winner of this World Series?
Scouts.
In an era in which the industry has shifted away from traditional in-person scouting, the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays won their pennants on limited payrolls through both robust analytical infrastructures and heavy investment in old-school boots-on-the-ground scouting.
“You’ve got to get to know the player and be around them,” said Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold. “I think our scouts do a great job blending those things with the information that would help us make the best decisions.”
The Brewers list 64 scouting department members in their media guide; the Rays list 80. They feature two of MLB's largest departments, contrasting with modern teams moving toward video- and data-driven evaluations.
“Maintaining a robust scouting staff,” said Rays vice president and assistant general manager Kevin Ibach, “allows us to look at these players through a subjective lens and challenge some of the data that we also have working for us as well.”
Arguably the most famous home run in World Series history is also a great scouting story: Dodgers scout Mel Didier warned hitters about A’s closer Dennis Eckersley’s pattern of throwing backdoor sliders on 3-2 counts.
These teams were ready, too. The Brewers and Rays sent six scouts apiece to the other’s LCS round.
“When the league memo comes out, or a team's memo comes out with how many scouts are allowed there,” said Ibach, “we always make sure that we fill that out to the max.”
Prior to Game 1 of the World Series, the Brewers had their scouting department present directly to players. Rays scouts traveled to Milwaukee to brief coaches, who then imparted that information to players.
“If a player or a coach has a follow-up question,” Ibach said, “[the scouts] are in the house, at the team hotel, to have those follow-up conversations.”
Rays manager Kevin Cash said the scouting work was elemental in his club’s advancement.
“Couldn't be more appreciative of the time they've spent away from their families,” Cash said. “Not just from 7-10 [p.m. during a game], they're in these ballparks as soon as the club gets on the field for batting practice, for ground balls, trying to see any little tendencies. Any little edge that we can gain, I'm confident, if it's out there, our scouts have given it to [the coaches and players], because they're really good at what they do.”
Scouts honored.
Going by Baseball-Reference’s data, the Brewers rank 14th in MLB this year with a $146.6 million player payroll, while the Rays rank 24th at $79.3 million. Regardless of which team wins this World Series, it will have done so with the lowest-ranked team payroll since the 2003 Marlins ranked 24th.
But for teams on a more limited baseball operations budget, investments in infrastructure are seen as more stable and reliable uses of resources than lavish free-agent spending on players who could get hurt or regress.
“A lot of the guys on our team have been international signs from our scouts; they're drafted and developed by our scouts,” Arnold said. “They deserve a ton of credit.”
The Rays have an unusually heavy scouting presence in the lower levels, including the Dominican Summer League, where, in 2021, they laid eyes upon an unranked 17-year-old Cleveland prospect named Junior Caminero and wound up targeting him in a trade.
A less-impactful but still-meaningful example Ibach likes to cite is the time during the 2020 COVID year when he scouted an independent league game featuring the Joliet, Ill.-based Tully Monsters. He saw a lefty pitcher named Dietrich Enns, whom he had scouted in the past. But this time, a southpaw who had been sitting 89-90 mph with his fastball previously was now touching 95.
“I’m looking around,” Ibach said, “and there’s literally not another scout there.”
That’s every scout’s dream.
“It made me feel pretty good,” Ibach said, “because we acted on that information. He ends up in the big leagues with us not long thereafter [in 2021].”
What input can an in-person scout add that isn’t already covered by video or Doppler data?
“I think the ideal scout, in a perfect world, is one that has a really good Rolodex of players at every level,” said Arnold, himself a former scout. “You understand what the speed of the game is at the big-league level, and then, when you go see players at a lower level, you’re like, ‘That’s not it. He’s not playing at that level or doesn’t have the capability to get to that speed.’”
Eight of the top 10 payrolls in MLB advanced to the postseason this year. The Brewers and Rays could not have outlasted them without the ability to uncover undervalued player assets. It’s far from the only reason they are here, but it’s a big one. The Rays’ roster features 16 players and 31.2 bWAR acquired in trades. The Brewers’ roster features 10 homegrown players who amounted to 31.4 bWAR.
In a copycat industry like baseball, the question now, of course, is whether this extremely unusual World Series pairing could prompt other clubs to rethink their scouting strategy and how they budget for it.
“If the rest of the league follows suit, you know, it'd be great,” Ibach said. “Right now, I just see it as a competitive advantage.”