Digging Up Young Mookie Betts Scouting Reports

Digging Up Young Mookie Betts Scouting Reports

One thing that has become crystal clear this postseason— if it wasn’t already— is that Mookie Betts is the second-best ballplayer in the world. There’s seemingly nothing he can’t do on a baseball field. Yes, Mike Trout is still #1, and there’s no real need for a meaningless debate, but Betts is probably closer in talent to Trout than the third-best player in baseball is to Mookie (whoever that may be). Besides, playing second fiddle to a legend like Trout does nothing to diminish Betts’ greatness; no one knocks Hank Aaron down because his career overlapped with Willie Mays’.

Trout was a first-round pick, selected 25th overall in 2009. Analysts, journalists, and fans have often wondered how MLB could have possibly chosen 24 names ahead of the greatest player of his generation.The prevailing reason seems to be that New Jersey is cold sometimes. Nevertheless, he still began his pro career with the fanfare of a high draft pick and quickly established himself as one of baseball’s top prospects.

Betts was neither a top prospect nor a high draft pick. The Red Sox chose him in the 5th round of the 2011 draft, 172nd overall. They paid him an over-slot $750,000 signing bonus— roughly equivalent to that of a late first-round pick— to forgo his commitment to the University of Tennessee despite the lack of hype.Baseball America did not include him in their top 200 draft prospects that year. He played just one game in the minors that season, then failed to hit a single home run in 71 games in 2012. He broke out offensively in A-ball in 2013, then ascended to the majors the following year. His highest prospect list ranking was #62 overall by Baseball America prior to the 2014 season.

Clearly, the scouts missed something. They can’t even use the cold northeast weather excuse, either— he’s from Nashville, Tennessee. All scouts whiff sometimes. Lots of unheralded players pop in the minors for a variety of reasons, especially when we’re talking about 18-year-old high school kids who still haven’t fully developed physically. That being said, let’s poke around some of those old scouting reports to see what stands out.

Mookie Shrank?

According to John Sickels at Minor League Ball in 2014,Betts was listed at 6’0, 170 lb. in high school. Nine years later, he’s 5’9, 180 lb. according to Baseball-Reference. If true, we have severely underestimated his athleticism.According to Dr. Pham Liem at UAMS Health, “Older adults can get shorter because the cartilage between their joints gets worn out and osteoporosis causes the spinal column to become shorter.” For Mookie to suffer premature cartilage loss and osteoporosis while still performing at an MVP level is nothing short of heroic!

Sometimes we fall in love with prototypes. Mike Trout is a strapping 6’2, 235 lb. He looks the way a superstar athlete issupposedto look.As per Jim McLennan of AZ Snake Pit, there is a slight correlation between size and offensive power, but that’s mostly because of hulking sluggers, not all-around athletes like Trout and Betts. Even still, just because there is a weak connection doesn’t mean scouts should immediately downgrade all shorter athletes.

At any rate, Betts’ high school felt compelled to lie about his height to help him get drafted. It probably didn’t work, but it exposes a dumb stigma. Had he actually been 6’0, 170 lb., maybe he would have gotten picked earlier.

Racism and Lazy Comps

Here’s a jaw-dropper fromAlbert Leroy’s 2014 profile of Betts at Place to Be Nation: “One scout said that he looks like ‘Allen Iverson on a baseball field.’” No, anonymous scout, he most assuredly does not look like Allen Iverson on a baseball field because we’ve neverseenAllen Iverson on a baseball field. This is racist scout-speak for “short, Black, and athletic.” No one would have made this comparison for a white player. If this scout insists on using player comps but can’t bring to mind an actual baseball player simply because of skin color, he shouldn’t be employed in baseball at all. Hopefully, he isn’t anymore.

Sadly, this is not an outlier. “Evidence does support the idea that race affected how some scouts perceived some players,” reports The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh. According to Rob Arthur’s research at Baseball Prospectus,racism even impacts the way players are described in video games.

We all have schemas for what kinds of players can exist in the majors, and scouts are no different.As Rob Arthur and I explored at Baseball Prospectus, race has a significant effect on which positions players are “allowed” to play, and Black athletes get fewer opportunities at catcher and infield positions. Would Betts have been drafted higher if he was a white 5’9 infielder? Given that a pro scout had to reach into a different sport for comparison— not to mention the fact that he was eventually shunted to the outfield as a pro— it’s fair to question.

Arm, Apparently

In scouting parlance, a “five-tool” player is the complete package: contact, power, speed, defense, arm. Present-day Mookie clearly possesses all five,but initial scouting reports gave him credit for maybe two-and-a-half.

“Coming into the 2011 draft, Baseball America reported that Betts “could be a college difference-maker for his hitting ability, speed and solid athleticism,” but said little about his potential to blossom into a top prospect. The report questions whether Betts had a carrying tool, a question that is often indicative of players with low ceilings who are unlikely to ever reach the Major Leagues.”

— Dan Wiegel, Beyond the Box Score (2014)

That checks off the contact and speed boxes. “Solid athleticism” hints at defense, but his position was uncertain. Wiegel continues, “(Devin) Marrero, the Sox’ 2012 first-round pick and the more highly regard prospect at the time, was given the priority at shortstop, while Betts, who was likely a better fit for the keystone anyway, made the move to his current primary position of second base.” The main reason why a prospect moves from shortstop to second base is lack of arm strength, so if Betts was “likely a better fit at the keystone,” we can assume he received poor arm grades.

About that:

Sure seems like his arm isn’t a problem at all. Either he improved his throwing ability considerably over the years, or scouts got it wrong. Of course, there’s option C, which is that the Red Sox simply wanted to make room for Marrero— and later on the more highly regarded Xander Bogaerts— but given that they moved him to a position locked down by Dustin Pedroia at the time, it doesn’t seem like big-league depth was the major factor in the switch.

Power Potential

Arguably the most important tool for a prospect is power, and Betts legitimately lacked any as a teenager. He was probably about 5’9, 155 lb. on Draft Day. He didn’t hit his first home run until his 77th professional game. We all think of muscle-bound beasts when it comes to home run threats, and he was never going to be that.

This underscores two flaws inherent in scouting teenagers. First, it’s almost impossible to tell what an 18-year-old is going to look like 5-10 years down the road. For example, the Indians drafted a scrawny infielder out of high school in 1989 who hit zero home runs in 55 rookie ball games, primarily playing shortstop. That was Jim Thome, who quickly outgrew the descriptions “scrawny,” “punchless,” and “shortstop.”

Second, power hitters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them look like (the adult version of) Thome, but some of them look like Khris Davis and José Bautista, both of whom led MLB in home runs while listed at just 205 lb. Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, second and sixth all-time in career homers respectively, have listed weights of 180 and 170 lb. For that matter, the 180 lb. Mookie Betts has averaged 30 home runs per 162 games over the course of his big league career.

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The #1 overall pick in 2011 was Gerrit Cole, who has been a resounding success (albeit not necessarily for the Pirates who drafted him, but that’s another story). Be that as it may, if we held a redraft knowing what we know now, Betts would be the unquestioned first selection. The whole baseball industry missed on him, and the reasons range from forgivable to inexcusable. No one truly recognized Betts’ latent talent— with the possible exception of the University of Tennessee.

That just goes to show how little any of us know about prospects. The 171st player picked in 2011 was Scott Snodgress, who pitched four games in the majors. The 173rd pick was Mark Pope, who topped out in Triple-A. The guy in between went from the 17th shortstop in his draft class, to a fringe top-100 prospect with an uncertain defensive future, to the second-best player in the world.