All posts by Jim Allen

sports editor for a wire service in Tokyo

Scout Diary: Jan. 21, 2020

Today was kind of a wuss-out day. I was thinking of going and watching the kids practice at Suginami H.S., but the chilly wind discouraged me too early. I did manage a few e-mails to help set up course interviews with a couple of Nippon Professional Baseball teams. Today is Part 2 of my “best infield tools” assignment. Tomorrow I’ll have three players from NPB’s Pacific League.

Jump to 1 year as a scout page

At then end, I’ve tagged on a scouting report of Roki Sasaki based on a video from the 2019 Iwate Prefectural tournament.

National League shortstops

In a search for the professional infielder with best tools, I’m trying to choose from between the three finalists for the NL’s Gold Glove at shortstops:

  • Paul DeJong
  • Trevor Story
  • Nick Ahmed

Based on video I saw, all three have:

  • quick feet
  • lateral quickness on ground balls
  • soft hands
  • raw arm strength
  • quick, smooth transfer
  • can throw from all angles
Nick Ahmed

Other considerations:

Accuracy: Story, who might have the most powerful arm of the three is 60, the other two are 70s.

Footwork: Ahmed (80) and De Jong (70) are models in setting their feet even on the most hurried throws. Story looks like Andrelton Simmons because his arm is so powerful, he can whip the ball without getting set.

All three are graceful, quick to get rid of the ball, but Ahmed, like Simmons, has the grace and balance of a ballet dancer.

Scout Diary: Jan. 20, 2020

I made slight progress with my interviews by pushing closer to an appointment with a manager for a major university in Tokyo — mind you it’s someone I’ve met numerous times before. Still, one drop in the bucket is still a drop.

Throughout this course two real challenges have been 1) my lack of familiarity with MLB and 2) the language of scouting. 

Jump to 1 year as a scout page

Some words one finds in scouting reports may be English but are applied in ways that make little sense, except apparently to scouts. What does “high waist” mean for goodness sakes?

Week 5’s task is as much about language as observation: to identify a professional infielder you feel has the best tools identified from this week’s reading. Describe in scouting terminology why you feel he/she is the best. This implies we can observe every professional infielder, or at least have a large number of candidates to draw on — something for Difficulty 1 explained above, I do not. 

The compromise

Everything is open ended, so I’m going to create a pool of candidates, compare the top Gold Glove candidates in MLB and the Golden Glove candidates in Japan. I’m also going to limit the search to shortstops, because well if you’re the best infielder on the planet, you ain’t going to be playing second or third base.

Assignment part 1: AL shortstops

It’s Monday in Japan, so I’m going to do this one league at a time, starting with the AL.

  • Marcus Semien
  • Andrelton Simmons
  • Francisco Lindor
Francisco Lindor

From a quick youtube search, I rated Lindor the best of these amazing three. All have soft hands, quick feet, tremendous balance and great instincts, especially on fly balls.

All three have quick releases. Semien appears to lack the same explosive carry on their throws Lindor and Simmons have, so the difference for me is between 80 arms and a 70 arm. Forced to be more precise, I might grade SImmons as a 78 and Lindor as a 75 based on raw arm strength.

Simmons’ throws may be a little more accurate than Lindor’s, but Lindor’s lower body — a little smaller but extremely powerful — makes me like him more. He generates so much power in his throws from his lower body. Lindor is more like a gymnast and Simmons more like a long jumper. I don’t know which is better,

I’ll do the National League, where Nick Ahmed, the Fielding Bible champion for 2019, lives.