The Arm Behind The Barn: A Look into the Effects of the First Year Player Draft in Major League Baseball on Amateur Scouting

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2006
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Haverford College. Department of History
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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"When scouts refer to themselves as 'baseball men,' they might as well be naming a distinct class of primates. Just before Jocko Collins retired in 1982, in his forty-third year as a scout, he defined a baseball man as 'a guy who played the game as far as his talent took him, even if that was just to the low minors, and then kept hanging around ball diamonds after that, because there's no line anymore between him and the game, no point where baseball leaves off and he begins." -Kevin Kerrane. With my senior thesis I plan on examining the evolution of these "baseball men" as amateur scouting for Major League Baseball changed with the advent of the First Year Player Draft in 1965. Prior to the institution of the amateur draft scouts had free reign to sign any and every prospect they came across, but because of a need to keep signing bonuses down, as well as to balance the talent pool in Major League Baseball a draft was designed to restrict such singing power. I plan to examine how the draft was initially reacted to by large and small market teams and how it differed from the previous open market system. I will look into how the draft affected amateur scouting and the reactions of these men who foraged the country in desperate search for the next great player. I will examine how problems with the draft have forced Major League Baseball to adjust policies slightly and how these problems have affected the scouting community. Finally, I will delve into the current debate of basing a draft strategy either on scouting or on statistical analysis and how this has changed how teams prepare their scouting departments for the First Year Player Draft. While the draft has altered the way teams acquire amateur talent, proficient scouting is still the key to maintaining a successful organization.
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