Hello, my name is Brendan Gawlowski. I could do the Troy McClure thing and list all my previous bylines, but I’d rather just say it’s a pleasure to return to FanGraphs after almost four years. In early 2022, I took a job as a pro scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates and have been scouting minor leaguers ever since. In a few cases I played a role in bringing players to Pittsburgh. It was amazing and I’m grateful for the experience.
But no matter how much I enjoyed it, the work was at the expense of the people around me. Last year I spent more than 80 nights on the road, a grueling schedule that is tough on families in every situation and became increasingly unreasonable in mine. When I joined the Pirates, I was thirty, childless, and ready to stretch my legs after two years of lying low and masking up. In the intervening years, a series of major events made it difficult to balance my passion for Scouting with my responsibilities at home. My wife and I had a baby. A year later we were confronted with the diagnosis of cancer and long-term treatment. Our parents started with their own medical problems. Through it all, I tried to be around as much as possible, but the reality of my schedule led to stressful compromises. The logistics of working while being more than a replacement-level family member were difficult to manage. Last July, I pulled an all-nighter and drove from Corpus Christi to Houston to catch a 6 a.m. flight back to Seattle, popped in for a quick shower, and then flew two hours north to Bellingham for a birthday party. During that last stretch, my wife made her annual friendly suggestion that a different path was possible.
And what kind of path is this. FanGraphs’ reputation as a leader in baseball analytics is well-earned, especially when it comes to prospects. While he’s been at it, Eric has done a fantastic job covering the landscape. From my perspective, the breadth, depth, and nuance of his analysis are worth the price of membership in and of themselves. I learned a lot from him before, during and after our collaboration during my first period here. The vacancy for this position came at the perfect time and I applied with enthusiasm: I loved working as a scout, but the opportunity to work with Eric full-time, continue to evaluate baseball players while staying home for a few more months was too tempting to pass up.
The timing was right for another reason too. Besides the ‘Follow your passion without becoming a stranger to your dog’ angle, I also felt the itch to write a little. About players for sure: I’m looking forward to flowing around Kevin McGonigle’s talent and weighing the benefits of throwing a Ben Zobrist comp on Roldy Brito in public. But perhaps even more I want to write about the game and the industry. I learned a lot during my time with the Pirates and have grown tremendously as an evaluator. I want to share what I can get from those experiences.
I also want to write about scouting itself. It’s always felt a little weird that some people associate the job with the stock characters they saw Moneyballas if scouts are a group of geriatric dorks figuring out ways to keep Jonah Hill out of the kitchen. In reality, they are an endangered species as teams reduce their workforce and increasingly prioritize objective measurements. The scouting community has lost dozens of jobs in recent years, and if CBA negotiations lead to another lockout next year, it will almost certainly be another blow to the industry. In this world, we are all line items on someone’s balance sheet, and in baseball, scouts are among the first to be squeezed out of the spreadsheet.
That would be understandable, even if it was still sad, if we had well and truly gotten the juice out of subjective evaluation, if we had collectively reached the point where a player’s biomechanical information and performance on the field gave us everything we needed to make good decisions. It doesn’t detract from the quantitative methodologies we have to say we’re not there yet. Not even close. Holistic player evaluation is the right cocktail, and while every franchise strives for this to some extent, teams are increasingly leaning on one ingredient at the expense of another.
We lose something essential when we reduce the importance of subjective looks. You can’t possibly sit and listen to Sean McNally and Doug Strange talk about hitting, or Jeremy Powell and Andrew Lorraine evaluate leg mechanics and conclude that their perspective belongs outside the room. I would argue the opposite: In a world where teams find themselves on an increasingly even analytical playing field—I pause here to draw everyone’s attention to the bottom of the standings, as a way to note the immense consequences for those who have fallen behind in this particular arms race—good professional scouting can be a competitive advantage.
I’d like to write about why that is so. I want to discuss the ways in which data can be used to evaluate and project baseball players, as well as where and how it may fall short or even be misleading. Through that lens, I’m excited to discuss the prospects and the minor leagues in ways that will inform and entertain readers. In particular, I want to write about modern player development, explore how teams use evaluation and acquisition models, and highlight the continued importance of good scouting in an increasingly analytical industry.
Before we begin, one final note to Pirates fans: it was an honor to be part of your team. I didn’t have to visit often to see that the city loves sports and will support a winning baseball club to the extreme. The baseball operations department is a talented and competitive group desperate to find a winner in Pittsburgh. I will support their and your success from afar.