Red Sox Notes: Whitlock, Rotation, Casas

Sycophant – I fully understand you aren’t arguing for Casas you are simply suggesting the organization values Casas as a prospect. What I’m arguing as you phrased it is that you ASSUME valuing a player as a prospect means putting them in the majors because they are valued. That’s not how it works.

The organization should be using a merit system to promote players and I am pointing out that they are using a political system to promote players. If Casas is highly valued by the organization then they should be doing what’s best for him to succeed but instead they are doing what’s best to promote attendance by playing him at a level he hasn’t qualified himself for. It’s a publicity stunt not an earned promotion. Just like Downs being promoted to the majors. It’s a way to push the narrative of Bloom developing players when he’s not. He’s throwing them in the deep end and hoping they will swim. I’m arguing that you are wrong. It’s NOT because the organization thinks so highly of Casas that he is in the majors, it’s because it’s what’s best for Bloom to hold on to his job a bit longer. I’m pointing out that the scouting reports you are referencing are internal and at the direction of Bloom and his 2023 marketing plan for Casas. That’s why I asked you why?

I wanted you to think about the real WHY behind Casas being in the majors and come to your own conclusion that it’s a publicity stunt since his minor league numbers don’t justify his promotion. The scouting reports say what Bloom demands they say. Reading Casas’ performance numbers shows he is not ready. So for me arguing is the wrong word. I am trying to explain to you how the organization works internally so next time you see a promotion that doesn’t match the minor league performance numbers you won’t think they are high on the player you’ll ask yourself why are they promoting him before he is ready? At that point, you will understand the internal workings of a baseball organization.

websoulsurfer – Your data is incorrect. Scouting services and organizations like BA, MLB, FanGraphs etc. are two separate entities. Scouting services do the things you suggested and they share them with as many organizations as possible because that’s how they support themselves financially.

What you have wrong is the way places like BA, MLB etc put their lists together. They have many sources for their information. They pick and choose which ones they use. They also have direct contact with the public relations groups from each organization. The PR groups have an agenda as I mentioned. That agenda is fed to all the organizations as to the club’s perspective on each player. That is where the biggest bias comes in. The rating services NEED to use the clubs PR perspective in their rankings to maintain a relationship with each organization. The scouting services provide data where as the front offices provide direction.

FYI.. the Athletic isn’t really a rating service. It’s one guy who is really bad at his job providing his own opinion based on how much he got paid by the agents of the individual players. There is no integrity in the listings from the Athletic. It’s a purchased list because the Athletic isn’t a legit baseball entity like BA, MLB or even FanGraphs.

My recommendation to you is to research individual scouts and evaluate their track record and then weigh their opinions greater than the crap you read from all the major rating services. Since the nineties I’ve found specific writers have far more insights and a far better track record than rating services. One example is John Benson. Years ago he published an annual book on prospects and his details far exceeded those of BA, MLB, and others. Fangraphs didn’t exist back then.

Each year there were many magazines who published lists like Law does and you could cross reference the comments and then after the fact see who was the most accurate. Things aren’t so simple now. Data is pulled from sources unknown and opinions are formed by specific people under the umbrella of an organization. Thus, rankings today tend to reflect the message being pushed by the organization not the low level scouting reports from scouting services. Politics in baseball is a continuously growing problem. Much like the news on television, there is always an angle behind the message of the story.

Take another look at the scouting industry because I think your facts are inaccurate. The scouting services employ scouts, contract scouts and gather data from multiple scouts on each player. They turn around and sell their information to the entities you are calling scouting services. They are NOT scouting services they are rating services who have editors that assemble the data from the scouting services and the organizations to build their lists. Each player has an agent who has industry connections. Each organization has public relations and marketing departments pushing their agendas including media influencers.

Your perspective on how all this works is a bit naive. Dig into it. It’s fascinating how many layers there are to the marketing of individual players whether they are stars or prospects.