Interesting podcast interview with doug laumann

[Dominikk85]

Doug was the director of sox scouting and the last years had more of an advisory role. He drafted some great players like sale, anderson and rodon but also a lot of big failures. 

Apparently this also was his last year and he will go into retirement this winter. 

 

He seems to be a good guy but there also was some stuff that was pretty shocking

-he has heard about spin rate and EV and isn't totally opposed to it but he basically said he doesn't need the numbers and can see it with his eyes already. He also has very rudimentary and vague understanding of those analytical concepts

-he said numbers guys always want to be right and if they are wrong they will later pull out a number that they still were right. 

 

-he said he needs to only see a player once and in fact often even not that saying usually seeing him walk and move in warm up is enough in many cases. 

On the good side he seems to be a great guy and you can also sense he has a big wealth of baseball knowledge but you can sense why the sox are behind if you listen to that, it seems to be very traditional and feel based. There seem to be numbers guys in the org but they don't necessarily have the final say in many cases. 

 

[Harold's Leg Lift]

Metrics like spin rate and exit velocity are pretty much useless on the amateur side because they answer the wrong question.  When evaluating 18-21 year olds you're trying to figure out if the can hit, if they can pitch and what metics tell you is how they hit and how they pitch. A guy might have high spin rates but that doesn't mean he's a good pitcher.  He may have a terrible delivery or arm action that will not allow him to have future avg command, he may be a big p**** that doesn't challenge hitters or he might be a non athlete who won't be able to make the necessary adjustments to advance to the next level. A hitter might have high exit velocities but he swings and misses 20 times in between, he may not be able to handle an inside fastball, recognize spin or he might be a non athlete with no position.  Metrics have their place with the more advanced players but teams relying on metrics on the amateur side are making a lot of mistakes. 

[chitownsportsfan]

Lol he actually pulled out the billy beane moves like a million bucks in warm ups trope. God help us Sox fans.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

12 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

Doug was the director of sox scouting and the last years had more of an advisory role. He drafted some great players like sale, anderson and rodon but also a lot of big failures. 

Apparently this also was his last year and he will go into retirement this winter. 

 

He seems to be a good guy but there also was some stuff that was pretty shocking

-he has heard about spin rate and EV and isn't totally opposed to it but he basically said he doesn't need the numbers and can see it with his eyes already. He also has very rudimentary and vague understanding of those analytical concepts

-he said numbers guys always want to be right and if they are wrong they will later pull out a number that they still were right. 

 

-he said he needs to only see a player once and in fact often even not that saying usually seeing him walk and move in warm up is enough in many cases. 

On the good side he seems to be a great guy and you can also sense he has a big wealth of baseball knowledge but you can sense why the sox are behind if you listen to that, it seems to be very traditional and feel based. There seem to be numbers guys in the org but they don't necessarily have the final say in many cases. 

 

Ahh.. This explains why our drafting has always been dick

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

Ahh.. This explains why our drafting has always been dick

Laumann was actually pretty solid.  Drafted Sale, Anderson, Semien, Rodon, Bassitt, Hudson, Bummer, etc.   He was a huge improvement from Schaefer and better than his replacement Hostetler IMO.

[Dominikk85]

16 hours ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

Metrics like spin rate and exit velocity are pretty much useless on the amateur side because they answer the wrong question.  When evaluating 18-21 year olds you're trying to figure out if the can hit, if they can pitch and what metics tell you is how they hit and how they pitch. A guy might have high spin rates but that doesn't mean he's a good pitcher.  He may have a terrible delivery or arm action that will not allow him to have future avg command, he may be a big p**** that doesn't challenge hitters or he might be a non athlete who won't be able to make the necessary adjustments to advance to the next level. A hitter might have high exit velocities but he swings and misses 20 times in between, he may not be able to handle an inside fastball, recognize spin or he might be a non athlete with no position.  Metrics have their place with the more advanced players but teams relying on metrics on the amateur side are making a lot of mistakes. 

Yeah it definitely is more complicated on the amateur side and it is more subjective too due to the level of competition like doug also mentioned in the podcast. 

I do think he is a good traditional scout and he found some great players over the years but I still think ideally there should be more collaboration with the data guys. From what Doug said he did that and sometimes the data people won but I think it would be better if your scouting director is a bit more positive on the data stuff. 

 

Also interesting that he expressed a pretty strong preference for college guys saying that HS guys don't necessarily have more upside. Not criticizing that aspect as many teams are doing that but still interesting. 

[JoeC]

8 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

Also interesting that he expressed a pretty strong preference for college guys saying that HS guys don't necessarily have more upside. Not criticizing that aspect as many teams are doing that but still interesting. 

I interpret that as "I trust colleges to develop players better than our minor league system."

If you have a good player development system, you want to get players into that pipeline as soon as you can.