Baltimore manager Buck Showalter receives regular calls from veteran
Brian O'Neill Jersey , out-of-work scouts looking for jobs.
Many are longtime baseball men who once hit the road to major league cities ahead of their clubs to offer detailed insight of upcoming opponents. Now, advance scouting for many teams has turned to technology: video from every angle and situation, and analytics.
”Advance scouting by humans is history,” said Bay Area-based Mets scout Shooty Babitt, who also works as an analyst on Oakland Athletics broadcasts. ”Thank goodness I’m a scout who evaluates talent. Advance guys prepare strategy.”
Showalter’s Orioles don’t have an advance scout working in the ballpark. Same goes for World Series champion Houston, Minnesota, the Angels, Oakland and others.
”I’d like to know how many clubs have a human being advance anymore,” Showalter said.
With the push of a button, a hitter can watch video of every 2-2 breaking pitch Giants ace Madison Bumgarner has tossed, or flame-throwing Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman’s tendencies with a man on base, or any other specific scenario that requires a closer look. Instead of hoping a scout saw that type of situation in the pitcher’s recent outings, there it is on a screen – sometimes even up to the minute as teams do their own version of advance scouting during a game to gauge what a hitter might see in an upcoming at-bat.
Clubs like the A’s stopped using an advance scout on the road years ago as technology improved and so much data became readily available. While the cost savings might not be as significant as it would seem, many teams have used that money instead to invest in infrastructure, databases and other state-of-the-art systems to evaluate talent through strategic study.
Yet even with the trend toward video analysis
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”When I’m looking at a pitcher, I’m just looking at clips and pitches. I don’t see his body language in between, I don’t see if he wants to work really fast, we need to slow this guy down,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. ”There’s some little, subtle things that you may not see. … But we can get a lot done on video.”
San Diego’s advance scouting department works from video, staying in-house.
”We have advance scouts, not in the traditional sense,” Padres manager Andy Green said. ”A lot (of teams) have migrated away from that traditional role. There’s so much video I can watch every single throw that every outfielder makes. There’s a camera angle on absolutely everything at this point in time. … You can see every single pitch from multiple camera angles, so you get a feel for a lot now that you didn’t used to be able to get a feel for. There was a point in time where that advance scout was sitting on signs trying to decipher what the signs were for other teams. That doesn’t happen as much anymore. You’re not finding them out that way.”
Still, certain organizations have stuck to traditional methods.
The Marlins use a combination, with president of baseball operations Michael Hill noting Miami has ”a live advance scout to monitor things that the analytics don’t capture.”
Colorado manager Bud Black firmly believes in advance scouts and what they do to prepare a club – one working at San Francisco’s AT&T Park before the Rockies‘ recent series.
”In this ballpark, in the stadium, in a seat, and maybe walking around different viewpoints
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Black appreciates the human element these scouts offer – ”There’s some things that the television camera doesn’t pick up, right? And our guys keep an eye on that” – and recommended keeping advance scouts when he got the Colorado job before the 2017 season.
Some players sense a difference.
Giants right fielder Andrew McCutchen indicated they might feel devalued because there’s less information on a player without those on-site scouts.
”It’s all about what a computer can spit out and let you know. It makes the game a little more efficient and easier for people,” McCutchen said. ”But in the midst of that, guys are losing an opportunity to be able to showcase what they’re capable of doing. It’s just the way it’s evolving in this game. It’s just baseball and, honestly, life in general. Technology is just what’s new, it’s what’s going on that matters right now.”
The NBA is still heavily reliant on the advance scout who hops from city to city at a frenetic pace, and it’s something champion Warriors coach Steve Kerr still counts on as he and his staff must immediately get ready after a game for another opponent as soon as the very next night – or on short notice, like this year leading into the first round of the playoffs when there were several potential opponents as the regular season concluded.
Many baseball managers see both sides of the argument over having a scout in the stadium seats versus studying from afar.
”I think it’s how advance scouting has changed,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. ”Some are still in the stands, truly the traditional advance scouting where they’re in the stands following teams you’re about to play. Some are more behind the scenes, video and analysis. We’re on the latter side of that, so we don’t have a body in the stadium as much as we have an advance scouting department th They had their chances.
All of these events were downright ideal for the Cleveland Cavaliers: Stephen Curry’s shooting game was awful for most of the night, Klay Thompson’s wasn’t much better
Tyron Smith Jersey , the Cavs led by as many as 13 in the first half and some non-producers from the first two games of these NBA Finals were starting to finally give LeBron James the contributions he’s craved.
And it still wasn’t enough.
Another chance was wasted, and the season is now just about over.
Game 3 went down as a loss, and now the Cavaliers find themselves in the hole from which no NBA team has ever escaped. Golden State rallied to top Cleveland 110-102 on Wednesday night to take a 3-0 lead in the finals, with a chance to clinch their second straight championship Friday when this series resumes.
”It’s definitely a tough loss and we had our chances,” James said. ”We have another opportunity on Friday to win on our home floor … to extend the series. But we’ve got to come out and got to play 48 minutes.”
James was fantastic, again: 33 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. The Cavaliers rolled the dice and put Rodney Hood into the series, and got 15 points from him. Kevin Love had 20 points and 13 rebounds and J.R. Smith finished with 13 points, finally making some shots.
They just couldn’t stop Kevin Durant.
”Incredible, even by his standards,” Love said.
With Curry and Thompson non-factors much of the game, combining for 21 points on 7 for 27 combined shooting, Durant finished with a playoff career-best 43 points.
”We got stagnant,” Love said. ”We were ultra-aggressive in that first half, myself included. But third quarters have kind of been our Achilles heel all year. … I think that was mostly it.”
Game 1 of this series will be remembered by how Cleveland let it get away; the botched rebound by Smith to be forever played as one of those quintessential wish-you-had-it-back moments. Game 3 of this series will probably be remembered by how the Cavaliers
Cheap Marcus Davenport Jersey , even with Curry missing 13 of his first 14 shots, dominated stretches of the first half and went into the locker room only up by six.
They were asking for trouble.
They’re now in trouble.
”I thought we played a good first half,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. ”They’re going to make runs. That’s what this team does. To be up six at the half after being up 13 … they’re going to make runs. We understand that.”
So this series is just about finished, or at least, that’s what the history books say. The 3-0 deficit has, until now, been insurmountable in NBA playoff annals. Not even the most optimistic Cleveland fan could expect that to change in the coming days.
The next two days will be angst-laden for Cleveland, though hardly anyone should be fretting the outcome of this series. The mystery is gone, and Golden State – which hasn’t lost four consecutive games in the same season since 2013, back when Mark Jackson was coaching the Warriors instead of calling their games on ABC and ESPN – needs only to avoid an apocalyptic collapse to win their third title in four years.
”That margin for error is so little, so thin against them, I think in some cases you have to be perfect,” Love said.
But a lot of the angst won’t be about the Warriors, it will be about James. Again.
Another ”Summer of LeBron” could start as early as Friday night.
James can be a free agent, and there’s a real sense around the NBA that this summer – just like in 2010
Anthony Miller Jersey , when he left for Miami – could be packing up and leaving his native northeast Ohio once again. He has taken Cleveland to the NBA Finals now five times, and this now looks certain to be his fourth loss in those. He was 2-2 in four trips to the NBA Finals with Miami.
A bounce here, a couple stops there, the Cavs could be leading in these finals and the conversation would be different.
Instead, Cleveland is only left to wonder if James is a game from leaving. But he’s not going anywhere, even mentally, until this series is over.
”For me, tonight will be tough,” James said. ”Tomorrow I’ll replay some plays and some moments, things of that nature. I’ll wake up Friday morning, I’ll be locked in on the game plan and what needs to be done to help our team win. That’s who I am.”
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