Russ Adams has a record. Every move he makes these days is noted and entered into a computer, creating a file as long as his arm.
In fact, Mr. Adams's record has a lot to do with his arm, and his glove, legs and bat. The former infielder with the University of North Carolina was drafted last month by the Toronto Blue Jays, and even before he took the field in a Jays uniform this year, his profile and scouting reports were inducted into the team's extensive computerized player record system, where detailed playing statistics -- every hit, every run, every error -- will accumulate, along with the team's collective wisdom on his future prospects.
"Once we sign them to a contract, we take all their biographical information and move them from the amateur scouting database to the professional scouting database," explains Jon Lalonde, co-ordinator of scouting operations.
Within a couple of days of the amateur draft, which ended on June 5, the Blue Jays had signed at least 10 of their picks with the help of the system.
The Jays entered the draft in rebuild mode, and like a lot of teams, they're wagering they can put down a better foundation with layers of silicon and software.
In the days leading up to previous drafts, scouts, coaches and executives would irritably shuffle through mounds of coffee-stained paper and bark into the phone, trying to get a fix on the talent situation.
That might still be part of the fun, but these days you're also likely to find the staff sitting in a conference room, watching digital video of prospects and scrolling through the accompanying scouting reports on their laptops. The video is probably on disk, although before long it might be streamed through the Web or a virtual private network.
Scouting operations are the intelligence corps of baseball organizations. Usually numbering in the 30s, a team's full-time scouts keep tabs on professionals, from rookie leagues to the majors, and amateur players, sizing up the club's competitive situation and its future prospects. Teams also rely to varying degrees on part-time and freelance scouts.
In the brave new world of baseball intelligence, reports are up to the minute and databases are synchronized, so everyone's on the same page. They can slice and dice records to home in on certain types of players or test various scenarios.
"You have a lot more information and you can get to it quicker and more efficiently, and hopefully make better decisions," says Tim McCleary, the Jays' vice-president of baseball operations and assistant general manager.
Scouting organizations seem to have taken readily to the technology. "I just [ground]through it until I got comfortable with it," says New York Mets scouting director Jack Bowen. "I'm current on all the scouts around the country. Every night I can see what they've done, whereas in the old method they would have us send in our stack of reports at the end of the week, and then you'd have the three or four days in the mail. By that time, what you've done a week ago is already nine days old."
The advantage of automation is the speed and accuracy it brings to the process, which officials say improves their odds of getting the players they want and getting the most out of the players they have. It also puts more of the organization's people in the loop, providing them with detailed, up-to-date snapshots of the roster situation.
For an investment in the neighbourhood of the Major League minimum salary, $200,000 (U.S.), a team can automate its entire scouting and player records system, low minors through bigs.
Teams are grappling with how to employ IT to advance their business objectives, in this case finding and developing players. They're also focused on getting the most out of their experts and cutting costs.
The Mets, for example, have reduced their reliance on part-time scouts, and team officials tout computerization as a way of boosting the efficiency of their primary staff. "The full-time scouts were the ones who were responsible. With the automation, our goal was to have the system save time," says Gary Laroque, the team's assistant general manager and director of scouting operations.
Scouting systems are basically data warehousing and decision support applications. They provide a central repository for a team's amateur and pro scouting records, usually merged with reports from the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau and other services.
In addition to biographical information and "vitals," scouting reports usually include brief entries on a player's speed, co-ordination, strength, hitting, throwing, alertness, ailments and the like. These entries usually include "current" and "projected" ratings. There may even be notes on very specific strengths and weaknesses (How good is a pitcher at holding runners on? Can a batter handle inside fastballs?).
There are a small handful of applications on the market for managing baseball operations. The Jays, the Mets and seven other major league clubs currently use International Business Machines Corp. software. IBM is something of a sports specialist, having over the years supplied the Olympic Games, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and the Professional Golfers Association.
IBM's PROS system is a customized version of its Lotus subsidiary's Notes and Domino collaboration and database software. IBM tailors the packages to teams' specifications, converting paper report forms to software input forms and adding the desired features. Company consultants import data from other records systems and integrate PROS with business applications such as expense reporting and specialized packages, such as those for pitch tracking.
The Jays are taking a gradual approach, integrating medical records and video systems this year, Mr. Lalonde says.
As for video, most is still on VHS tape, although some staffers use CD-ROM copies.
The club has yet to link video clips and scouting reports within PROS, according to Mr. Lalonde.
Eventually, however, scouts will also be able to add their own digital video clips from the field as they file their reports.
But clubs are cautious about overloading their baseball experts with gadgetry. And it goes against the grain of the game to suggest that office systems can make the decisive difference on the field.
"It's just another tool. It's like a radar gun, or a stopwatch. At the end of the day, it's still got to be the scout's eyes, and what he believes," says the Jays' Mr. McCleary. "We try to make it as efficient as possible for them to spend the least amount of time on the computer, which frees up the time to allow them to watch baseball games."