There seems to be a change happening in baseball. At least for one team anyway and I couldn’t be happier.
The rare combination of physical talent AND tremendous make-up.
We’ve all seen players with incredible make-up (character, work ethic, intensity, energy, optimism, etc.) who were not blessed with incredible physical ability. Scouts may not drool over these kids but those in the coaching world know that you just cannot win without several high make-up players on your team.
It seems the Phillies are starting to notice this. Around the time of the 2014 Amateur draft there were several articles in the Philadelphia papers where front office people were interviewed to see what to expect from the draft. I was pleased with some of the responses. Here is one of them …
“I think baseball’s mind-set has changed,” Marti Wolever said (Phillies Director of Scouting). “You look around, I think baseball players with great makeup and maybe not as much ability sometimes have a way of getting there and being better than you ever anticipated them being.”
If you’d like to read the entire article, click HERE.
That’s an important quote because teams have been burned too many times by low make-up players who received enormous bonuses because of their physical skills only to never get out of A ball.
Scouts are always going to search for the physically gifted player who has natural abilities you just can’t teach. However, hopefully they will pay a little closer attention to those winners among us that have just enough physical skills but great make-up as well.
Tomorrow’s post: Pointing the knob at the catcher