Wednesday, June 06, 2007

What scouts think about local prospects

Seven years of covering the local side of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, and I still run into the same problem every year.
No matter how many voicemails and emails I send out, I almost always get shut down when trying to get on-the-record comments from big league sources on the small-time prospects out of Cal Poly and Cuesta College.
Coaches, front office execs, even scouts rarely talk publicly about potential draft picks in fear of giving away their team’s draft-day plans.
The scouts will talk about players off the record, or go on the record if they can remain anonymous, but rarely is one willing to attach their name to the comments.
That’s what makes MinorLeagueBaseball.com's online scouting reports interesting. While there are no names attached (shocker), the reports are supposedly filled out by major league scouts.
As of Wednesday afternoon, there were reports posted on Cal Poly OF Grant Desme and RHP Evan Reed.
Both have been listed among the top 100 players in the draft, according to Scouts, Inc., and are projected to go on the first day (Rounds 1-5).
The local birddogs I’ve talked with echo those projections as well, speaking on condition of anonymity of course.

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