Gene Watson talks about the scouting process

Gene Watson, coordinator – professional scouting for the Kansas City Royals, was Mark Nasser’s pre-game show guest tonight. They had an interesting exchange about the process a scout goes through in evaluating talent.

Talk about evaluating players. I’m always fascinated by this for scouts because you might be in one place one day where a guy might either have a great game or a lousy game and you have to make evaluations based on just one game. That’s almost an impossible task.

You’ve really got to start with track record, statistical performance, what their draft status is, and then you begin to dig on the make up with your area scouts, finding out what kind of kids they were in high school, any people you might know in the other organization and really, you try to piece it all together and put it into one big melting pot and ultimately make your decision on the player.

Dayton Moore, the general manager, may call you at any second and say, “Geno, Player A. Yes or No?” That’s a lot of pressure.

That’s really the funnest part of the job and what you really have to do is, once you see a player, like a player, you’ve got to stay on track with him. How’s he doing? What’s his last month been? Six months? Year? Is he healthy? Is he taking care of his business off the field? What kind of teammate is he? That’s really, really the fun part of the job. I’ve learned the hard way sometimes, you better have an answer right away and you better be convicted of that answer.

When you are looking to trade for a guy, is it based on just finding the best players available from the other organization or is it based on needing more second baseman or relievers or starting pitchers?

It’s a lot of different things. It could be the status of your 40-man roster. What will your 40-man look like going forward? How many guys might you have to protect that winter? And if that’s going to create a crowded situation, maybe you go down a little lower and get a guy you don’t have to protect for a few years. And then sometimes it’s based on need. Looking forward, one or two or three years down the road, saying “You know what? We’ve got the complexion of a very good club, this is the one thing we may be lacking at that time,” and just trying to find it and fill it.

Speaking of the Royals 40-man roster, there is so much young talent that is going to need to be protected in the future that some of these guys might have to be expendable. You might not necessarily want to get rid of them, but you might have roster issues and those guys might have to be dumped anyway.

It’s a really good problem to have. We’re really fortunate to be in that situation. I covered the Royals seven years prior to coming to work for them and it hasn’t always been that situation. It is now. We’re very proud of that, but with that comes a lot of tough decisions that you take that might result in losing a guy. We’ve taken a lot of pride in our Rule 5 drafts. So, it creates a crowded scenario of trying to potentially go out and take a Rule 5 pick from another organization.

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Thanks to the Omaha Storm Chasers for allowing me to use excerpts of this interview.