Jennings relies on tools to shape Marlins roster

In his own words, Marlins vice president of player personnel Dan Jennings explains the Marlins’ approach to scouting, player acquisition and player development.

Tools are sacred. To a scout or an organization, tools determine the value and potential impact of a prospect.

An old theory of scouting has always been to "stick with the tools." It’s a simple, yet proven, theory for drafting or signing players.

Scouting a ballplayer is not an exact science. Any attempt to make scouting an exact science through formulas and mathematical computations is a misguided attempt to soften the blow of the success/failure rate of the draft. Tools are what is evaluated, measured and reported on by all 30 free agent scouting staffs. Tools drive the reports, the crosscheck assignments and the player’s placement on an organization’s final draft board.

You can’t teach tools–you can teach skills.

An old track coach once said, "I can make anyone faster, but I can’t make anyone fast." Along the same lines, players come into an organization with certain tools or combination of tools, and they rely on these tools to make it to the majors. During their development time in the minor leagues, they should acquire skills to help them use their tools. This can include developing plate discipline and pitch recognition, bat control, and bunting, all of which will contribute to a better on-base percentage.

As they mature and get stronger, prospects will add leverage to their swings and watch doubles turn into home runs. As they gain experience, their OPS will climb. These skills however, should never be mistaken for tools. To mistake OBP and OPS for tools, is quite frankly BS.

Is there a place for these skill-measured formulas and calculations? Absolutely. But not before the Double-A level, where you can separate the pretenders from the contenders.

Productive scouts rely on instincts and frame of reference to determine if a player will use his tools productively. Scouts who work hard enough to have this conviction and opinion on a player are truly the difference makers in an organization. Players are then turned over to development to have their tools honed into the skills of a major leaguer.

There is no worse feeling than to see some of your minor league players with skills but few tools struggle to keep up with the speed of the game, especially if your organization invested a draft pick and bonus money in the player.

The focus in amateur scouting has always been, and should always be, on tools. Big tools make big plays; it’s what fans pay to see and what organizations covet.

An experienced scout once used this analogy: "You can hire the finest carpenter to work on your home, but if he shows up without his toolbox, he ain’t gonna work."

DePodesta sets record straight on A’s approach

In his own words, Athletics assistant general manager Paul DePodesta explains the A’s approach to scouting, player acquisition and player development.

The misconception out there is that we value stats exclusively over tools, and that is definitely not the case. In all our decisions, it’s a blend between the subjective and the objective. It probably is accurate to say that we may value the objective more than some other teams do, but that does not mean it overshadows the subjective.

What we are trying to do is blend the two. For example, if an investment bank is going to invest a great deal of money in a particular company, it will not invest millions of dollars by just looking at the balance sheet and never meeting with the management. Conversely, it will not make the investment by just meeting the management and not checking the balance sheet. We’re all making million-dollar investments on these players. What we’re trying to do is get the most comprehensive picture we possibly can. That only comes by looking at both the subjective and objective. Maybe we weight one over the other differently than some other people do, but that’s really all we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get as much information as we can before making any of these types of investments.

There are elements in a scouting report that are objective. A player’s running time to first base is an objective measure. A pitcher’s velocity on his fastball is an objective measure. Some teams may classify those things as tools; we may be talking about them as objective statistics. Some of it might just be terminology. We definitely do evaluate performance, and some of that performance is indicated by stats, though not always. Even in the major leagues, statistics aren’t a perfectly accurate measure of a player, and the further you get from the major leagues, the more blurry that picture becomes. You cannot rely entirely on objective statistics just because there are so many variables that go into the puzzle–what kind of competition the player is playing against; what kind of park he’s playing in. It’s not the perfect picture of what a player is doing, but it’s a nice supplement to our other analyses of players.

If you’re talking about a player who has eight years in the major leagues, we can rely more heavily on statistics. With minor leaguers, statistics are less valuable, but still provide a gauge. We look at OPS and strikeout-walk ratios, but we have also created a number of different proprietary statistics that you won’t find in USA Today.

A lot has been written about on-base percentage for the A’s. While we think that’s an important measure, it’s certainly not the only one. We really look at a complete composite when it comes to evaluating a player. We’re really not as myopic as some people have made us out to be.