Folio, we're on ksjn baseball teams find their players a little differently than other pro sports teams do in football and basketball pro teams watch players performing the national Spotlight in college have a pretty good idea as to who can make it in the pros by the time they're done with school the baseball teams often draft 18 year old kids who never played at a higher level than American Legion ball. How can they tell who will make it and who won't well, it don't always but there's a lot of effort and thought that goes into today. I'll discuss the Art and Science of baseball scouting with the director of scouting for the Minnesota Twins Jeri Ryan. You can call with your questions at 2276 thousand here on portfolio.Terry Ryan may not be your a stereotypical image of the baseball Scout. I don't know about you folks, but I kind of grew up with the image of your baseball Scout had a face that was roughly the texture of your average raisin from sitting out in the sun and the wind many baseball games most in Arizona and Florida a probably either shoot on an unlit cigar or dipped an incredible amount of snuff and was very crusty individual in them for all these many other restraints. Terry is not crusty not yet. But I'm working for is a clean-cut wholesome All American Midwest boy on the road to becoming a scout carry. Well, I used to play with the twins organization and I didn't have quite the ability to get to the major leagues in baseball was in my blood and I certainly wanted to get back in the game and I had some direction from Dale McReynolds to Scott for the Dodgers that lives in southern, Wisconsin andHe showed me the way and he helped me get a job with a Mets in it evolved into a ended up back with a twins as a scouting director. And I know more about scouting in baseball than anything and it's been a very rewarding two years with the twins and I'm happy to be here and hopefully we can get better players for the twins to help us get back in the more World Series see you or how old when he became a scout 26 that sounds awfully young for that plan to work. I would say that at that time. I was probably the youngest Scout in baseball but SC years have gone by the last let's say eight years or so. I'm seeing more people in their 20s getting involved in scouting. So I think the scouting profession is going to the youth movement right now and I think it's good for baseball. What happened in the in the old days is Farrah not been in the day when you saw more Scouts and maybe when their forties and fifties what happened to some of those guys between the time they got out of baseball from the playing aspects in the time they became Scout for these guys were just gone.Bouncing around and then got back in the game or just what I think is as a guy got to his letter days of his playing career many of the players and let's say back in the fifties and sixties played much longer cuz there are so many more teams so they got into their 30s and they're playing days were coming to a close and many of the general managers and farm directors decided. We want to keep this man in your organization. Let's make him a coach or manager. And then when he got into his 50s there came a time when he couldn't throw batting practice hit fungoes her do the everyday activities that needed to be done as a manager. So they became Scouts and that that took them into their fifties and sixties and now there's there's something about the job that will bring people right into it rather than bouncing through some other jobs in baseball before they get there so much travel involved in scouting that it's very difficult for a man. Let's sing in his seventies to to do the job of getting an airplanes are getting in automobiles and driving 300 miles to a game. Hidden Tough Enough on a guy.Listen is 22 to 76,000 is our phone number here on sportfolio Terry Ryan the Minnesota Twins director of scouting as our guests will talk about the business of baseball scouting what's involved in how you tell the good ones from the bad ones, which eventually is what it's all about. You once told me that you could make someone into a scout in a. Of 5 years that does Mia quoting you accurately here. That's not quite correct. But I think you can you can make a guy A good scout but it takes 5 years to learn your territory to learn the people that you can trust to learn where you need to go. And when how to develop your itinerary to best suit your needs. It's tough to make a guy A good scout if he doesn't want to be a good scout, it's tough if a guy doesn't have a feel for the game to be a good scout, but I know some of the better Scouts in the game right now, I've never played a day of professional baseball. So that's that's not a requisite to becoming a good scout. How is it that a guy who hasn't been at that level 2 game inHow can a guy compensate when he's looking at other players and trying to evaluate their professional potential? I think it's the same way as a guy can become a great manager of a Major League team and not have ever played in the big leagues. If you treat people the way they should be treated. If you study the game if you have worked for people you've learned from and you take all the good things that you've learned through your career and put it into your everyday at philosophy. You can become a good scout a good manager a good coach or whatever it is.Terry Ryan the twins director of scouting is our guest. I'm JG Preston Iran's portfolio have a caller on the line for Terry. Our phone number is 227-6002 can fire away will go to Minneapolis. Hi Sally. I have a comment and also question. The first comment is one for you. JG is someone who just got done looking again at my world champion poster in the twins. I just wanted to go in and wait a minute. I wasn't that hard on Amazon.Early on in the season major. That's my youngest twins fan in the background. I want to see what she's got. The question is we were talking about where we would find pitching talent and one of the questions that or one of the kindest was made there didn't seem to be an awful lot in the American League in the comment was made that you probably would have to go out of the u.s. To look for that and I wonder if your guests could comment on where he is looking for some pitching talent because that's definitely something that the twins need before that Gary was in Latin America and looking at quite a few players down there. Both guys were already in u.s. Professional baseball in and other guys and I don't carry that over the course of the last couple of years and she becameIsland directory I'm sure you've heard a lot of questions from people G-Eazy and I can see teams like piranha to get a lot of guys from the Dominican Republic or special Latin America other countries down there. Maybe we can talk about the the twins scouting efforts and Latin American what's involved now, there are number of places that you can find athletes and we just came from Venezuela to Dominican and Puerto Rico in their numerous players down there that we have seen we've scouted we like and we have signed a couple in the past couple years, but you won't see them on the major league scene for if they do get there in fact and probably for 3-4 years. We've got a scout in Puerto Rico that that is the one place that is more productive for us because you don't need a visa to get one of those players into the us when you Scout and sign a kid from the Dominican or Venezuela or Canada Australia, etcetera. You need a visa to get that young player in the US and play for the twins organization and we have an allotment of 15 pieces. So our hands are somewhat tied when it comes to bringing those players inOrganization, you can't just go down and sign all the people you want down there. You're really limited 215 right now right now, but you can get involved in the Dominican summer league down there where you can sign a player you can leave them in the Dominican summer league and watch him play for 2 years and he still you're probably still your property. And if you think that kid is the type of player that you want to bring to the u.s. Is 3rd year you have that option and you don't need to use a Visa in the first two years first two years. He doesn't need a visa. So that's a very attractive thing for us to get involved in and work. We're pursuing that and I would say within the next couple years will get more involve. Some clubs have full teams out of the Dominican really is as far as going out and finding pictures there a number ways to get a picture into the system. You can go out and draft if you want to let's say in 1988 we go through the draft the free agent draft in June we can specifically go for pitching. But then again, your other position players are are going to be jeopardized but not getting enough in your system so we could go through next year's draft andSpecifically be looking for pitching which we have Alaska for years. We do we drafted Willie Banks in the first round this past year. We drafted Brockie in the second round the year before that. We took Cassie in this year. We took Guthrie this year. So we tried to look at pitching in this year's draft and look at that is a way to help develop our minor league in Major League team in the near future every year turns out a little different if you think you got enough pitching in your minor league and Major League system, you might go for catching or you might go for shortstops etcetera. So it depends on the situation seems like high draft picks. Anyway, almost almost every kid gets picked eyes either a shortstop ratcatcher a picture in the most your best athletes play those positions the only problem with drafting a picture in the first picture first round it one pitch could end his career and it it gets to be a problem where pictures Fall by the wayside more so than anybody else because of the injury problem.Got some good ones will try Sally Sally to 276 thousands. Our phone number here on sportfolio on ksjn 1330. MJG Preston 1213. Terry Ryan twins director of scouting is our guest now Terry my understanding is that if you want to sign a young man in the United States, he has to be a graduate of his high school, but didn't Latin America you connect to sign up as young as what 16 we signed a young man down in Venezuela is 16 years old Hill turn 17 in May. So the ruling is if the if the young man turned 17 before September 1st, he's eligible to sign this young guy. We just signed is accrued young man. He's a shortstop now, we first see him being a third basemen or a catcher. Ideally. He's he would be a switch hitting catcher for me. He's a big young guy for 16 years old.He's got good arm strength. So there's a chance that we may move him behind the plate because he's not a good runner know. What can you see in a kid? Who's 16 years old that can make you think at this point in his life that he might have the spark a major league ability in as you watch him. I watched him in a workout in our Scout as watch the monomers games down there. He's got very good actions. He's one of those kids that you you put out there at shortstop and he looks like he's played the game a number of years. Yeah. It looks to me like he's going to have some power. I like the fact that he hits from the left side, which is attractive to the Metrodome. He's a strong young guy. He's he's mature Beyond his years. He's got good mental makeup according to our Scout. So all that combined and you can't really tell if a sixteen-year-old just going to progress enough to think that he's going to play in the major leagues, but you have to to look in the future. He's got good big hands. He's got big feet. So I think he's going to be a big man eventually in usually that willProduce some power numbers on the board and if a guy hits from the left side and he's got all the other actions. He's got arm strength. You take a flyer in a sixteen-year-old. See you've really got to do some projecting. You got to imagine how much bigger a guy's when I get how much stronger guys going to get when he when he really feels out amateurs when I saw him down there in our Scout sees him down there were looking at that man as when he turns 20 2 or 3 years old, then you know, what you having for us to be project him as a twenty-three-year-old. We see it a very big strong young man with good arm strength and power. It was his name six years from now. We can say Terry Ryan told us about it's his name is William motor no relation to Manny motor the motor family. Hopefully we got to do some people are talking about pictures from outside the US, you know, if you think I guess if I think about most atoms that have played in the major leagues course, there's been some fine Latin pictures going back to Camilo Pascual and before but most of them have been position players fielders America just not trained pictures Wailord.Play Just steer most of their bath best athletes away from the mound ER or are there more pictures from the Latin countries and I'm thinking I think there are probably more than we can think of right now. I immediately come to mind is Joaquin and the hearts from now. They're Mario Soto Pascual Perez, there are numerous pictures down there and as we get into this Dominican summer league more and more. I think you're going to see more players come out of there a statistic came out of the winter meetings at about floored me that 20% of all the first year signings are from Latin America rahele. Yes, so that that's an unbelievable statistics and that tells me that we better get going or we're going to fall behind. What's your ratio right now? Probably 5% Then I would say what what kind of preparation 16 17 year old kids from Latin America have as far as both baseball training education how prepared are they to play Big League ball early professional ball in the US or other baseball training is very good that they play year-round certainly down there and theirFacilities in the Dominican aren't all that great. So if you see a young guy from the Dominican Republic that's got some sort of form of ability. You better take heed because they haven't had a whole lot of instruction. Although they do I have people in coaches down there working with them. The one thing that we always concern ourselves as the transition from the Dominican Republic coming to the United States. You can lose a lot of players from the Latin countries because they just don't fit in sometimes I have trouble with language. Sometimes they have trouble with our eating habits up here and they are their strength fails him because they have an eating the right Foods, you know, if you can come up here from let's say the Dominican a McDonald's is very attractive for three meals a day and eventually that will catch up with a player. So we're very patient with our Latin sand. We try to give them the benefit of the doubt after about three years. You can usually get a pretty good idea whether or not a Dominican is going to be able to play but the after I think weIf we made a decision after two years of one year, I think we'd be making a mistake on whether or not we're we're evaluating the player correctly down there to 276 Hazard phone number with twins scouting director Terry Ryan here on sportfolio on ksjn Preston. And st. Paul New York. Originally have a couple of friends that I guess business Coast in New York, New York a major concern to some extent at least although I don't really see there was this early reflected in in the people that they were scouting they had in a Mickey Hatcher around for a long time is DHA.But he is very I mean the same as a marginal left fielders far as his ability to get the boss Fest in a large ballparks. I don't think it was real. I don't want to know this is a real reason for a knot in my philosophy and I I'm kind of stuck with it it out feelers we fast second baseman and shortstop. She basically those those five position should be people that can you know, when you get right down to its steel anywhere between fifteen and God knows you know, 45 days is a year consistently in and it's not something the twins has really been interested in doing this year. They saw a lot of bases. I mean compared to what they done the test. I was wondering how speed figures into the type of people that you will be looking for us in the future. We will eventually down the line you make a distinction between basting ability in raw speed. I guess. But but how much of a factor is raw speed in evaluating a prospect that is one of the main tools that we look for whenGod's got a player the ideal players a guy that can run and has dbpower and immediately come to my mind is a guy like strawberry or Eric Davis. It can hit a ball 450 feet, but yet can steal a daily basis believe it or not. Our ballclub have some guys that can run Gagney is one of the fastest players in the game that I can fly. I pray you really need to worry about my goodness. I do people may not realize how fast gagging he is. But he is one of the probably one of the top 10 players in the American League in regards to speed got to be the fastest write a to Interlake news. One of the fastest. He's not as fast as Bo Jackson, but he's not far behind it Bo Jackson. That's well. He's got the skills to be could be. I think if you really wanted to put his mind to it gladdens above-average water skis average student shade below and was above at one time but he's a he's grown and physically he's probably outgrown its speed now, he's he'sEvaluator does a power hitter with a good strong are from right field. The only thing that a guy like pocket pocket can really run but he's not that big base stealing threat that you would like to see out of him with his kind of speed but I don't think anybody in the Twin Cities wants us to change Kirby Puckett much. So we are evaluating speed. We're trying to go that direction yet. You don't want to give up the power because you're playing in the Metrodome and power here is very important. Do you have your Scouts routinely time kids. They're evaluating in a 40-yard dash for a 60-yard dash or some such thing or are those kind of things useful an evaluation? Where are you going to draft a position player? I would not draft him unless I knew how he could run and whether it's the 60-yard dash which we use in baseball or from home to first, which ideally is what I'm looking for the average running speed for a right-handed hitter in the major leagues right now is 4.3 seconds Greg agnese 4.0 Pockets 4.1 weWe were taking a shortstop for center fielder if he can't run for 3 or better I highly doubt that we take him unless he's got power so speed is a very important tool as far as a scouting profession is concerned and the better a guy can run the more important and the better look he's going to get cuz you can always develop the arm strength in that sort of thing. And in fact kind of the counter what day was was saying? I think there are a lot of people around baseball. I'm sure you've run into him. I've run and I'm not saying a lot there some I run into people see, you know, the pro Scouts are too interested in the stopwatch. They're too concerned with how fast do kid is there they're overlooking my third baseman. He was got all these other skills Good Sense good feel for the game. Good pop is bad. But he's not quite the the speed merchant mean it seems to me baseball as a rule bends over backward to give the fastest kid the extra chance with the with the intention of developing his other skills as a scout. I'd I'd agree with you to H-E-B in a prime example of that this year in our organization is Chip Hale Chappelle is not a goodBut all the other things he can do and that's why he went in the sixteenth round of the draft kid without talk about he played for Jerry kindall the old twin. University of Arizona. He's a 16th round draft pick and you sent him to the Midwest league on Kenosha and he led the league in batting and I guess it's on the baseball America is the first time that you never had a kid that was drafted in June that went into a full season minor league and wind up leading the league in hitting so obviously he's got talent and yet he was overlooked for 15 rounds in the draft. That's correct. It's in my estimation. Probably I saw chip Hale numerous times at the University of Arizona and I'm as guilty as any scouting baseball to let him go that far. Luckily our Scouts Southern California responsible form impressed upon me enough finally to get him taken in that draft and he was probably the the biggest and most pleasant surprise of our past draft and I think he's going to end up up here in the near future. I saw him play one game for Kenosha. Emmaus. Any just impressed me is I guess a Pete Rose die just as crappy kiddy. Just seem toMaybe this is where as Scouts have the fun of this business. You really did seem to have an air about if there was a guy who was was going to get the job. Then there's no doubt that the chip Hale can hit and he's a accrued looking infielder. He's at his hands aren't very soft. He doesn't turn the double play extremely well, but it's amazing how how much you overlook those other skills when a guy can flat-out hit and he's got some power and he's a left-handed hitter. So he's an ideal type player for the dorm must be very humbling business scouting. You can't possibly always be right in the end is every year there are two pails and then lots more like him. I'm sure that that must come back to just make you guys wonder. How did you miss this guy the first time around or conversely? What did I see in this guy? What went wrong with this guy that happens every year and we're all guilty of it there when a player turns out to be the the guy you saw in evaluated and turned in so be it but there are so many times that the player you report or not doesn't come anywhere near what you thought he'd be so as soon as youStart patting yourself on the back of a humbling experience comes by and you get back down to earth in a shorter. The Minnesota Twins. Do you listen to ksjn 1330 phone number for your questions for Terry about scouting baseball the twins whatever 2276 thousand that's to 276 thousand station with the twins. How many Scouts do you employ? Where do you deploy them? And I will say at the start of a of a cycle how many prospects will you start evaluating and in the course of leading up to the June free agent draft presently. We have 20 full-time Scouts and we have three full-timers and Southern California, which is the most productive year in and year out. We at the start of the year will take our Northern Scouts. Let's say we have a scout in the Northwest. We will put him in Arizona for the month of February and part of March. So he'll Scout Arizona cuz I'll be playing High School baseball in Arizona. Yes, in fact in Florida andTexas in those States they start high school baseball in February. Wow. So we bring our Northern Scouts South they spend a month-and-a-half down in the southern states and as the weather warms and the schedules get a little more crowded up in the north. They'll go back to their home States and area and they'll start in on their own area. We probably will evaluate through the course of one year close to 1,500 players on our draft list and weed it down and we'll put a priority list in order and on draft day. We will from the 1500 players eventually select between 50 to 60 players and hopefully through those 50 or 60 you can sign what's a 75% of them and that'll be the nucleus of your rookie league next year at Elizabethton and if we've done our job correctly willLet's say for five of those players will end up being prospects and eventually get to the Twin Cities and play for the twins. Very tedious spring and in fact right now. Our Scouts should be doing their work due to gear up. There are ten ereri for February March. So it is scouting sounds like it might be a three or four months your job. But if you're doing the job when you're going to get the job done in the spring, you have to start the day the draft end the previous year. So there is no such thing as time off for a baseball Scout. No off-season. Not that I know of and if anybody came up with one, I'd like to find out how they do. I think I just don't think you can get the job done by taking any time off your questions for Ryan at 2276 thousand year on sportfolio will go to Hopkins next. Hi Beth in the box or 40 years or do I take it out either Wheaties and keep it empty box for 40 years. I read about this bet you take you take the weed is out of the box. You don't have to eat them. I want to I did I ate my Wheaties. Okay, but you don't cuz we diesel go bad. You don't want that. I don't think I don't you have to take the bag out you might as well the plastic bag, but it said if you really want to do this right to take like a razor blade and you slit open the bottom and then anybody could you open it carefully so that you can like glue it back together. So it won't look like you open it. Don't open a top. You can't you can't you can't do that one back right to open a bottom slit it open with a razor blade and glue it back together and keep the Box hole and keep it out of the light. So it doesn't say 8 and 40 years from now you can go back and look at that box. Like we're going to go to the current regime in Cuba. Let any of their baseball players come to the United States to play and I'll hang up and listen to thank you. Twin span Cyrano Tony Oliva and Camilo Pascual Jose Canseco, I guess was born in Cuba but left the country at a very young age 2 to go to Florida can players come out of Cuba at this point. We are not allowed to sign any of the Cuban players all over we have seen the Cuban team. In fact, they were up here to play the University of Minnesota a year ago. I saw the Cuban national team in the Pan Am games this summer in Indianapolis and their junior team in Windsor Ontario year ago and they have very many quality players on their Cuban teams, but we are not allowed to talk with them. We are not allowed to sign them and I don't know if there ever will be a day in the near future Even in our lifetimes JG that will be able to go into the Cuban Market again and strictly decision the Cuban government. I guess she'll help for my I have never talked to mr. Castro about any of his players and I don't intend to do so of the players in the Cuban national team, roughly. How many do you think would be a Definite Major League prospects I'd say if they had a 25-man roster I'd say probably 12 or their players are definite Major League prospects in the other. Let's say 13 would certainly get an opportunity to play professional baseball and whether it be at the rookie-level, but almost every one of their players on their national team it at Indianapolis this summer professional caliber summer much more advanced than others, but they had some players are that could certainly starting double-a and not embarrass themselves and probably be in the big leagues in a short time course is very serious business baseball in Cuba now, that's that's their national sport and you will see when the Olympics come in 88 that they will put a respective team on that field once again, and if it's anything that resembles the team they had in Indianapolis the US has got all they can handle. Invite your phone calls with baseball questions for Terry Ryan today the twins director of scouting. My guest Iran's portfolio. MJG Preston. The phone number to call is to 276 Thousand Oaks 2276 thousand said it today if for some work of meteorological fake you were listening this outside the 612 area code that is our area code 612-227-6050 have to call collect 29 minutes before you're listening to ksjn 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Hello. This is Mark. I stood reminding you of the week in review follows JG and today's sport fully a program here on ksjn will begin just after 1 this afternoon with a review of the historic Summit Inn, Washington DC. The INF treaty was signed a variety of other issues discussed. There were some successes and some failures will take a look at all of them all. So this week, we have a number of interesting feature reports including a look at the domestic political opposition to the sandinistas regime in Nicaragua will report on what some see as a rise in anti-Semitism on college campuses. And we'll have a first person account on the social barriers facing many people with disabilities those stories and more on the weekend review. Just after 1 this afternoon here on ksjn. How did you press it on sportfolio? You're on ksjn, Terry Ryan, the twins director of scouting is my guests to 276 thousand of their phone number and we would call her standing by in St. Paul Eye Joe transplanted from other kind of wondering if you know why it was taken. If not, actually on August 31st, very shortly before that. It is it's a funny story because the twins the twins put out a brochure with Statistics and stuff for those of us in the media in this postseason media guide the team picture includes Don Baylor if you look at Don Baylor's arms are white and he's taller than can't her back even though he's not really taller than comfortable. What happens when they took Steve Carlton's body because Carlton was the guy who got dropped in the last when they got Baylor and they they paint like they took a headshot of Baylor. They cut it out their pasted on top of Carlton's body, but they did not make that change on the Wheaties box. Also the poster that you can get that I guess the Pioneer Press dispatch put out the posted in the paper. I think you can buy it at some of the stores that also has Carlton in the team picture is not Don Baylor. I mean wasn't the only isn't the only serious he appeared in some he'll be able to That's my feeling about him. Any you got a guy who's contributed so much, especially the last few games that's serious. And then I was just really a shame and Away me nothing historic thing is we use box and he's not there and it's the point of it says they're on the front. You can see it. It's not as bad as being identified as a secret service agent. I guess he must have been seeing clearly current was the first person ever to get within five feet of Reagan with dark glasses on and not be a secret service is Mei understand the confusion, but it was still pretty embarrassing actually called you I appreciate it to 276 thousand vegetable get off the subject of Wheaties and back on the subjective baseball scouting with the twins director of scouting Terry Ryan. My guest Durant's portfolio. We touched on the Latin American Kids a little bit ago Terry what kind of things do professional baseball organizations in general and in the twins room ization specifically what kind of things they do to help make that adjustment from these kids who literally are 16 17 years old a lot of time to bring them from a completely foreign culture and help incorporate them into the states and professional baseball and special, you know, starting off in low minor leagues in anybody towns. What do you do to help get through that the most important thing I think that we do and it's worked out very well as we bring the Scout up from Venezuela and the Dominican into spring training and a majority. The kids we bring from there we'll end up in our extended spring camp down in St. Pete this past year and our Scout will stay right there through extended spring until they break and go up to Elizabethton about June 18th. So he'll give them the opportunity if they have some problems if they have trouble finding where to eat if they have trouble finding places to live our Scout will be right there with him through that time frame we predict we have English classes for them that they go to throughout the entire spring training and we are going to expand on that and hopefully we're going to get them involved during the Elizabethton schedule have a person come from the college down there in Johnson City over to teach English classes to them. And that is the language barrier is one of the biggest problems that they have and we're going to try to leave you at that by having a professor there to help them with the language and teach me English and not so much the English language, but in baseball terms the lingo that's involved when you start speaking about baseball. Those sorts of things were trying to get involved in anything we can do to help the young Latin we're going to try to do and having that Scout there certainly has been a great amount of help. Are there many Spanish speakers in the organization that the minor league managers do they speak any Spanish or coaches or whether have a couple guys in our system Jerry White's one that's bilingual and he's our roving baserunning and Outfield and structure carries. We sent him in Elizabethton in a hurry to help that process along. So he's been a great addition to our organization Billy Smith the assistant director of minor leagues and scouting is somewhat bilingual so he's helped out quite a bit. And as long as we have some people there that can communicate with these players were in pretty good shape is Elizabethton. We refer to this is the little town of Elizabethton Tennessee up in the Appalachian Mountains where your rookie league team is and that's where that basically all your your high school age kids start their pro career whether to come from Latin America from across the state, so they'll go to Elizabethton, Tennessee. That's correct. Not only do our Latin players have some trouble adjusting the professional life JJ you as you well know. Willie Banks are number one pick at a tough time adjusting the professional life this summer. So it's not only people from Latin America is people from California or Minnesota or New Jersey or wherever it may be at stuff on a 17 or 18 year old player to come in and have a lot of success in a hurry. It's just not that easy no matter how good a player you are. And basically these kids are on their own. I mean as far as housing and then then food in those kind of things are concerned. I mean far more than your average college environment. It sounds like they're really responsible for what they're doing. Well for the first time in their life, they probably have to do their own laundry. They have to pay their own bills. They have to do their own grocery shopping. They're responsible for being on time. No matter what it may be so people grow up in a hurry when they come into professional baseball and the people that maybe you're a little more mature than the others are just more quickly, but you still don't let those other players Fall by the wayside just because they don't adjust that first month or so, we we are more than willing to bend over. Help any player that we have in the system, whether it be family problems back home girlfriend problems adjusting the baseball Life Center Gym Rats and myself and Bill Smith. Bob gebhard. We're all well aware what players have to go through to come into the game? And sometimes it takes a player three or four years to adjust. So where it will try to be patient no matter where the player comes from there plenty of guys at Flowing three classes or freshman year of college fall semester the wind up being the honor students and I guess you can't afford to just throw out every guy that it's 160 is first year in pro ball. We would never let a player go after his first year no matter if the play there's a field player and it came from college and we didn't see any future form in the game. We have let players of that nature go but you will never see me release a high school or Latin flare after his first year just cuz he had a poor Year too many tangibles valve that we have no control over to get that player over the hump will do whatever is necessary to get him on the right track and after two or three years will have an idea then I have a question between scouting director Terry Ryan. Give us a call here on sportfolio it to 276 thousand here on ksjn 1330 standing by in St. Paul. Sounds like you guys have kind of gotten onto the subject. I guess besides sweetie says international baseball and I think that it's great that baseball is becoming an international sport because it really deserves it and I couldn't help couldn't resist asking a question about Japanese face water lied about Japanese baseball. Some of it has been kind of humorous, but I really don't know how high a quality baseball they play over there. Does your guest ever Scout in Japan? I've seen numerous players from Japan come over because they filled a team in the Florida instructional league and all Japanese team. Yes, and they're right in with the let's say the Mets and the Cardinals and those teams. They they play the schedule the same as we do down there. In fact, the Twins were involved in that instructional League last fall. Their work habits are unbelievably tough. They're out in the field at 8 in the morning and they're going to 4 in the afternoon and they go about the game much different than the people in the United States their pitchers throw constantly, I would say the level of the major league system over in Japan is similar to maybe a triple A Class. If your listeners recall Randy bass used to play with the twins a big first baseman. Randy has won the Triple Crown over there twice already soon, and he has never had much success in the Major League level. I see they forget he's talking to the people over in Japan supposedly and there it sounds to me like financially they want to get involved with a player from the United States. Bob Horner went over there last year, of course, but right now, The Japanese I don't foresee them being able to compete on our Major League level if they were to feel an All-Star team. There's a chance that maybe they could compete somewhat on our Major League level. I've seen enough of their players over there that they still have a ways to go to get up to the United States player. There's only been I guess one native Oriental. It's displayed Big League Baseball that's going back more than 20 years to Macedonia. Murakami, who is the international incident all by himself going back and forth between Japan and the us but professional teams and not yet. I don't I don't know of any club that goes over there and Scouts the Japanese League the one thing about their pictures over there a majority of their pitchers throw from side armor on her arm and it's tough really to develop pelocity when you throw that are mangle. I don't know if they're going to change that philosophy or not. But until you start throwing from high 3/4 or overhand, I don't see you develop in the velocity on your pictures to be able to compete in Major League solo and certainly with a Quisenberry and it to call me and those type of players we have here. It can be done but you don't see many 90 mile an hour fastball is from the pictures from Japan a little different to I think they expect our pitchers to pitch more frequently and be able to go on 2 days rest more and I think they're willing to sacrifice some some velocity for some endurance. Do you would be surprised how many innings at the pitcher from Japan throws they start a game and in between Innings instead of going to The Dugout and resting there are throwing so they they constantly throw but you rarely see one of their pictures with a sore arm, which is unusual. Maybe we go to take eating that I got the other thing too is if you got a guy who's maybe a marginal us Big League Prospect if he's native japanese's you got a chance to be a big star in Japan because they to take their their native baseball very seriously. Am I supposed to be making a good enough living over there? He wouldn't even think about coming to the States on kind of a risky proposition type of basis financially. It's very rewarding in Japan. Talk with the twins director of scouting Terry Ryan 16 minutes before 1 and Mark I said comes along with the week in review right after we hear Associated Press News at 1. So 2276 thousand the phone number to call the slip in a question or two for Terry Ryan you got these Scouts 20 of them that are across the country and in some cases across the Western Hemisphere. Now, I take it these guys just do more than sit down with the clipboard and keep score of these games. What? How do you how do you develop them as Scouts professionally what to get down to look at what he told me to look for. How do you tell him to watch a game in a player most of the time when a Scot would go to a game depending on who is going to see us a you goes to see a shortstop if the game starts at 1 the Scout probably would be there about 11 to see batting practice. You want to get an idea. What kind of Swing the player has what kind of raw power he may have you watch him see what kind of work habits he goes through Willie get out there and take ground balls while the other players are taking their hitting so you get a pretty good idea of what kind of You're getting involved with before the game even starts. You certainly have to get there to watch infield because you want to see the actions you want to see the hands the arm strength etcetera that a player will show you during infield practice and then the actual game starts and that's when you can get the running speed. You can get fairly decent idea. What kind of hitter the player Maybe by watching them. Hopefully against some decent pitching if you're seeing him against the poor picture. It's tough to evaluate hitting and hitting is a tough is tool evaluation. Anyways, if you're seeing them against a left-handed pitcher and he's a right-handed hitter. It's tufted to judge whether or not the player has fear, which is a big part of what a hitter may end up doing in the big leagues are in professional baseball you watching through the nine innings. Hopefully some Scouts you'll see skip out of games because they may be ready to go to another game. They've seen enough they know the player good enough, so it's not unusual for a scout. Maybe see two or three games in a day. If we if it's geographically logical you can see a lot of players in the course of one day. So but you're probably actually spend more time watching a player out of the game situation than you actually willing a game. You can only see a guy do so much in a game in the shortstop's playing 9 Innings and he gets one ball in the course of that game. It doesn't do a whole lot of good. So you like to get there for infield certainly pictures pictures aren't that tough to judge. Be are there tough to evaluate but there you see a lot of them. You may see a picture throw 9 Innings, you might see him throw a hundred and forty pictures. So through the course of that time you get a pretty good idea what he can do and what he can't do a picture. I'll show you stuff if he's got a 90 mile an hour fastball. If you stay there long enough, you're going to see it if the the weather outside is 30° and it said drizzling on that particular day. He may not show you your best stuff. So you have to go back but if you there to see a catcher you can watch him catch that entire 9 Innings, so Get a pretty good idea of its defense of skills. But in a catcher you'd like to see what kind of power he has. And if that opposing team watch him four times. You have to come back and see him again. So hopefully through the course of a spring in the preceding years, you can get a guy in game competition, maybe 10 1015 games and then this is for the blue-chip type of prospector guys. Maybe just draft material. I think if you talk to any area Scout his pride no matter if it's a blue-chip first-rounder or a 35th rounder you like to see that same player as much as you can and Scout's take more pride and getting at 35th rounder that has some success in pro ball as much as they do out of the first rounder. That's a blue chipper that goes right to the big leagues in two years. Say a guy like, well your first pick last year Willie Banks. It was a third player taken in the nation. Clearly. They were 26 organizations at least spend some time looking at the young man. How how many times did how many games did the Twins got to see him play his senior year of high school and how many different Scouts watch? Eddie X responsible for Willie Banks and he's the man that signed Willie said he saw him I'd say in the past three years prior to him being eligible. He probably has seen him pitch 15 games myself. I saw him pitch 7 we had asked out New York City herb Stein song pitch twice. We had a guy in Miami that's on Pitch. So we had a lot of guys see him and JJ you wouldn't believe the number of clubs at didn't even go see way Banks because they knew they'd everyone's either. So this year now we're picking I think 19th and I know the guys that I shouldn't even bother going to see cuz they're going to be there and there's no sense in wasting the money in the time to go see those players. So by the time the spring rolls along I'll have a pretty good idea and our Scouts will have a good idea who not to see I mean, there's no sense in going to eliminate at least and maybe more and our Scout a probably see him one time to make sure everything's all right in case that kid would happen to slip through. Let's say he has a ninja Free on May 20th. We want to know something about him in case all the other ball clubs would decide he's not worth the gamble. We may decide in the 19th pick that kids worth a gamble for me is centuries. Not that serious. Let's go get him. So we have to see him at least once in his people may not know in baseball. You're not allowed to trade draft choices was not like football or basketball or you might Scout the best kids, even if you don't have the first pick cuz you might trade for the pic. You can't do that. We have the 19th pick if I'm not mistaken. I will have that 19th pick unless there's some free agent signings to 276 thousand or phone number. We got to call her standing by your aunts portfolio crammed into a phone booth in Southeast Minneapolis Steve. You're a dedicated guy. Thanks for calling. I heard that he's the hottest catching Prospect in the minor league these days and I was just curious know where he's at and when he's going to hit the big leagues got a special place in your heart your first year of scouting director he Zev the twins first round pick in the scouting director is going to kind of put his full Authority behind that one. So I know he's been a lot to you and he said he's done very well by you so far. Derek Parks. I think you're correct in assuming that he's at least one of the better catching prospects in the game and just coming from Dallas no matter who you talked to in a trade every time you you get fairly serious. It's Parks or Banks or gas through one of those players. So Parks is highly regarded throughout the industry. He played Kenosha this summer and had a very good year for 18 year old kid. He had 25 home runs and hit about 250 and his best asset actually is his arm strength. So all those other things that they fall into place. He could be a premium catcher in a big-league sand. For me, I'd like to see him go to Visalia this year, but there's a chance he could make our Orlando ball Club looking back in the the past five or six years every catcher. It seems to me that had some ability may have been rushed and they've lost a year. So I don't think it would be beyond our expectations for him maybe to start in Visalia. And then if he gets off to a good start we could put him to Orlando if he does. Well, are you put into Portland but didn't even all this in the Space Jam the same a one-year it doesn't make much difference where a young man starts this spring. You can always move him up. I just hate to see us put him in Orlando see him get off to a bad start and then have to put him back at Visalia. I think you'll lose him for a year and he'd have to start from scratch. Visalia. What's the what's the difference if he starts Mycelia moves up, so I would suspect that you'll be seeing Derek in the near future up here. I don't think it's beyond our expectations. Maybe to see him up here and 1989-1990 at the age of 20. When he still Funny 21 years old and by that time we'd hope that all the things that he needs work on and he is crude. He isn't the greatest receiver in the world. He has got some work to be done there and he had some trouble with that right-handed breaking pitch with y'all young hitters usually do so, there's some things that he needs to do, but he's got power he can throw he's got a tremendous makeup. He's a strong young guy and he's mentally mature and he's competitor. So he's got a lot of things you look for in a major league receiver and he's got the respect of pictures. What what can you teach a guy in professional baseball? And what did he have to have to be a pro baseball practice and what are the things? You can't teach some of the things that stuff to teach a kid mental toughness minute for kids that mental toughness. That's one of them the main things that Scout has trouble evaluate if you watch your kid long enough, you'll see that mental toughness in the competition, but if a kid isn't a good competitor and especially a catcher you have to be a tough kid to catch 130 games a year. Do you have to be a tough kid? Not only Be a receiver and handle the pitching staff, but then you have to turn around and supposedly produce offensively. So that's one of the things that I like about Parks. He's a mentally tough kid and when you give him instruction, he'll take it. He's not the kind of guy that has all the answers. He knows he's a crude receiver. He hasn't caught that many games in his life. So I think it was an ideal situation that he caught a Kenosha this year because he was under the tutelage of Don leopard who's the next major league guy and they Major League coaching has a pretty good idea what it takes to become a good receiver. It's tough to teach a kid to throw that's a catcher if you don't have raw arm strength that stuff to become a catcher unless you got a tremendous bat. Immediately that comes to mind my mind right now is Mark Salas. He had a very good bad for us and he wasn't a tremendous catcher, but he was effective for us because he had two left-handed bat. Although we did trade him. He had some power and he wasn't the greatest receiver we've ever had but he had some offensive production and offensive potential. So he was effective at the major league level, but it's tough to teach a guy to be able to throw how much can you teach hitting? well after seeing let's say You get five or six hundred bats per year for for five years in the minor leagues. Eventually you're going to catch on. I mean if you've got any offensive potential at all, I think after seeing slider after slider after slider and certain situations eventually your your athletic instincts are going to tell you that you start looking for that pitch. Are you stay back on a breaking ball? So do you just want to see basic of a high school? Kicking it the basketball is it is it said tell you what you need to know don't see very many good Sliders in curveballs in high school anyways, so it doesn't make that much difference. If a high school hit her head soccer ball most of the curve balls and Sliders at high school are flat and slow and have no bites on if you start evaluating High School hitters that are are smoking curveballs in high school. You might be fooling yourself. Now then looking at a picture then was assuming those pictures don't have much Beyond a fastball. Is that really what you're looking at? Just purely how hard a guy can throw almost all Scouts if they see a guy with a good armor going to take notice in a hurry in the guy's got a 9 in miles. We can always teach him a slider slider is not tough to teach Ashley, but it does wear and tear on an arm split-finger fastball Czar. Another thing that with a guy with a good arm if you can if he's got a big hand you can develop a split-finger or straight changes aren't that difficult to teach. So if a guy's got good arm strength and wandering Arizona prime example of that. He's got tremendous arm strength. You can get by sometimes on one pitch depending on if you're a reliever a starter. So as soon as you see a guy that can throw 90 miles an hour is grass status takes immediate jump it you say you got a high school picture was getting people out as a Nibbler changing speeds may be more than the better than adequate breaking stuff for a kid that age can that kid be a professional Prospect store has really got to have the good arm strength to make it throw. That should can be a professional Prospect and probably is a prospect many high school and college pictures right now fall into the Map of being breaking ball pictures a lot of times you can develop more miles per hour on a fastball if you can get him to use it more the more you use your a fastball the better it's going to get so if we see a guy that knows how to pitch he's got just fair arm strength if we can mold him into the type of picture that are pitching instructors think should the type that he should be you don't turn your back on a guy just cuz he doesn't throw 90 if he throws 82 or 83 and he's 17. That's not bad. We talked mostly about high school age players today, but you also drafted and signed successful players out of college. What different things do you look at when you look at a college player whose to 3 years older than a high school kid too obviously is physically more battery should be mentally morbid charise's I guess being older can also be a negative two and then I suppose you that much closer to the end of his playing career. However, far down the line that maybe what's the difference in when you evaluate a college kid college players certain Player that we're taking a good look at because the college programs have improved their products at considerably in the last 10 years. So we Scott college players and sign more college players and high school players and you have to be careful not to project too far into the future because when you're drafting a 21 or 22 year-old player, his tools are probably about as good as they're going to get to although there are occasions and many times that a college player I'll come out and he'll be able to improve his arm strength or he'll be able to improve his hitting because the aluminum bat has made him fall into some bad habits her. Sometimes you have a college pitcher. That's a starter when actually maybe he's better suited a relief that sort of thing. So you don't want to project too far in the future that his skills improving. I always take into consideration of college players where he's come from who is played for his metal makeup those sorts of things coming to play a great deal when it comes to it. Hollywood in college players one last question for you. How can you or anybody else tell if you're doing a good job? How do you evaluate your success on the major league level? If we have done our work done at The Scouting development end. You'll see the product on the major league level improve and we in fact myself personally. I haven't done anything for the twins really yet because you haven't seen any of those players from our scouting staff come to the major league level. Although we did a choir Dan Gladden partly because of Brian Hickerson which we drafted last year, but maybe three or four years down the line when Andy macphail starts has the ability to make some deals from the players that we scouted and unsigned you'll see some players from the the past two drafts on the major league club here in the near future. I hope and if I don't do that in our Scouts don't do that, I won't be around here love so until our major league team has some of our players from the past drafts. You'll know whether or not I'm doing the job or not. Set of twins are guests on sportfolio this afternoon. Thanks. I will learn something from it. I appreciate my pleasure Jersey next Saturday at noon. I hope you'll join me for an hour with American League. Umpire Tim cheetah St. Paul to tell us what makes a good umpire or referee maybe even tell us what really went on with Joe Niekro in the mountain Anaheim last year. I think Stalin Cyril to answer the phones today and two technical wizard Randy Johnson on JG Preston. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week if you're on sportfolio. You're listening to the news and information service at Minnesota Public Radio. Ksjn, 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul world and national news is next in the Associated Press. And then Mark I said with the weekend review its 1