CLEARWATER, Fla. – The Phillies have joined a growing number of teams that will not use an advance scout this season.
Craig Colbert, the team’s advance scout since 2009, remains on staff, but will now serve in a special assignment pro scouting role.
Basically, an advance scout stays a series or two ahead of his club, gathers fresh intelligence on future opponents, and passes it along to the coaching staff so it can formulate game plans, etc., before a new series begins.
Once upon a time, all teams had advance scouts. Now, one current advance scout for a major-league team estimated, only half the teams use them. Larger front office staffs and the explosion of video and other specialty services that are available to teams by subscription has led many clubs to handle all their advance work in-house.
“We feel like we can get enough on video and with our other resources,” general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said.
“Also, it’s an opportunity to utilize (Colbert) in a broader, more effective way. If we feel we need more information on a club prior to a series we can always send a guy in or supplement from our pro coverage.”
Amaro was adamant that the change was not made because the Phillies are not expected to contend this season.
“It’s something we’ve discussed for a while,” he said.
Mike Ondo, the team’s director of pro scouting, pointed out that the Phillies travel with extensive video equipment and the coaching staff is constantly utilizing it when preparing defensive alignments and matchups, etc. The team also has access to reports on players that are prepared by scouts in spring training and during regular in-season pro coverage.
“We spoke with the coaching staff and decided to do something different this year,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
Bench coach Larry Bowa pointed out that 20 years ago, advance scouts were a must.
“Now we get so much information from video and computers,” he said. “We get spray charts, arm accuracy and strength stuff. We know what guys hit, what they lay off of in certain counts. It’s not a big deal because of all the information we get.”
Manager Ryne Sandberg concurred.
“It’s not a big change on our end,” he said.