Customer Reviews

Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way To Build A Winning Team

5 star:		(5)
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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Scout's Honor seems like it was written as an argument against Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Moneyball focuses on the Oakland A's and how their GM, Billy Beane, focuses on stats when evaluating players and relies little on scouts. In doing so, Beane mainly takes college players rather than high school players, because the statistics for college players do mean something due to the strong competition, and the greater sample sizes. Seemingly on the flip side, the Atlanta Braves, an organization just as successful, or even more successful than the A's (at least in the past 15 years), use scouts extensively and focus on high school players. The A's love college pitchers and hate high school pitchers when it comes to drafting them. The Braves love high school pitchers and avoid college pitchers (they focus their scouting in the Georgia and southeast region). It's amazing that two different winning organizations can attack the same problem in such different ways. Moneyball was a great book on how the braintrust of the A's think and how they go about their evaluation. Scout's Honor is an attempt to do the same for the Braves and their scouts.

On the backcover of Scout's Honor is written: "In this fascinating and insightful look into what criteria major and minor league baseball scouts use to determine talent, Scout's Honor shines a bright light on the job done by `old-school' scouts and their killer instincts." That sounds like a great subject, and I really wanted to read about how scouts go about their job, how they evaluate players, especially those still in high school. I have not read any books detailing exactly what the scouts are looking for - is it something they can't explain to the layman like me? It turns out what Atlanta scouts are looking for in a high school player is their `makeup'. Unfortunately, Shanks he never defines exactly what that means, nor does he explain exactly how a scout determines if someone has good or bad makeup. So the reader is still left wondering exactly how the scouts do their job.

The strength of this book is the great detail and descriptions that Shanks goes into on the Braves organization, especially the people in the player personnel department and the minor league players. Fans of the Braves will love this book since there is so much good information on their players.

It is tough to rate this book, because different people will appreciate the book differently. For Braves fans, I'd rate it a 5, and definitely recommend it. For sabremetric fans and believers of moneyball, I'd rate it a 1 and avoid it - it will only make you angry reading it. In this aspect, its much like a political book designed to show the appreciation of one party while attacking the other party. Although I think many of the moneyball ideas are valid (and I think Shanks mis-characterizes some of them in his last chapter), the fact the Braves have been so successful means they are doing something right, and this book does reflect some of those ideas. I went into reading this book with an open mind, hoping that I would learn about exactly what scouts do. But I was disappointed that Shanks doesn't explain this in more detail. If he had, I would have rated it higher.

If you are a huge Braves fan, you won't mind reading line after line describing how the Braves system can do no wrong. If you are a serious baseball fan, you'll just roll your eyes. Some of the profiles of minor leaguers are interesting at first. But as one other reviewer noted, the profiles all seem to be the same. You'll find yourself skipping several pages at a time.

Most would acknowledge that the Braves are a top-notch organization. It's just silly, however, for anyone to assert the Braves have done EVERYTHING right. I don't think the book contains even mild criticism of a Braves employee, trade or scouting decision. Everything is painted in a light most favorable to the Braves.

In addition, whenever possible, the author takes a shot at Michael Lewis, Moneyball, Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. Fine, the Braves have a different approach and it works. Is there only ONE way to build a solid baseball team? Seems unlikely. And why take cheap shots? For instance, at one point he is discussing the A's acquiring Dan Meyer and Juan Cruz, two young Braves pitchers from the Braves. He sneers at the A's, in effect saying, if Moneyball is such a great system, why did you come crawling to the Braves for young pitching? Well, guess what? Everybody needs young pitching. You know who the Braves got in the Cruz/Meyer trade? Tim Hudson. A pitcher. A pitcher developed in the Oakland A's farm system.

It's just embarrassing. The author is a Braves employee -- and not even a baseball man -- a broadcaster. This book reads like a propaganda piece commissioned by the Braves. As a baseball fan, I'd rather read an objective account of how good the Braves organization is. When a company man writes it (and never adds criticism when criticism is due), it loses all credibility.

Why does the best organization in baseball need to commission a book like this? Doesn't winning your division 14 of the last 15 years say all there is to say?

***
Note: The writing is done at a pretty basic level, and there are lots of typos and grammatical mistakes. Golenbock's books have tons of typos and grammar issues too, but at least his substance is good.

This was a really good idea for a book, but it just doesn't deliver. Aside from the general annoyance of the cheap publishing and frequent typos, this book has no real structure or overarching argument ... if you read the last couple chapters you get more out of it than if you waste your time reading the whole thing. It's basically a mixture of biographies of everyone in the Braves organization and the author paraphrasing the words of others indiscriminately.

I am a huge admirer of the Braves organization and their genius, so I was disappointed to not glean very much info about their magic in this book. Every once in a while there is a real gem about the Braves' philosophies, but just reading the life story of Steve Avery teaches me nothing. The book gets pretty repetitive with this and much of it is skippable.

The Braves are an excellent foil to "Moneyball." This book certainly isn't.

This is a great book, especially if your an Atlanta Braves fan, as it is particularly groomed for these fans. However, anyone who has a passion for baseball should love this book.

In regards to the reviewer who said the book is ruined for you because Shanks never defines makeup, perhaps you should take a glance at page 16, and check out that paragraph that's clearly indicated with a baseball above it, highlighting its importance.

"The Braves are what you call in the game of baseball, an old school organization. Radar guns and stopwatches are always in use, and of course they'll check out the stats. But there's a personal side that's more important to this gang. They believe in getting to know their potential players. What's he like off the field? Is he a winner? Can he handle adversity? Can he handle winning and losing? Does he hustle? What's his desire? What's his attitude? What's his personality? Is he coachable? Does he have heart? This is makeup. It defines the character of a ballplayer."

Perhaps you should go back and reread this one mate, seems like you dropped the ball.

I was watching the Mets game a few weeks ago when they were playing the Braves and the announcers mentioned this book as a source to explain who all these 'no-names' on the field were for the Braves. One of them said that the Braves were epitomized in this book as THE organization to look at for their emphasis and reliance on scouts. So I ordered it.

Firstly, I expected to read on every page how Moneyball was this evil empire since I'd read some online posts about the fact that this was the answer to Moneyball, and it sort of is, but Moneyball is not even mentioned until the last Chapter under "The Moneyball Influence." So I guess all the Moneyball cheerleaders must be working overtime spinning this book as completely off-base. Instead what it does is shine a very bright light on the way a very successful baseball franchise develops and rates talent. That's all-- nothing more and nothing less, until the last chapter when Shanks does tear into the Moneyball book. But heck, that book needed tearing into-- and it should have come two years ago. Can you say, "Emperor Beane has no clothes?"

What the author doesn't do is preach. Shanks simply uses the words of hundreds of other players and management to forward the thesis that many teams are now using that 'makeup' is the best way (I guess "bravest" way) to determine talent. I had to laugh when I read that this book lacked substance-- all it has is substance. If you look at the Index there are over a thousand players and management personel listed there. If that's not substance, substance doesn't exist. I love the fact that this book takes a hypothesis and backs it up with the words of hundreds of other people. We need more of that substance and less of the shills who, "because I said it means it's true."

Lastly, I wonder what Joe Torre thought of that picture of him from the 70's? He hasn't really changed in 30 years.

There are a lot of ways to build a winning baseball (or any other kind of) team. The problem is that it's impossible to quantify a lot of things. (McNamara tried to use numbers for everything and we got the Viet Nam war.) There is a school that teaches that metrics are the only thing to consider. There's another school that says that metrics can't measure teamwork, drive, or as this book calls it 'makeup.'

This book, by long time Braves following journalist Bill Shanks follows the Braves way of using professional baseball scouts as they go looking for players with the right makeup. The book is a series of anecdotes and stories that illustrate how the Braves do something that basically can't really be defined, that is, attract each year a stable of competent players, run them through their farm team system to keep a major league ball team supplied with competent players year after year.

This book uses the Braves as examples because they use the scout system. It would be equally useful for other teams, but using one team as an example gives better consistency in a story. Highly recommended, especially if you're a Braves fan.

Scout's Honor is a Jekyll-and-Hyde book about the Atlanta Braves. On the one hand, the interviews with current and former scouts, players and managers give the reader some interesting insights on the modern Braves franchise. It successfully documents the rise of the franchise from laughingstock to relevance, which spans about twenty years (1985-2005).

On the other hand, author Bill Shanks sets Honor up as the antithesis to Moneyball, the much-ballyhooed book by author Michael Lewis. Moneyball documented Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's methods of relying almost entirely on statistical data to turn his low-budget Athletics club into a powerhouse in the AL West (again, as of 2005).

You can see it all over the back of Honor's cover:

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Stats vs. Scouts
Math vs. Makeup
Computers vs. Commuters
College vs. High School

The debate is a new one in baseball, and it has recently taken on a life of its own. With the Moneyballers on the scene, and spurred by the recent World Series victory by the sabermetric advocate Boston Red Sox, the dispute over the best way to build a professional baseball team has raged out of control-- until now.

----------------------

Lyle Spencer of [...] provides the quote of praise, saying that "[the] book is a worthy foil to the Moneyballers."

The battle comes to a head in the final chapter when Shanks spends time writing about how the Los Angeles Dodgers were turning into a Moneyball organization thanks to former Oakland assistant GM Paul DePodesta and how it might hurt them. Bill even goes so far as to call it "scary" that the Cardinals and Diamondbacks were contemplating Moneyball-style scouting methods. He finishes the book by praising the Cincinnati Reds, who have a traditional scouting system, and declaring Beane's methods a "fad".

This book didn't need any of that rigamarole. The turnaround of the Atlanta Braves franchise is nothing short of legendary and deserves to be chronicled; however, it doesn't need to be shackled to the baseball traditionalists' war against different methods of scouting.

I recommend this book to Braves fans who probably will find the profiles of former Braves prospects and scouts, and the stories about the team fun to read. Stay away from the drama of the book, though; it'll leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.

just like money ball this books will keep you around the scouting process for a major league team, too useful for people connected with this world.

I recently went on vacation and chose this book to be the one that I read while sipping margarita's by the pool and wondering how my fantasy team was doing. The title and back cover intrigued me since I figured that it was a response to Moneyball. Although I lean more towards that side of the argument, I was curious to read a well-written counterpoint. Not a great choice.

The book is basically made up of chapters that select several Braves and looks at how they were drafted and how their progression through the minors went. In between thoughts or at the end of chapters, the author would throw in a line about how stats didn't mean anything when looking at Player X, it was all scouting. Well, maybe. But HOW? The author writes at length about Chipper Jones before he was drafted and shows how the Braves were trying to make a last ditch effort to convince Todd Van Poppel to sign. When they coudn't convince him they went for Chipper because he showed "toughness". Hellooo, he was the concensus #2 and the Braves still preferred Van Poppel. The Braves lucked into Chipper.

Chapter after chapter about each player was the same. Player X had skills, player wanted to play for Braves since he was a kid, Braves steal him in the draft, player makes the team or is used as trade bait. Nothing about the loads of players that every team drafts who amount to nothing. The secret, evidently, is to draft players who want to play for you. That's the one and only scouting tip that the book serves up over and over.

In the end, whether you agree with Moneyball or not, it was insightful into the "why" Beane et al think they way they do. Nothing here was explanatory, it was simply put out by someone upset at Moneyball who wanted to say "Me too!"

It gets two stars because all things baseball related deserve a read.

The author thinks that he's making a grand argument for why one method of scouting is better than another. In reality, he's listing a set of unoriginal anecdotes with little to tie them all together, largely composed to stat lines from a player's time at a certain level. I was expecting Scouts Honor to be interesting and intriguing - an inside look at how scouts determine who is good and who is bad. Besides a few quotes from scouts saying, "You could just tell this guy [who happens to now be a failed mlb prospect] was going to be a major leaguer", the book gives none of that.

It's a failed attempt by a bad beat writer to understand a subject that he clearly has little understanding of. If Scouts Honor proves anything, it is that association with the game of major league baseball does not instill the requisite knowledge of the minor leagues required in order to analyze them. In fact, I'm using the word analysis too liberally: Scout's Honor might as well be a book report by a college student with a little bit more access than the common person.