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Bill Shanks

Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way To Build A Winning Team Hardcover – March 1, 2005

by Bill Shanks (Author)

24 ratings

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Using the Atlanta Braves as a focal point, Scout’s Honor is an in-depth look at what instinct and gut reaction means to baseball and how the numbers-don’t-lie style of the new breed is not only misleading, but mistaken.

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Sterling & Ross Publishers
Publication date

March 1, 2005
Dimensions

6.25 x 1.5 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0976637219
ISBN-13

978-0976637219
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sterling & Ross Publishers (March 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0976637219
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0976637219
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,397,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,626 in Baseball (Books)

Customer Reviews:
24 ratings

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3 star		8%
2 star		16%
1 star		5%

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Amazon Customer hawkradar

the real money ball

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2013

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This not an objective review. I worked for the Atlanta Braves as a scout and area supervisor until I retired in 2002.The Braves way of scouting is a direct opposite of the system touted in Money ball. During that period the Braves success far exceeded Oakland.[14 str Div Championships,5 National League and a World Championship]The author not only captures the differences but also gives you an accurate profile of the key people. He paints a perfect picture of Paul Snyder both his baseball ability and what a great person he was to work for.you want a insider look at the making of a winning ballclub and the people behind it this is for you

3 people found this helpful

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King Yao

If you are a Braves fan, get it. If not, maybe not.

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2005

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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.

21 people found this helpful

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Strudel

Mildly entertaining

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2005

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There is not a lot of substance to this book. Basically, this is Bill Shanks snubbing his nose at Moneyball, and not much else. It is good for the anecdotes about the players, especially thus far into the 2005 season, and seeing some of the guys he talks about finding success with the Braves Major League club. But, my praise ends here.

There are also many, indeed too many, anecdotes regarding various front office staff linked to the Braves organization. The latter 100 pages of this book devolves into the following rote format: "(INsert name of obscure managerial staff remotely linked to the Braves organization) learned everything from (insert name of current senior managerial staff in Braves organization). XXXX talked with YYYYY and agrees, makeup is everything. Thanks to YYYYY, XXXXX drafted (insert name of unproven minor league prospect here) who is a great talent. XXXX, by filling up his minor league system with raw, toolsy players, has been able to load his team with old has-beens and never-wases through making trades with other gambling addict GM's, in order to make an ill-advised, premature, and ultimately unsuccessful push for the playoffs. Take that Billy Beane!" Seriously, it's like Shanks clicked 'copy' on his word processor and pasted the same story over and over again, changing only the names and locations to protect the innocent.

The point he strives to get across, and which is repeated incessantly, is that the "makeup" separates would-be MLB'ers from career burger flippers. If you want to hear more calls for "makeup" than at clown college, this book is for you. If you want to hear an actual argument as to what makeup is, or how the Braves can find it when no one else can, or some other proof, you will be disappointed. My impression is that, without any basis whatsover for his beliefs, Bill Shanks sat down to write a book about how silly Billy Beane is for drafting his college players and hiding in his statistics, and how foolish Moneyball followers are for believing in the hocus pocus that is mathematics (that's something out of Harry Potter is it not?). He then went around and dumped every shred of evidence he could find that he was correct into this book. I hate to spoil the ending, but he comes off looking foolish. He has no idea why the Braves are good, and presents no basis for his disdain of statistics.

AS a side note, that Jeremy Bonderman fellow, who pitches so well for the Tigers, was drafted out of high school by a very successful organization. He was then traded to flesh out a need on the major league club. Drafted by Atlanta, right? Wrong. He was drafted by Billy Beane of the Oakland Athletics. Bonderman completely refutes Shanks' entire argument, if you think about it.

8 people found this helpful

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A's Village

A Winner

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2013

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The Braves way is the right way. Their success speaks for itself. All GM's should read & follow this book.

One person found this helpful

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Amber

Disappointing.

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

Not very well written, unfortunately. I'm struggling to finish reading it. Spelling and grammatical errors and just not all that interesting, and I'm a HUGE Braves fan. I won't even keep it after I finish reading. Skip.

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