Earlier this week, Travis Sawchik wrote a fantastic article where he discusses the problem of how technology in baseball has advanced to the point that some question whether said technology and baseball scouts could coexist. The essential points here are that scouting jobs, in particular pro scouting jobs, are being shed at a high rate in part because the existence of Statcast and other forms of advanced data collection has made many of the traditional responsibilities given to scouts unnecessary. One doesn’t necessarily need a scout on hand at a game to chart pitches and at-bats or to operate a radar gun, due to the existence of so much information with just a few keystrokes and some clicks of a mouse.
The Braves scouting department is changing, but it is more important than ever
