The Phillies announced last week the hiring of former Twins GM Terry Ryan as a scout. “Well, whoopity doo!” you might be thinking. It’s not exactly the type of move that generated high-fives and bro hugs among Phillies fans. And who knows, maybe he’s not even a good scout.
But that doesn’t matter.
This move is just another indication that the Phillies organization gets it. With the huge push for analytics from John Middleton, a new snazzy analytics system, a young, nerdy, GM, and hiring some guy from Google, it is easy to get the impression that scouting has now taken a back seat to computers.