On Saturday afternoon, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito faced off for the first and last time in the O.co Coliseum, thereby providing fans, players, writers, and everyone else the opportunity to reflect on the duo’s glory days with the A’s. By now, you’ve read enough retrospectives to know all about how Hudson, Zito, and Mark Mulder shaped the A’s during their time together. So rather than repeat the same facts and stories, let’s contemplate the past and commemorate their careers in a different way: by using the Diamond Mines database to go back in time, beyond the Moneyball era, and see what scouts said about the pair when they were still amateurs.
First the obligatory disclaimers: 1) scouting is hard and 2) looking at history backward is dangerous. Inaccuracy is a given whenever the task involves guessing how another human being will mature over the next N years, be it physically, emotionally, or both. People progress at different paces and respond to different stimuli; what looked to be the case then probably was, but, to state the obvious, each pitcher’s outlook soon improved. The intent in highlighting these reports is not to mock or shame the scouts who authored them; rather, it is to illustrate the difficulty and unpredictability of their task, and to showcase how, even when they “missed,” they still got plenty right.
Tim Hudson
Report
Scout: Russ Bove
Date: March 1997
The lone available report on Hudson comes from Bove, a Blue Jays scout now who was with the Brewers at the time and who later served as scouting director with the Mets.
Bove filed his report about three months before the A’s drafted Hudson out of Auburn with their sixth-round pick. Some 18 years later, it’s not surprising to see that Bove praised Hudson’s splitter (he calls it an above-average forkball), pitching aptitude (the phrases “knows how to change speeds” and “plus pitchability” appear), and makeup (above-average marks across the board). However, it is surprising to read Bove’s tepid appraisal of Hudson’s sinker.
Though Bove projected Hudson’s fastball control to improve to plus in time, he slapped a 50 on the pitch’s future movement, a grade that would not atone for its 86-89 mph velocity band, per the report. Combined with Bove’s harsh assessment of Hudson’s breaking ball (a grade-35 slider), it’s only right that Bove pegged Hudson as a long reliever. After all, it’s hard enough to start in the majors with a single plus offering, let alone when your third pitch is considered well below average.
The most interesting part of Bove’s report is that his assessment seems largely unconcerned with Hudson’s size. He noted Hudson’s “pencil thin, lanky body,” but never expressed fear that the 6-foot-1, then-160-pound Hudson would be unable to handle a starter’s workload. Instead Bove wrote that Hudson was a shorter Bruce Kison, high praise considering Kison started nearly 250 games throughout his 15 big-league seasons, and appeared in relief in another 134. Another item worth noting is that Bove classified Hudson’s amateur workload as overuse, which might explain why Hudson had a “barking elbow” around draft time and, likely, why his stuff improved after signing.
Hudson obviously proved durable as pro, thanks in large part to his impressive athleticism. (Hudson played every day of his senior year, outfielding when he was not pitching.) He would retain his acumen while adding pitches to his arsenal throughout his career—at last check he continues to throw his sinker and splitter, as well as a cutter, four-seamer, curve, and changeup—a combination that earned him regard as an inventive pitcher. Hudson became, to quote Robert O’Connell, “an accumulator of pitching failsafes. If his stuff failed, he looked to his guile. If that went too, he leaned on his nerve.”
Bove didn’t see Hudson’s career playing out so well but, to his credit, he did identify most of the qualities that later turned a senior draftee into a pitcher with more than $120 million in career earnings.
Barry Zito
Report
Date: August 1998
Scout: Russ Bove
One of the exhibit’s two Zito reports was also penned by Bove, who came away more impressed than he had been with Hudson. That’s to be expected given Zito at the time was considered a borderline first-round pick, and, 10 months later, would be drafted ninth overall.
As with Hudson, Bove expressed admiration for Zito’s polish and pitching IQ, noting in the comments that he raised Zito’s OFP due to his pitchability and command. The key difference between Zito and Hudson, at least when viewed through the lens of Bove’s reports, is their arsenal maturity. Zito’s fastball received worse marks than Hudson’s did, but his overall grade was higher than Hudson’s because he checked in with three average or better secondaries, including his changeup and trademark curveball, each of which received an above-average projection.
The one negative Bove emphasized about Zito was how he “[tended] to drop [his] arm angle” on the changeup. Otherwise Bove labeled Zito a potential no. 3 starter and likened him to Bill Lee, a comparison that proved as prescient as anything in the report, given their shared alma mater (Southern Cal) and perceived eccentricities, the latter of which precipitated Lee’s “Spaceman” nickname, and recently caused Zito to be described as having an “air of secondhand California mysticism.”
Report
Date: 1998
Scout: Joe Stephenson
The last report was submitted by Stephenson, who scouted for the Red Sox for nearly half a century after his playing days. There is no date printed on the report, but it names Zito’s team as Pierce Junior College, so it took place sometime during the lead-up to the 1998 draft.
Stephenson wasn’t as affected by Zito as Bove was. He didn’t project any of Zito’s pitches to become above-average offerings (though he later stressed the potential of the change and curve), nor did he consider Zito’s aptitude to be better than the norm. Despite awarding Zito an OFP of 52.9—or a score within the range normally associated with back-end starters—Stephenson’s report reads as if he was let down or disillusioned by what he saw from Zito.
That sentiment is supported by the rest of Stephenson’s report, as he struggled to explain the difference between the concept and reality of Zito. First he conceded that Zito’s arm “may be tired.” Then he noted Zito had “no glaring weaknesses, except his stuff is not there.” And then, for emphasis, Stephenson wrote, perhaps longingly, “For his delivery and size, he should have better stuff.” In time, Zito would prove Stephenson’s assertion correct: His curveball and changeup would jump grades and become the most important pitches in his arsenal. But before Zito became Zito, he validated Stephenson in another way.
One of the last lines Stephenson wrote on his report was that Zito’s father was thinking “BIG money.” Sure enough, Zito was selected in the third round of the 1998 draft by the Rangers, yet opted for USC when his asking price (reportedly $350,000) went unmatched. (For reference, only four other third-round picks in Zito’s class received at least that much, so it was a greater demand than it seems by today’s standards.) Zito (and his father) received BIG money in the end, as he improved his stock over the next 12 months to the point where his eventual signing bonus topped $1.5 million.
Altogether, Bove and Stephenson identified Zito as a tall, trim lefty with a repeatable delivery and the makings of a well-rounded arsenal. Their estimations of Zito’s growth proved conservative, but who can blame them for failing to peg him as a future Cy Young Award winner? No matter your tenure or insight level, baseball will always find a way to surprise.
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