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Scouting Explained: The 20-80 Scouting

Scale
by Kiley McDaniel
September 4, 2014

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

When I started here just last month, I promised I would write a comprehensive
series of articles explaining every part of the 20-80 scouting scale. This is the
beginning of that series.

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Background

The invention of the scale is credited to Branch Rickey and whether he intended it or
not, it mirrors various scientific scales. 50 is major league average, then each 10 
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point increment represents a standard deviation better or worse than average. In a 

normal distribution, three standard deviations in either direction should include

99.7% of your sample, so that’s why the scale is 20 to 80 rather than 0 and 100. That
said, the distribution of tools isn’t a normal curve for every tool, but is somewhere
close to that for most.

The Basics

You’ve probably heard people call athletic hitters a “five-tool prospect.” While that is
an overused and misunderstood term, they are referring to the 20-80 scouting scale.
The five tools for position players are 1) Hitting 2) Power 3) Running 4) Fielding and
5) Throwing. The general use of the “five-tool” term is when all five are at least
average (which is more rare than you’d think) and I generally only use it when all five
are above average. It’s a shockingly small list of players over the history of baseball
that have five plus tools, but if you ask around, scouts will tell you Bo Knows.

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For hitters, these are the only five tools, despite many questions from readers about
why we can’t expand it. Throwing accuracy is folded into the throwing tool grade
(which is mostly arm strength since accuracy problems are often fixable) while
fielding range, hands, instincts and all the components of defense are folded into the
fielding grade. Base running skill and good jumps out of the batter’s box are also
folded into the run grade. Many organizations and I will split power into game power
(predicting big league power stats) and raw power (how far he can hit the ball in
batting practice) but they are often the same and it’s simply a way with numbers to
better explain the components of power (and also comment on the hit tool). The hit
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tool includes plate discipline (the most commonly asked-for sixth tool by the 

internet) but I’ll get more into why that is and how we can still project contact and
on-base skill with one number in the article about the hit tool.

Though some teams have scouts grade each of these components, it’s the five core
scouting grades that are paid attention to universally. It’s common practice in
scouting reports for scouts to explain in the comments when, say a 55 fielding grade
includes some 60 or higher components and some 50 or lower components, but
often a 55 means a number of average to above skills and doesn’t merit much
explanation. Scouts also use present and future grades for each tool. Present grades
often are 20’s for high school players while, in the upper levels of the minors, the gap
between present and future grades is very small. A present 20 and future 50 grade on
a tool is noted as 20/50.

For pitchers, it is much more straightforward. Scouts grade each of their pitches
(fastball, curveball, slider, changeup, splitter, cutter being the most common) on the
20-80 scale, then either grade the command of each pitch separately or have one
overall command grade. Some teams will do grade for components of command
(throwing quality strikes) with control (throwing it in the strike zone, usually closely
following walk rate), pitchability (feel to sequence pitches, keep hitters off balance,
etc.) and other similar things. Some clubs go so far as to have scouts grade deception,
arm action (how clean/efficient/loose the arm swing is in back) and other
components that the industry feels predict health. That said, the three core pitches
(fastball, changeup, best breaking ball) and command are the four core grades that
scouts use to make decisions and that inform the overall grade.

Objective Tool Grades

Tool Is Fastball Batting RHH to LHH to 60 Yd

Homers
Called Velo Avg 1B 1B Run
80 80 97 .320 40+ 4.00 3.90 6.3
75 96 .310 35-40 4.05 3.95 6.4
70 Plus Plus 95 .300 30-35 4.10 4.00 6.5
65 94 .290 27-30 4.15 4.05 6.6
60 Plus 93 .280 23-27 4.20 4.10 6.7
55 Above Avg 92 .270 19-22 4.25 4.15 6.8
50 Avg 90-91 .260 15-18 4.30 4.20 6.9-7.0
45 Below Avg 89 .250 12-15 4.35 4.25 7.1
40 88 .240 8-12 4.40 4.30 7.2
35 87 .230 5-8 4.45 4.35 7.3
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30 86 .220 3-5 4.50 4.40 7.4 
This is a table showing the tool grades (fastball for pitchers, hit, power and speed for 

hitters) that have objective scales that every scout uses to grade. These scales will
vary team to team, possibly shifted one notch in either direction, or maybe separate
grades for fastball velocity for righties/lefties or starter/reliever but these are
essentially industry consensus scales.

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An 80 tool is called 80. It’s really rare, so why do we need another name for it? 75 is
almost never used because scouts will yell at you to make a choice and many don’t
use 65, though it’s much more accepted than 75. These half grades like 65 and 75
don’t have separate terms because many teams use a 2-8 scale rather than 20-80 and
2-8 is the scale that was predominant when many of today’s top scouts were starting
out. Now 20-80 is more commonly used, but often you’ll hear older scouts at the
ballpark throwing out single numbers like 6 or 7 while we might call that a 65 here. It
helps in my situation to have more numbers describe things when I’m trying to
differentiate between literally hundreds of prospects that have 50 or 55 power
grades, for example.

One more important addition to the scale that isn’t shown here is solid average
(52.5) and fringe-average or fringy (47.5). Since so many tools fall close to 50 but you
may clearly prefer one 50 to the other, many scouts will use these terms to
differentiate. Again, given the thousands of players I’ll be grading, it makes sense to
use this and it will show up as 45+ or 50+, since no scout has or ever will write 52.5
or 47.5 (they just put 50 then say fringy or solid average in the comments).

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Fastball velocity is pretty self-explanatory and this is used as a starting point, with 

many other pieces of information leading to 1-2 notch moves up or down. As

mentioned above, lefty/righty and starter/reliever can be taken into account (though
I and many teams don’t do that, instead considering those factors in the overall
grade at the end) while command, movement and deception are common other
components to move up/down from the starting velocity grade.

I’ll go more into the batting average/on base/hit tool thing in the hit tool article but
it seems like even the most statistically-inclined people agree this scale is kind of
agreeable for what it’s trying to do. For homers, it’s a similar situation that I’ll get
into later; ideally you’d like isolated power for projection purposes, but this scale
works for what it’s trying to do.

For the two different run grade scale, we have the 60-yard dash, which is a combine-
style showcase measure of straight-line speed akin to the 40 from the football
combine while the home to first base times from either batter’s box are functional
game speed. Often scouts use the raw times (comparing them with scouts nearby to
verify accuracy) then round up/down based on wind/grass conditions for the 60 or
how good of a jump out of the box and effort level on times to first base.

The Overall Player Grade

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Hitter Starting Pitcher Relief Pitcher WAR

80 Top 1-2 #1 Starter —- 7.0
75 Top 2-3 #1 —- 6.0
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 70 Top 5 #1/2 —- 5.0 

65 All-Star #2/3 —- 4.0

60 Plus #3 High Closer 3.0
55 Above Avg #3/4 Mid Closer 2.5
50 Avg Regular #4 Low CL/High SU 2.0
45 Platoon/Util #5 Low Setup 1.5
40 Bench Swing/Spot SP Middle RP 1.0
35 Emergency Call-Up Emergency Call-Up Emergency Call-Up 0.0
30 *Organizational *Organizational *Organizational -1.0

* “Organizational” is the term scouts use to describe a player that has no major
league value; he’s just there to fill out a minor league roster and be a good influence
on the prospects, though sometimes org players can outplay that projection.

** I didn’t continue down to 20 on either scale since it’s almost never relevant for
players that I’ll be writing about or any of their tools, other than speed for big fat
sluggers.

There have been plenty of articles here at FanGraphs breaking down this general
idea and many adjacent ideas (and there will be more). I won’t profess that the scales
I’m presenting here are perfect, but it’s a good combination of the objective,
research-based scales and the more subjective ones that scouts have traditionally
used (but are slowly becoming more objective as front offices have stat guys tweak
them).

The concept that an 80 is just one or two big leaguers at each position is a traditional
one while technically there could be a bunch of 7-win guys at any position. The “Top
1-2” notation for hitters is just to give an idea of typically how exclusive each group
should be, realizing it isn’t always true.

Most scouts agree there are only ever 8-12 pitchers that could be called #1s or aces at
any given time, but then there’s like 20 #2s and like 75 #3s. Many fans get tripped up
by this term, thinking there are 30 of each type or that every team has exactly one
version of each; that’s an understandable misunderstanding. Scouts see tiers of
pitchers and call them #1, #2, #3 starters and this is one of those things you only
fully understand when someone takes the time to explain to you what they mean.

Relievers are hard to value in this sense, as many people and scouts would say you’re
crazy to not call Mariano Rivera an 80 since he’s the best ever. The problem is that
assumes he’s as valuable as Mike Trout, which significantly fewer people believe, but
still some people would (with some statistical adjustments for postseason leverage
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giving them something to point at). The WAR framework gives us a way to figure out 
where most players can be described and most elite relievers max out at around 3 

wins, with very few racking up multiple seasons that good. You’d take a 60 position
player over a 60 starting pitcher and either over a 60 reliever (all things being equal)
due to attrition and these overall grades do their best to make the comparisons
simpler.

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The WAR-to-overall-player-grade conversion also isn’t perfect, so don’t assume

someone is an 80 for the rest of time after one 7-win season by one of the WAR
metrics. It’s a guide to convert a scouting grade convention for minor leaguers and
amateur players to a scale that can be understood for purposes like valuing players in
trades. The WAR grade here is meant as a true talent level, so crazy BABIP and UZR
swings or playing time varying year-to-year doesn’t confuse us. I also may project a
player’s upside or future tool grades to be a 3-win player, but the overall grade is
subjective and includes various types of risk in the determination.

Many teams call their overall grade an OFP, short for Overall Future Potential. One
of the clubs I worked for called their overall grade FV, short for Future Value, as that
more accurately describes what this number is trying to do. The scout isn’t just
averaging the core future tool grades; he’s trying to use one number to describe how
valuable this player is on the overall player market, taking into account risk, distance
to ceiling and other factors.

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 We hoped you liked reading
Scouting Explained: The 20-80
Scouting Scale by Kiley
McDaniel!

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❮ Pitchers Hitting – Hidden Wild Card The Worst of the Best: The Month’s
Factor? Wildest Swings ❯

Kiley McDaniel has worked as an executive and scout, most recently for the Atlanta Braves, also for
the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates. He's written for ESPN, Fox Sports
and Baseball Prospectus. Follow him on twitter.

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