Lajoie is a fine baseball man, but I have doubts as to whether character in its most general sense plays a role in baseball success. Resilience, confidence, and hard work are needed to make the most of natural talent, but character usually speaks to ethical conduct and decency, two qualities that one does not usually view as necessities for athletic success. Pete Rose may have had the ideal makeup for a baseball player, but not many would contend that he has a surplus of character.

Lajoie is a fine baseball man, but I have doubts as to whether character in its most general sense plays a role in baseball success. Resilience, confidence, and hard work are needed to make the most of natural talent, but character usually speaks to ethical conduct and decency, two qualities that one does not usually view as necessities for athletic success. Pete Rose may have had the ideal makeup for a baseball player, but not many would contend that he has a surplus of character.

True, but if one can identify a baseball-specific "character," the traits that can tell you which guys are most likely to lead to greater development, that would indeed be something where a good scout could add considerable value.

Lajoie is a fine baseball man, but I have doubts as to whether character in its most general sense plays a role in baseball success. Resilience, confidence, and hard work are needed to make the most of natural talent, but character usually speaks to ethical conduct and decency, two qualities that one does not usually view as necessities for athletic success. Pete Rose may have had the ideal makeup for a baseball player, but not many would contend that he has a surplus of character.

If a player doesn't need a coach to be able to succeed at the highest level, then character doesn't matter. OTOH, if that's the case you don't need a scout to find him.

If a player has good character, one might argue that he will listen to coaching advice; he'll be willing to play hurt but won't hide injuries from his manager; he'll plan his night based on the next afternoon's game; he'll take every pitch seriously; when players heckle him he'll take the high road; and so on. If he has good character the team might have a better chance of the player maximizing his potential. He must also have talent, of course, for without talent there isn't enough potential to matter.

I honestly don't know if character matters or not, and I wouldn't believe it does simply because someone told me. But if I had to take someone's word for it, Bill Lajoie is probably one of the few I'd trust.

Fred Claire co-owns/co-runs a scouting website, Ariball. No idea if Lajoie contributes to it though.

Strange thing is, the article doesn't mention any of Lajoie's great scouting finds nor any sense of whether, in fact, he is a better judge of "character" (whatever it might be). I assume Lajoie does have some major finds to his credit but it's odd the article doesn't mention a single one.

Strange thing is, the article doesn't mention any of Lajoie's great scouting finds

"Buy the book" angle.

more importantly, TFA doesn't say how he pronounces his name

more importantly, TFA doesn't say how he pronounces his name

"Bil" - The second "l" is silent.

Lajoie is a fine baseball man, but I have doubts as to whether character in its most general sense plays a role in baseball success. Resilience, confidence, and hard work are needed to make the most of natural talent, but character usually speaks to ethical conduct and decency,

Well, here's what the article says:

"So how does Bill determine if a young player has strong character?" writes the author of Lajoie's book, Anup Sinha, a former Major League scout himself.

"Lajoie believed in watching a high school or college prospect in everything he did, in the dugout, on the field, interacting with his parents, essentially doing everything short of following the kid to the bathroom.

"The player will tell you if he's determined to become a great player, if he's motivated to succeed, or if he's only motivated by money and attention. The way he plays when nobody's in the stands, the way he plays 'away from the ball,' the way he plays hurt, in big games, all of these things collectively give an idea of what the young man is made of."

I realize that you can read that quote in more than one way, but I see it as being focused on the qualities that will help any ballplayer succeed. Those character traits alone obviously won't transform a marginal talent into a great player, but they can often determine the eventual course of a player's career within his spot on the talent spectrum. I can't imagine why a team wouldn't want to know this sort of a thing.

Just my opinion, of course, but the traits Lajoie is referring to provide a sound basis projecting how a young prospect may develop as he matures; "character", however, was probably not the best word to use to define what he was trying to convey. From the article (quoting Lajoie):

"One of the things I wanted to convey in my book was just how important character is to the success of a player. You can call it make-up or you can call it character, it simply has to do [with] how a player approaches the game of baseball -- how he prepares, how he takes care of himself, what sort of teammate he is, how he handles both success and, more important, failure."

So I agree with the point of Post #1 that "character", as the term is generally used, is generally meaningless when evaluating baseball talent. However, "character", as Lajoie is defining the term, is a quite useful tool to have when attempting to forecast how a youngster will progress through the organization as he matures.

DB

Well, the word "character" is used by different people to mean different things. My reading of the word usually marks a person's integrity within the framework of his own personal code, not necessarily the code of society at large. There's a line in one of the Alan Ladd / Veronica Lake movies where one gangster KO's another gangster who'd tried to steal all of the loot, and after leaving him out cold, the first gangster says "there's ethics in this business, too." All I read out of that article was that Lajoie was assessing "baseball character," meaning character within the framework of the Platonic ideal of the baseball code.

if he’s motivated to succeed, or if he’s only motivated by money and attention

As long as he's motivated, who cares?

You can call it make-up or you can call it character, it simply has to do [with] how a player approaches the game of baseball -- how he prepares, how he takes care of himself, what sort of teammate he is, how he handles both success and, more important, failure."

This is all very well, and sounds nice, but how true is it really?

We can all think of great players who were lousy teammates - frankly it doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference to a player's ability to fulfil their potential (although it will make a difference as to whether they're worth keeping around as the 25th man). There are also plenty of examples of players who were lousy teammates to start off with, but became good ones later on. They matured. As for how they handle failure... yes, it's terrifically important. Unfortunately, how can you possibly know? All these guys are superstars in high-school, even the scrubs who never come close to the majors. They've never tasted failure, and they won't until AFTER you've handed over the huge signing bonus. Based on these tests, you'd reject (say) Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams... I could go on. I don't think anyone is seriously arguing those guys didn't max their potential.

How the player takes care of himself, yes, that's very important. But is he just doing it now because he's trying to get drafted, or will he keep it up? And even if he doesn't look after himself, will it matter until he turns 30? I don't think anyone is regretting drafting Junior Griffey or Will Clark, to give two obvious examples.

As long as he's motivated, who cares?

Well, it might not be optimal if he bails out on that whole boring baseball practice thing once he's got his signing bonus to pursue his real interests: beer, weed and chicks.

We can all think of great players who were lousy teammates - frankly it doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference to a player's ability to fulfil their potential (although it will make a difference as to whether they're worth keeping around as the 25th man).

Again, it's all in how you're defining the terms; in this case "good teammate." If you're defining a "good teammate" as someone who's friendly, popular with group, etc., then, yes, those attributes can be pretty meaningless with regards to performance on the field. However, I believe what Lajoie is referring to is how is the prospect interacting with his teammates on the field: if, for example, the prospect is a secondbaseman:

- is he communicating with the shortstop on who will cover second in case of a stolen base attempt?

- is he properly positioning himself for cutoff plays based upon his rightfielder's throwing ability?

- does he know how much ground to his left he needs to cover based upon his firstbaseman's range?

- is he picking up the catcher's sign to the pitcher, and properly placing himself, without tipping off to the batter what pitch is coming?

All of the above have everything to do with being a "good teammate" without having anything to do with whether or not the prospect being discussed is a jerk in the clubhouse or whether or not he has any friends or buddies on the team. Again, the key to understanding Lajoie is in knowing how he's defining the terms that he's using. If he's defining them in the way I think he is, then his views are quite valid.

DB