The hunt and the gather: The process leading up to Draft Day, and the thing scouts and their players have in common
New York TimesJamey is a lifelong Rangers fan who has been blogging for nearly 20 years at newbergreport.com and traces his fandom back to the days of Bump Wills, Bert Blyleven, and the powder blues. Let the player find you — if he turns your head, then go back and see if he does it again.’ It’s the best advice I ever got in this game.” Fagg, who like Flores was once a Rangers area scout in California and then like Harvie a West Coast Crosschecker for the club, will be running his ninth draft for Texas this week. “Just a great guy.” Kip Fagg, Hans Crouse, and Steve Flores It’s a description you regularly hear with regard to just about every man in the Rangers’ scouting department. Potential special defender with instincts and well above-average makeup.... Intangibles guy, bleeds baseball.... Well above-average competitor, aggressive balls-to-wall effort 24/7.... Fun to watch, just scratching the surface on how good he’ll be.” “Both want to kick your ass, in their own way.” Harvie said it of Kiner-Falefa and Crouse, reflecting the scouting of two kids that went well beyond radar guns and 60-yard dash times, the digging that a team of scouts did and the conviction they had in pounding the table for a couple high school ballplayers that not every organization evaluated the same way. Those men — who you probably wouldn’t recognize if they stood next to you in the car rental line, but who these players end up considering family — are the reason 18- and 21-year-olds tell reporters, through wide smiles they can’t wipe off, “I was hoping it would be Texas.” Some of those young players might come across as chill like Kiner-Falefa, others in-your-face like Crouse — or like Flores or like Harvie, in much the same ways — but with that singular intensity that the best prospects, and the best scouts, have in common.
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The Rangers pick 8th, 41st, and 50th tonight. Here’s a look at the possible picks, and possible strategies
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