Baseball America published an article surveying scouts from across the league regarding "The State of Scouting" in Major League Baseball. The scouts were given many questions regarding the state of the scouting industry as a whole, how organizations value scouting, and the future of the scouting industry. But what is most interesting about the survey is the questions regarding how the scouts feel organizations view them and the questions regarding player development. The Nationals are brought up multiple times throughout the survey and much of it is in a negative context, especially in regards to identifying talent and player development, and the answers are reason to worry.
Baseball America surveyed scouts on their perceptions of different teams. The Nationals were in the top 10 worst teams at identifying talent, and one scout lumped them in with the White Sox as teams that are "way behind" in scouting. https://t.co/Ui4VdliG27
— Andrew Flax (@ajflax) January 7, 2025
The first question asked was "Which Organizations Are The Most Scout-Friendly?" to which 26 scouts responded. Of the 26 respondents, 6 listed the Nationals as one of the organizations that are most scout-friendly while only one respondent listed them as one of the organizations that is the least scout-friendly. That should not come as a surprise considering Mike Rizzo's scouting background and the Nationals' heavy emphasis on scouting. Being scout-friendly has never been much of an issue for the organization. In fact, it could be argued that the over-reliance on old-school scouting is what set the Nationals so far behind most other organizations in player development and drafting.
By far the most concerning answers from the survey were regarding identifying player talent, whether it be high school talent, college talent, or talent from other teams. 24 scouts responded to the questions "Which Organizations Are The Best/Worst At Identifying Talent?" None of the 24 scouts responded with the Nationals as one of the best organizations at identifying talent, but 3 scouts identified them as one of the worst. But what stood out most was one scout saying that the Nationals and White Sox are "way behind" in terms of identifying talent.
It is probably not a good thing to be lumped in with an organization coming off what is the worst season in the history of Major League Baseball in anything, let alone a comment about how bad the organization is at identifying talent. It's not as if this comment is a surprise considering how badly the Nationals have drafted over the past decade plus, but Mike Rizzo has stated on multiple occasions about improving the drafting and player development process and in the grand scheme of things has not delivered. It would be nice for some tangible improvement to be seen in the scouting department (getting generational talents handed to you on a silver platter does not count), but success stories seem to be few and far between in the Nationals organization and that has not gone unnoticed around the league.