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A review by eely225
Future Value: The Battle for Baseball's Soul and How Teams Will Find the Next Superstar by Kiley McDaniel, Eric Longenhagen
4.0
It took me a bit to get into the book because I wasn't sure what it was. I came to identify two functions it serves: to be a snapshot and a textbook.
As a snapshot, this book attempts to give a thorough picture of what the professional baseball scouting industry was like in late 2019. The references are up to the minute, and it will be interesting to see how they age. But the important thing for the authors, I think, has less to do with the specific players profiled and is more focused on how those players exemplify processes and trends in the industry. They don't attempt to predict the future, despite the title; they just want you to know what's going on.
As far as a textbook, the book attempts to piece together the disparate topics that all relate to scouting generally. This is a contrast to other scouting-focused texts like [b:Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys with a Major League Scout|32985|Prophet of the Sandlots Journeys with a Major League Scout|Mark Winegardner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942904l/32985._SY75_.jpg|622014], which tend to focus more on personal narratives than broad pictures of the industry in which they operate. In this respect, the text can hold up in its broad strokes even as the particular details shift with new bargaining agreements and general managers. But also, this textbook has profanity and pop culture references and anti-corporate messaging so you know you're learning from the Cool Teacher *puts on shades*.
As other reviewers have noted, it can be a little bloated as there is repetition of key ideas (how many times do rising fastballs need to be explained?) and some chapters lack a clear throughline. It's best to think of it as several semi-related essays rather than a unified text. If a chapter is doing nothing for you, skip it, that's fine. The chapters mostly stand alone, though some like the "how to" of scouting chapters are more clearly related.
The book has a narrow appeal, but if you read the title and description and something in you said "Oh, I've always wondered about that!" then you likely won't be disappointed by what you find.
As a snapshot, this book attempts to give a thorough picture of what the professional baseball scouting industry was like in late 2019. The references are up to the minute, and it will be interesting to see how they age. But the important thing for the authors, I think, has less to do with the specific players profiled and is more focused on how those players exemplify processes and trends in the industry. They don't attempt to predict the future, despite the title; they just want you to know what's going on.
As far as a textbook, the book attempts to piece together the disparate topics that all relate to scouting generally. This is a contrast to other scouting-focused texts like [b:Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys with a Major League Scout|32985|Prophet of the Sandlots Journeys with a Major League Scout|Mark Winegardner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942904l/32985._SY75_.jpg|622014], which tend to focus more on personal narratives than broad pictures of the industry in which they operate. In this respect, the text can hold up in its broad strokes even as the particular details shift with new bargaining agreements and general managers. But also, this textbook has profanity and pop culture references and anti-corporate messaging so you know you're learning from the Cool Teacher *puts on shades*.
As other reviewers have noted, it can be a little bloated as there is repetition of key ideas (how many times do rising fastballs need to be explained?) and some chapters lack a clear throughline. It's best to think of it as several semi-related essays rather than a unified text. If a chapter is doing nothing for you, skip it, that's fine. The chapters mostly stand alone, though some like the "how to" of scouting chapters are more clearly related.
The book has a narrow appeal, but if you read the title and description and something in you said "Oh, I've always wondered about that!" then you likely won't be disappointed by what you find.