March 30, 2010
By Paul Kruger ('10)

Sunday night at 8:05 p.m. (EST), another season of Major League Baseball gets underway as the Boston Red Sox host the defending World Series Champions New York Yankees.  Another great year of America’s Pastime kicks off with one of the most storied match-ups in the history of the game.  But before that, Spring Training must come to a close and teams must make many important decisions on who will make the big league opening day roster, who will be optioned or assigned to the minor leagues, and who will be let go from the organization.

Similar to the decisions being made by the big league club in preparation for opening day, I planned on preparing the Texas Rangers Dominican Republic operation for the reopening of our complex on April 7th.  Over the last two weeks the plan was to be back in the Dominican Republic organizing our complex for the arrival of over 40 of our Latin American players. Well, like I said, that was the plan going into my return to the Dominican.

The problem; however, was that the Dominican Customs office took a long time to clear our pallet of baseball essentials through the customs process. So long that when I left the Dominican on March 26th the pallet still had not been approved and the shipment arrived into the Dominican on March 16th. And, as of today (March 30th) it has yet to arrive to our complex.  Needless to say, this is a drawn out process that can take as long as a month to get done depending on timeliness of those working within the Dominican Customs offices.

Although this delay in receiving our shipment from the states put a damper into finishing all of the plans we had laid out during the two weeks I was in the DR, the delay allowed me to get out and scout players throughout the country. This provided me with a chance to improve my scouting abilities and work on evaluating players with some of our Dominican scouts. Throwing ideas back and forth on what we were seeing in a player and talking through the 2-8 scouting scale with our scouts was a great experience for me and will provide me with a ground to learn and grow within the field.  Scouting is not a science and to hear others thoughts on what they were seeing was very beneficial to me.

As many people know scouting, no matter whether it is in the states or internationally, requires determining a players future potential. But, from what I have witnessed in my short time working, international scouting requires this to be done with less available information. To begin with, international prospects can first be signed at 16 years old, compared to 18 in the states.  Therefore you need to project out even farther in the international world. Second, nearly ninety percent of the time prospective international players are seen in tryout situations rather than games like in the states. This makes the scouting process much different internationally as you are determining a player’s ability through how he runs a 60 yard dash, fields and throws from his position, and hits in batting practice rather than in live game action.

With this being said, this process of watching these tryouts continues for every team throughout the entire country day in and day out until a team finds a player that they are interested in. When these prospects are found, teams will bring the player into their Dominican complex to see how he responds to coaching and plays in a simulated game environment. Finally, following their time with the team, a prospect will either be signed by the club or go back to trying out with the other MLB teams. The player goes through this process beginning when he is around 15 and a half years old and can continue for many months, to years, until he is signed by a team.

Following my two weeks in the Dominican I had the opportunity to head home (St. Louis, Missouri) for two days to catch up with my mom and some friends.  It is always a good when I get a chance to hang out with friends and family, even if it is only for two days.  On Monday, March 29th, I headed towards the great city of Athens, Ohio to go back to grad school for a week to work on completing my dual MBA/MSA degree.

Coming back to Athens is like going back to a second home. As many of you all know, Athens and the MSA program are unlike anything else in the world. Seeing Peden Stadium and The Convo as you come down Richland and 682, seeing classmates that I was with 24/7 over the past year in a half, and seeing the great MSA faculty members (starting with Teresa Tedrow in the office) I knew I was back with the Family.

I look forward to my week back in Athens and taking classes again like I did prior to starting the job and, more importantly, I really appreciate the Texas Rangers providing me with the opportunity to come back and work on finishing up my degree, which is something that is very important to me. In addition, being able to come back this week reminds me of all of the great moments I have had here.  It also reminds me of the history this program has and of the great moments the program has provided to its students as well as its alumni since it began in 1966.

Speaking of good times and great moments, Symposium is right around the corner (April 28 – May 1) and, from what I have heard over the last two days, this year’s event is shaping up to be another great one. I hope that all of you are able to come back to Athens for Symposium and relive some of the good times with old friends while developing new friendships within the MSA family. I am personally looking forward to meeting you all at this great weekend event.

If you have any specific questions regarding my journey up until now, the MBA/MSA program from my vantage point, topics you would like me to touch on, or just questions about me in general, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at [email protected].