How a Baseball America scribe landed in the Dodgers scouting department
By Jon Weisman
I n May 2006, Alan Matthews made his way over to the suburbs of Dallas to write a story for Baseball America about a former center on the Highland Park High School football team named Clayton Kershaw.
At the time, Matthews was in his fourth year of giving BA’s hardcore audience the scoop on up-and-coming prospects. In that world, he became one of the most recognizable names, and so it seemed natural that later that fall, Matthews would do a multipart series on what it was like to further his education by attending the Major League Scouting Bureau’s “Scout School.”
Ten years later, Matthews’ story about Kershaw still resonated enough that it was excerpted for a retrospective of the Dodger ace in the 2016 Dodger Yearbook. But by then, Matthews was making his presence felt in the organization in much bigger ways.
Not long after that series for Baseball America appeared, Matthews had gone from sportswriter to scout himself. And not long before we were revisiting his words on Kershaw, the Dodger scouting department had hired Matthews to become their regional supervisor in the southeast.
Matthews’ nature is to downplay the achievement, even to the point of politely shying away from having a feature done on him at the time. But with more than a year under his belt as a Dodger, he consented to sharing the story of his journey.
“I’m a part of a department that is overflowing with knowledge and incredible passion that is similar to mine for the game of baseball in scouting and player development,” Matthews said. “This is a group of guys that is incredibly progressive-minded and yet very true to its roots. … We have a lot of incredible men work in this department, (and) I’m just very fortunate to be part of it.”
Though it’s not unusual for a career in baseball to be driven by a deep love for the game, the route Matthews took to his present position still stands out.
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“I wasn’t a terribly good player — I had very few offers to play … and I never really envisioned myself becoming a professional scout for an organization as storied and as revered as the one which employs me currently. But at the same time, I did always have a deep desire to work in this game in some capacity, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be as a journalist or if it was going to be as a coach. I really didn’t know. All I knew is that I had tremendous passion for the game, since as long as I could remember. And I was willing to take any job necessary to allow me to show up to the ballpark every day and make some semblance of a living.”
I n his light, self-deprecating style, Matthews said that all you need to know about his own status as a prospect can be told from the fact that he batted sixth on his high-school team in North Carolina. Turning down a few scattered opportunities to play NCAA Division III ball, Matthews chose to attend Florida State, where his father had attended graduate school.
You could say that Matthews’ scouting career began the day he tried to join the Florida State baseball team.
“It was a very short-lived, very forgettable two-day tryout,” Matthews said, “and I knew as soon as I stepped on the field, just (from) the size and strength and ability of the guys who were there to try to walk on — not to mention the guys who were actually going to make the team — just how far behind I was in terms of ability. And that was OK. I came to terms with it after a few months and decided I loved the college and loved the campus, and decided to try to figure out a way to work in this game.”
Matthews graduated with a degree in communications, and after attending a job seminar in Greensboro, entered the Dodgers’ world for the first time in 2001, becoming director of marketing and broadcasting — and play-by-play announcer — for the Wilmington Waves, the Dodgers’ new Single-A affiliate in North Carolina.
The following year, Matthews performed the same duties for a team in Albany, Georgia.
“At the end of that season, I wound up saying, ‘This is cool and all — I love being at the ballpark, I love the idea of being a Major League play-by-play man one day — but I think I’m going to try to find a more traditional route to work in this game that I love so much,’ ” Matthews said.
While coaching at camps and clinics during his school days, Matthews had taught a changeup to Jeff Simpson, who happened to be the son of Baseball America founder Allan Simpson — who, in the fall of 2002, offered him a job.
He would spend five years at BA, primarily covering prep baseball prospects for the draft, as well as compiling league and organizational lists of top prospects — including, again, the Dodgers. It was the job that led him to becoming one of the first anywhere to write about Kershaw for a national publication … and ultimately to the scout school experience.
“Honestly, the impetus behind going to the development program was not about me becoming a professional scout,” Matthews recalled. “It was just about me learning more about evaluation, so I can better do those lists and rankings and be better informed talking about players when I was still working as a writer at Baseball America.”
And yet, the appeal of the profession was crystal clear from the opening lines of his initial scout school story.
“Practically everyone has a job,” he began. “And whether you serve your country or dinner, read minds or music, pour coffee or concrete, you want to be the best at what you do. … To me, scouting is baseball’s pinnacle profession. Identifying and evaluating talent is the backbone of the game.”
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“It’s pretty cool. There are all kinds of little twists and turns that have occurred over the course of my career that’s taken me to so many different levels of baseball and so many different jobs within the game. … I feel very, very fortunate the way that it all unfolded, because my path has certainly been a circuitous one on my way to the position I’m in now.”
Matthews’ professional scouting career began in 2007, when amid overtures from different teams, the Colorado Rockies hired him to work Georgia and North Florida as an area scout.
“I don’t know if that was a product of the fact that I had just gotten to know so many men who were working in scouting who were so generous with their time, either in the ballpark or over the phone, or if (it) was an extension of the scout and development program, or maybe a combination of the two,” Matthews said. “But that was already into my fourth year at Baseball America, so I was already somewhat entrenched in the industry in terms of going to events, having a large network of scouts and player-development personnel who I had made contact with.
“I was learning so much from them, just being with them on the phone and talking about players, usually off the record or not for attribution, just sitting at the ballpark with a scout and talking about what they see. And comparing their professional view with my very unprofessional view, eventually I started to pick up on some things, and I just loved it, man. I just had a passion for the art of breaking down a player and trying to determine what their value could be and just ultimately how long and how far they could play in professional baseball.”
The reality is that Matthews was all but born with a scout’s mentality. He might not have thought much of it at the time, but even as a child, he would drag his parents to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to see the last-place Braves, desperate to get there early for the start of batting practice and determined to stay for the last out, regardless of the score or the stakes.
“I can’t say loudly and clearly enough how important it is just to have an instinct for a player,” Matthews emphasized, “and I never even realized it was something that I had. … I think that over time, you do generate kind of a database of players that helps you when you’re seeing a minor-league or an amateur player, because ultimately a lot of what we do is saying ‘I think this 17-year-old or this 22-year-old has an opportunity to be a player like Rafael Ramirez or like Claudell Washington or like Ozzie Virgil or like Dale Murphy.’”
Matthews also came to realize that baseball scouts are wrong more often than they are right. Humility is absolutely embedded in the profession of, as Matthews said, “trying to look at a 17–18–19 year-old kid and predict how he’s going to fare when he’s a 25-year-old man and every variable in his life has changed.”
In a sense, it’s not unlike being the No. 6 hitter on your high-school baseball team. Every hit is appreciated, and it’s your passion that pushes you through the failure.
Matthews said that despite the long hours and the low pay throughout his 20s and early 30s, he has never taken the game for granted. And he has a writer’s insight into why, which he reflected upon, calmly and clearly.
“My sister (Karen) was killed when she was 17,” he said. “She was a passenger in a car accident, and I was 15. So when you’re 15 years old, it’s hard enough to deal with life just on a day-to-day basis, but when that happens and my sister was taken from my family, it changed my perspective.
“Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved to be alive, because I felt like my sister was a better version of me — more attractive, more popular, more intelligent, more successful in school and out of school, closer relationship with Christ. My sister was an incredible young lady, and I didn’t understand why it was she should be taken and why I was still around, when everybody gravitated to my sister and not me before she died.”
But there Matthews was, in his 20s, weighing these matters as he began the struggle that would make his career.
“I knew I wanted to do something that I had a passion for,” he said. “Having seen how capricious life can be and how quickly it can be taken from us, I wasn’t going to cut any corners or allow myself to settle for anything (other than) to have a career I was passionate about.”
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“How easily do they perform the skills of the game? Do they just have that natural flick to their wrists and hands when they take a swing, do they have that natural, athletic body control over the rubber, or does it look mechanical or forced when they have to do things? All those things happen so quickly, and it happens every night when they’re in the field. It might only happen once, and it might only happen for two seconds sometimes, but it will happen. When you’re at the ballpark, you have to be ready for it when it occurs, and when it does and you see it, you know that’s an exceptional play, and players who play beyond college or high school do what that player just did.”
Scouts don’t measure time in seasons or in years. When Matthews was asked how long he was with the Rockies, his answer was very specific to his profession.
“Eight drafts,” he replied.
His hallmark signing for Colorado was Charlie Blackmon, who has a career 107 adjusted OPS in 605 career games, including a 130 OPS+ in 2016. But Matthews credited locking in on Blackmon to his relationships with the coaching staff at Georgia Tech.
“I’m proud to say I was involved in the process, and certainly not single-handedly,” Matthews said. “It was a Rockies draft pick, not Alan Matthews.”
In such a collaborative field, how does a scout stand out? Matthews said he doesn’t know, calling the Dodgers’ pursuit of him “out of the blue.”
Nevertheless, in August 2015, Dodger director of amateur scouting Billy Gasparino called Rockies scouting director Bill Schmidt, asking permission to interview Matthews for a vacant position as east coast supervisor.
“Alan’s ballpark professionalism and consistent work ethic stood out year after year, from observing him from afar,” Gasparino said. “In the small scouting community that exists, reputation or word of mouth can be a key driver in how you view other scouts. Alan’s reputation was outstanding. His results in drafting quality players were starting to show his ability, and I just felt like Alan was the type of person and scout that would fit in with our culture.
“As you know, without working with someone first, hiring a person for an impact job like his can be risky, so I am glad to say that Alan had a tremendous first year. His ability and feel for people are outstanding. His communication is A-plus. He has a natural ability to problem-solve and understand how to make good decisions and evaluations. While I know his background is unique, I think the skill set translates very well to becoming a good scout. This same path is more common than ever, and Alan was a pioneer in making it acceptable.”
Reflecting on his time with the Dodgers, Matthews speaks as a man for whom everything has come together.
“Billy Gasparino, he’s become like a brother to me in the last 18 months, just the way that he treats people,” Matthews said. “He’s incredibly fair. He has expectations, but they’re known up front. He’s not afraid to compliment you when you do a good job, and he’s not afraid to let you know if you’re work is substandard and not at a level that’s to be expected of the Dodger scouting department.
“I’m blessed to work with four area scouts who have a tremendous amount of experience. They make the recommendations, and I just go in and offer a second opinion on a player. It’s not really to verify their opinion or validate their point in any way shape or form — it’s just another set of eyes.”
Matthews emphatically believes scouting and development are keys to the Dodgers’ long-term success, and he has been around enough to cultivate a philosophy toward scouting.
“I do believe in the advent of statistical analysis,” he said. “I’m excited that the Dodger incorporate that into our decisions, But I would always recommend to anyone coming from a background that has stressed economics or algorithms of statistical analysis, or how performance can be a forecaster of future success, that it really does always begin with makeup and tools. If you believe that you can do this job without the other facet and do it successfully … then you’re making a mistake, because you’d better use all the information that you have to try to make the best decision possible.
“You’d better also know what’s inside the package and how much passion he has and what his aptitude is to absorb the instruction that our wonderful minor-league coaches are trying to impart on them.”
As Matthews heads toward another year with the Dodgers, another year living the life he was gravitating toward for so long, he’ll be putting that mentality into action.
“You never know, in a business as cutthroat as ours, how long you’re going to be able to do it,” Matthews said. “So I try to wake up every day and respect the game, and try to do the best I can to make the Dodgers better and help find the right players.”
