Boston Red Sox baseball is a year-round endeavor at BSI, where Hunter Knoll is the authority on minor league development, where the stars and the fillers for the future rosters are toiling away for a financially rewarding future or the downside of becoming baseball trivia.
Unfortunately, the downside is what I am drifting towards, and players I thought, and most of Red Sox baseball thought would be stars or valuable contributors just tanked. Scouting is not an exact science in any sport, especially trying to project a 17-year-old into the future. How hard is scouting? A great book on the subject is the latest edition of "Dollar Sign On The Muscle."
Projecting MLB talent is a risky venture that sees where once promise flipped and turned to failure. A Triston Casas may appear a failure, and then suddenly, it all clicks, and those scouting reports look spot on. Then, there are the sites that will examine the old-time scouting reports—a great view of hits and misses.
I have limited this to just this century, and even within that time frame, an even more extensive list could be developed.