MLB Sets Pro Scouting Guidelines For 2021 Season

Image credit: (Photo by Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)

On Tuesday, Major League Baseball sent a memo detailing its scouting guidelines for the 2021 major and minor league seasons to the general managers, assistant general managers and professional scouting directors of all 30 clubs.

The contents of the memo mean scouting is going to be trickier than usual until the country reaches a point where social distancing and attendance limits are relaxed or lifted entirely.

The memo was first reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

In the majors, one scout per team will be allowed at regular season games. Clubs will be required to reserve at least six physically-distanced seats in the area of the stadium where it would place scouts under normal circumstances. Typically, that means behind home plate. Those seats will be given out on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Clubs will have the discretion to allow more than six scouts in those areas per game, but can move scouts to other areas of the ballpark such as suites or press boxes if they do not want to issue more than six seats.

In the minor leagues, which are slated to begin May 4, teams are required to provide a minimum of 10 physically-distanced scout seats, with one scout allowed per club and no tickets provided to guests or family members of scouts.

Unlike their counterparts in the majors, minor league teams are not required to guarantee scouts will be seated in their traditional areas. Per the memo, “best efforts will be made for all scouts to be seated as close to behind home plate as possible.”

Whether scouts can attend batting practice before games will also be at the discretion of each minor league team.

In both the major and minor leagues, clubs must request scout tickets no later than 48 hours before the game’s start time. Once that time has passed, teams are permitted to sell any remaining seats which normally would have been reserved for scouts.

If a team has reached its limit of available scout tickets, it has the option of purchasing additional seats for its scouts at games in both the major and minor leagues.

When it comes to minor league spring training, which is slated to begin shortly after big league spring training concludes, and at alternate training sites, the protocols are similar to what teams faced during instructional league last fall.

Clubs are allowed to scout minor league spring training and alternate training sites this year, but each club also has the option to close its facilities to opposing scouts and team personnel. As was the case during instructional league, teams that close their facilities to opposing scouts will not be allowed to send their scouts to other clubs’ facilities.

Those are the rules for MLB scouts. Scouts from other entities such as Partner Leagues or foreign clubs will not be given the same protections. Major and minor league teams can choose to give tickets to scouts from those groups, but are not required to do so and may also charge them admission for their seats.

MLB also made clear it does not want Tier 1 baseball officials—employees who have access to the clubhouse and other coronavirus-tested restricted areas—to scout. The memo notes that anyone in Tier 1 who flies commercial will have to re-enter the intake process when they return to the MLB club.