Who is Brian Reid?
Brian Reid is an amateur area scout for the New York Mets with 25 years of professional baseball experience. Based in Gilbert, Arizona, he covers Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Las Vegas. He evaluates high school, junior college, and four-year college players ahead of the MLB Draft. Before joining the Mets, he spent 15 years scouting for the Detroit Tigers. In recognition of his 25 years of service, he received a lifetime pass from the Commissioner of Baseball, making him the third member of his family to earn one. Before scouting, Reid co-created and starred in the independent horror films Silo Killer and Silo Killer 2, and he has since produced short films and hosted his own podcast.
A Baseball Family
Reid grew up in the game. His father spent 52 years in professional baseball and was involved in major league roster decisions. His sister has worked for Major League Baseball for 27 years, including stints in New York and Florida, as well as with MLB Advanced Media. Reid grew up listening to baseball conversations at the dinner table, and his father knew Oakland’s Billy Beane, the executive Brad Pitt played in Moneyball.
Reid played middle infield in college. By his own account, he was not a very good hitter. He says he learned to scout early by watching and studying the players around him.
From Hollywood to the Ballpark
When his playing career ended, Reid’s mother asked him what he was passionate about. Baseball and movies, he told her. Since baseball was over, she suggested he try the movies. He moved to Los Angeles and, with a former teammate named Billy, taught himself filmmaking.
Frustrated with a nine-to-five job, Reid decided to just make a movie. The result was Silo Killer, a horror film shot mostly over two weeks in the Arizona desert with friends and family as the cast and crew. Reid acted in it, ran the production, and paid for it himself, building up what he calls a hefty credit card bill along the way. The film was distributed in a few countries and made enough money to fund Silo Killer 2. Reid found that his real talent was the same one a baseball manager uses when filling out a lineup card: putting people in the right spot to succeed.
When the money ran out, his father offered a suggestion: “You’ve had your fun. I think you’d be good at scouting.” Reid took the job and has been scouting ever since.
Scouting for the Tigers and the Mets
Reid spent 15 years with the Detroit Tigers before joining the Mets, where he is one of 15 amateur area scouts nationwide. His year follows two seasons. In the fall, he watches showcase tournaments, scout leagues, junior college games, and four-year college scrimmages, and writes follow-up reports on the summer’s top talent. By January, he has his “hit list.” Starting with the Division I opener in mid-February, he may see four or five games a day, watching some players for a few innings and others from behind home plate and down the baseline.
He describes his job as gold panning. When he finds a nugget, he “rings the bell,” and cross-checkers come in to compare that player against prospects from other regions. The scouting director makes the final call on draft day, which Reid calls “our Christmas.”
Along the way, he has built lasting relationships. He scouted Dustin Pedroia at Arizona State and watched Cody Bellinger play Little League. He met Mets bench coach Kai Correa when Correa was a young assistant at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. A couple of former players he scouted but did not draft even lived with him for a while after signing elsewhere.
How Reid Operates:
Talent Gets Noticed, Character Separates:
Every scout sees the same physical tools. Reid grades them on the standard 20-to-80 scale like everyone else. But he says the times he has been right and the times he has been wrong have come down to character: drive, aptitude, the ability to adjust, and how a player handles failure. Early in his career, he gave Dustin Pedroia too little credit because he was undersized. What he missed was Pedroia’s relentless drive and his refusal to lose to anyone. That lesson changed how Reid scouts. That lesson changed how he scouts.
Spend Time With the Person:
To measure what numbers cannot, Reid talks to parents, coaches, and even girlfriends, who he jokes “give up the good stuff.” Nothing beats time in the dugout with a player. He watches how players walk back after a strikeout, whether they celebrate their teammates, and what they do between six o’clock and the next game to get better. He weighs each source carefully: a club coach who sees a player every third weekend knows less than the high school coach who sees him every day.
Small Habits Predict the Future:
Every scout has the same statistics, so Reid says the job is really about judgment: picturing a 16-year-old at 26, in his prime, helping win a championship. He admits it can feel like “rubbing a crystal ball.” What helps him predict are the small habits. An average runner who gives full effort on every play is worth more than a faster player who sometimes doesn’t hustle. A lapse like that might cost a team a win or two a season, and that can be the difference between making the playoffs and missing them
Look for the Player Who Lifts Others:
Reid values the “glue guy” who comes back from his at-bat and shares what he learned about the pitcher, and the teammate who picks up a struggling player in the dugout. He saw the same trait during a brief stint in the corporate world, where he gravitated toward coworkers who shared information rather than hoarded it. A player who isn’t afraid that helping others will cost him his place, he says, makes everyone around him better.
