Ep. 53: Brian Reid | New York Mets Baseball Scout & Filmmaker

Brian: The ones I got to know a little bit better, like by name. And I've told him this, Dustin Pedroia. I just didn't give him enough credit. Right. Undersized. Everything had a lot of effort to it. Arizona State. Yeah. Sun Devil, played for Pat Murphy back in the day. And if you'd listen to Pat, Pat would tell you this guy's the best player on our team. All right, Pat. Yeah. But that that that that motor he had and that drive and that attitude to I am going to beat you at all costs. I just I whiffed. I didn't I was young in my career. I thought I had it figured out early that it's just about the tools. And yeah, he's going to make it. And that guy won't. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that was one of my biggest like it was a. Big learning moment for me, like, whoa, I just missed that. I got to spend more time on these guys.

Intro: Welcome to Y'all Street. Today, I speak with Brian Reid, scout for the New York Mets and filmmaker. He's a machine that's 100 percent legit. So, Chris, I just want to be the best.

Tarek: Brian, how about a cup of coffee?

Brian: Outstanding. Let's go.

Tarek: Look at that.

Brian: Appreciate it.

Tarek: More like a softball. It's the same one I gave Willie.

Brian: All right.

Tarek: Cheers to you.

Brian: Got it.

Tarek: It's actually hard to drink out of that.

Brian: It's difficult. Yeah.

Tarek: It's curved.

Brian: My nose was all the way in.

Tarek: Easy to spill. We'll make it work. Brian, you spend your life evaluating people. What have you learned?

Brian: Yeah, you put it that way. Wow.

Tarek: Analyzing, evaluating, not just the skills, too, right? You're you're you're spending time with a lot of these young athletes who, you know, have aspirations of the major leagues. There's got to be a mental component to it as well. So give us some insight into what you do.

Brian: Yeah. So it's assessing. I'm assessing. I'm people watching. Right. Right. My wife. I joke with my wife. I get I get paid for my opinion. Sometimes that doesn't go over so well. Right. But yeah, I I observe for a living. I watch I watch other people's kids play baseball. Right. And I and they pay me to do it. And so I'm passionate about the game and I watch kids and I and I evaluate them. Yes. I try to educate along the way. A lot of facets that go into being a scout and a lot of layers to scouting from the true like the pure evaluation of it and with my eyeballs and then the deep dive on the backside and the research and the data and everything else that's available to us now. Right. And so, yeah, a lot of different things that go into it. But yeah, at the core of it, I sit back and I watch I watch the game. I know the nuances of the game. I grew up in it. And to evaluate the talent, the athletes, the bodies, you and I can go watch any sport and kind of identify and some of those separating physical tools. The more I do it, the thing the times I've been right and the times I've been wrong has been more based on the human, on the character, the makeup, the drive, the aptitude, all the adjustments and all the qualities of a good athlete. Right.

Tarek: How are you measuring those aspects? I mean, how do you in my mind when I think of a scout, I think of a guy who's popping around from place to place, to place to place and not spending hours on end with a specific team or a specific individual. So when it comes to drive motivation, I think of somebody like Michael Jordan, you know, the will to succeed. How are you measuring that?

Brian: Yeah. The the the method to gather that information, just spending time with them. Right. Genuinely being interested in what makes them tick, you know, how they do operate, what yeah, if I'm watching a game and the game's over at six o'clock, what's he going to do from that time until the next game to get himself better, right, to improve? And so peripheral, I talk to parents, I talk to coaches, you know, if I have access. Girlfriends are good information. They give up good stuff. Parents give up the good stuff as far as, hey, my son does this and that. So we'll talk about parents. We can talk about that. But talking to the player, being and being in the dugout with a player. Nothing can beat that. That's invaluable. And I get a chance with that with a few things that I do with coaching along the way. But, you know, watching from afar, you catch on to some nuances and how they carry themselves and how they interact with teammates, how they how they deal with failure. Right. Right. Striking out. Nothing more humbling than striking out and having to walk all the way back to the dugout. And, you know, some guys, they do do it differently. You know, celebrating is easy. Right. Celebrating your teammates. All right. There's there's something right. Like being a true teammate, picking up teammates when they have their struggles. You know, there's always observing all that stuff.

Tarek: You hear the expression glue guy a lot. Right. He's the guy that kind of connects all the team together. And a lot of people listening to this pod are in the professional world, you know, in offices and cubicles and building teams. It's a little bit different. Similarities obviously overlap with sports. But what have you observed in the dugout that you think is applicable behaviorally to what happens in an office environment?

Brian: Yeah. Guys that, you know, for baseball specific guys to go to the plate, have their at-bat and come back and share what they learned at that at-bat. Invaluable, especially that leadoff guy. Right. You learn a lot from the first pitch of the game and the first batter of the game. And if that guy can come back and say, hey, you know, again, specific his ball does this. He does this. They've done their their scouting reports prior to that. But he may see something different on that day and having to adjust to that. So I worked in the in the corporate world for a short time. And I, I, I gravitated to the other athletic minded people in the office because I wasn't afraid to share. Didn't feel like I was losing my place in the pecking order because I was sharing. I was just trying to make other people better. Right. And so I see that those characteristics in the dugout when and then that's when we talk about the glue guy or the guy that's going to elevate everybody. He's not trying to keep that information to himself so that he looks better. He's trying to bring the whole team up with him.

Tarek: Yeah, that's interesting because oftentimes you can understand the human psychology of not wanting to help your teammate improve if you feel like he's also a competitor for that position. The 25-man roster. And you see that in a corporate environment a lot. Well, you know, we're both up potentially for promotion. I don't want to see him succeed for this reason or that. And that undermines the team. It's there's like competition outside the team and competition within the team.

Brian: Absolutely. Absolutely. I listened to your podcast about your experiences with The Apprentice. Right.

Tarek: And then the totally cutthroat.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Right. And here you tried to keep it in a silo and try to just I'm just going to answer the questions. I'm going to do what I think is right. Right. And I think the guys that can do that and then open their blinders to kind of see, oh, wait, this could help somebody else. Right. And I can bring them along. I don't have to I don't have to push him down to make myself look better.

Tarek: Yeah, it's interesting. Also, on the mental side of the game where you mentioned sharing specific information. But there are a lot of guys on the team. And oftentimes they're not even the best players who are lifting up the their teammates who maybe who just struck out. It's maybe their third strikeout in a row. They're having a bad game. They've committed an error in the outfield. And now they get back to the dugout and there's one guy pulling them aside and standing up for them and lifting them up and giving them encouragement. Yeah. And. I'm guessing that those are qualities that you look for.

Brian: Absolutely. Those are difference makers. Right. And in and in my world, like I'm I'm responsible for a large territory and watching athletes. Right. High school kids, college kids, junior college, you know, 16 to 23. Right. And so my whole my whole days are spent circling and scratching, right. Highlighting and eliminating and then ranking and ranking and putting them up there. And so those qualities, absolutely. It elevates those guys like this. And not only is it starts with talent. Right. And we can go over that in many different ways. It all starts with talent. But when talent when that is added to the talent, those characteristics that can help a team win at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. Right. We're trying to win trying to put the big shiny ring on and it trickles down from the shortstop to the to the area scout. We're all part of this organization. We all want to win. And so if we can if my little bit of information can help with that. Let's go. I'm all in.

Tarek: You use the word information and there's a distinction between information and judgment. Information represents the data set of what has happened in the past. And in theory, all scouts have the same information because they they have the statistics and they are observing the players on the field at the same time in the same place. But judgment is something altogether different. It is a prediction of the future. And that is what I imagine separates good scouts from bad scouts is being able to predict not who is doing what today, but what will that person do in the future against different competition?

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: How do you think about that?

Brian: I I lean on my experience in that one. My database is greater than it was when I was two years into this five years, 10 years into this. Right. After 25 years, I've seen a lot of kids do a lot of things. Right. And little bits here and there remind me of something I've seen. And you know what? That player had this path or oh, that's a that's a red flag. I've seen that before. That's not going to work at the next level. And so. Yeah, as long as you know, you mentioned us all like collecting the same data. Right. Like the numbers and numbers are part of the game. We talked about this with with anybody to listen, like as long as we've been keeping score, we've been paying attention to the numbers. Right. You know, this guy scored a run. All right. There's that's and that's one one tally for him. This guy got a hit. He only got one hit in three at-bats. And so now we got the percentages so that the industry has gone that way. And so. We're all yeah, we're all presented with the same data. I think we all interpret it a little bit differently. And I think there's some teams that have done a really good job at it with developing their players and with scouting their players. Right. For me, it still starts with a little old school. Let me let me watch the player. Let me see how this body moves. Well, let me see him how he performs. And then along with that. What's it going to look like two years from now? Five years from now? You know, at 26 in his prime on TV, helping us, helping us win a world championship. A lot of times it's kind of it's rubbing a crystal ball. Right. Like because I said, like those characteristics, those those inner that the drive, those those makeup pieces becomes such the driving factor and it being able to. Again, numbers, we grade everything that they do, if you're throwing, fielding, hitting, power, run, everything's been laid out into an kind of an archaic MLB 20 to 80 scale, 50 being average. So how can he maximize those talents? He might be an average runner, but man, he gives you that average run time every time, as opposed to maybe falls back and he doesn't hustle on certain things. And once or twice a season, it might cost you once or twice a season might lead to a win or two. And that might separate you from the playoffs. So, yeah, that's that pressure that they're on at that level. And those are those little things that we're trying to find at a younger age.

Tarek: Give me an example of a guy you were so certain of that was a big whiff for you. And you don't have to name names, but just just an example. And and someone that. Everybody thought was. Not going to be a talent, but you saw him as a talent and you were right. And I'm interested in just a couple of those examples of sort of what you learned and and what you can share.

Brian: Yeah, I think the the in general, I can say that the ones that I said I thought I was right on is I I took the time to get to know the player and that helped because, again, we we all sat down and we all saw the same tools. Yes, he can hit. Yes, he can run. Yes, he can play this position. And the separators being like I just the ones I got to know a little bit better, like by name. And I've told him this. Dustin Pedroia. I just didn't give him enough credit. Right. Undersized. Everything had a lot of effort to it. Arizona State. Yeah. Sun Devil, played for Pat Murphy back in the day. And if you'd listen to Pat, Pat would tell you this guy is the best player on our team. All right, Pat. But that that that that motor he had and that drive and that attitude to I am going to beat you at all costs. I just I whiffed. I didn't. I was young in my career. I thought I had it figured out early that it's just about the tools. And yeah, he's going to make it and that guy won't. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that was one of my biggest like it was a. Big learning moment for me, like, whoa, I just missed I got to spend more time on these guys, especially when a when a when a coach tells you he likes a player. Again, you've got to filter that at different levels, right? The club ball coach. I love this guy. He plays for me every third weekend and he gives me an effort. It's a little different than the high school kid that's there every day. And the baseball coach is also the gym coach. And, you know, he knows more about that player than he sees that player more than his parents do. Right. Like during throughout the day. And he'll tell you one version of it. College coaches, the respected ones, they know. They know who the who the separators are. Right. And so. Using those resources as an experienced scout, and that would be my lesson to young scouts, right, I'm not trying to give away any trade secrets here, but like, yeah, just take in all that information, you'll filter it, you'll figure it all out and you'll figure out who you can trust. But the biggest hits I've had have been from listening to guys that I trust and then trusting my instinct with it. And then the biggest misses are the ones I probably just didn't pay attention enough to.

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Tarek: For most people, their only experience into the world of scouting was through the movie Moneyball.

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: Yeah. And which is a phenomenal movie.

Brian: Phenomenal.

Tarek: And much of that movie is spent discussing the failures of scouts ultimately.

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: That they dismiss certain athletes because of how they look, because of how they throw, because they're overweight, because they don't fit the profile. How, if at all, has this changed scouting? Has the success of the Oakland A's changed scouting? And, you know, to what extent do you agree or disagree with how that movie was represented?

Brian: No, it is a good question. I get asked all the time. Yes, absolutely. Love the movie. One of my favorite baseball movies. Right. And I read the book when I tried to read the book. Right. I got I got into it. It was exciting. And then the numbers came and like, boom, boom, boom. It hit me. Right. And I thought, how in the heck are they going to make a movie out of this thing? Right. But I'll go see it. Brad Pitt's in it. That's cool. He's good. As a baseball purist, missing a few ingredients. Right. The shortstop was an MVP candidate. Their pitching rotation was pretty good. They didn't get mentioned quite a lot. But those last few years, I think remaining pieces, absolutely. Like putting together a roster and it's changed so dramatically. And I learned just again, my dad was in the game for 52 years. So I heard a lot of baseball conversations. And and he was privy to a lot of like the roster movements at the at the at the major league level and putting together a roster, a major league baseball roster when. Yeah, you you roll out, you know, nine guys on defense, eight guys on defense and a pitching rotation. And when you're putting together those last pieces to the puzzle, we talked about glue guys. Yeah, we need a guy that's going to fit into this. We need a role guy. We need that extra bat off the bench. We need a guy that can do this. We need a guy that can get on base. I found it interesting that they were starting at that. They made it sound like they started with that. And then the longevity because, I mean, you go into the playoffs like there's something about the numbers on the back of a baseball card, right? These guys show up when it's right. We've seen the playoffs the last couple of years. It's their star power on those things. Right. And then there's guys that always surprise us, the underdogs. And it's great. I root for all that stuff. But yeah, yeah, it was just fun. And again, entertainment at the end of the day and the tie-ins. I will say, like, my dad had spent some time with Billy like Brad's interpretation of Billy or representation. Outstanding. He did a great job, man. That was cool. That was cool. And I've had younger kids tell me that that's their favorite baseball movie. And so that that's cool. I love that. It opened their eyes to it. It's it creates new dialogue and conversations. All right. Let's talk about that. What does that mean to you? Like, how do you analyze data? I try to spin it on them. These kids are so visual now. Right.

Tarek: Yeah.

Brian: And they've got access to so much.

Tarek: And so certainly back on the evaluation process. One of the things about baseball is that it's filled with specialists. So if you're a pitcher, you're a pitcher, you know, with rare exceptions like Ohtani.

Brian: One exception. There's only one.

Tarek: There's one. He is the best. Absolutely. Right. And in catchers, you know, catchers are going to be different than an outfielder or first base. There are a few players that can can play multiple positions. But as a as a talent evaluator, you're being asked to evaluate a pitcher and you're being asked to evaluate a catcher and asked to evaluate a first baseman. All of them have different skill sets. So how do you feel comfortable being able to assess because of just how granular each of those nuances are?

Brian: What I've learned from most scouts is you start with what you know. Right. Like I was a I was a middle infielder and not a very good hitter. So I start with I can I can break down a defensive player pretty well just from just from, you know, recall and from experience. Right. And then from the hitting side, difficult. It's so difficult. Hitting is so difficult. Not that I try to put myself in the shoes, but like watch I watch pitchers from that perspective. Right. Their job. Pitcher's job. Get hitters out. Hitter's job. Get hits. Right. There's timing. There's mechanics. There's so much involved on both sides of it. So I was when I started, I was more confident in my evaluation of infielders and hitters. And I worked backwards on the pitching. I've over the years have gained that experience. And again, creating a database and inner database of all these kids that I've seen over the years. And I saw him at 16 and then I saw him again at 18 and saw him on TV at 26. And oh, everything I do is a pin in the timeline. Right. Yes. We just hope that that trend is going the right direction.

Tarek: So I grew up a Red Sox fan and one of my favorite pitchers was always Tim Wakefield. Great, great story. He started as an infielder in the minor leagues and was going nowhere. It was almost out of baseball entirely and then becomes a knuckleball pitcher. And when I think of a knuckleball pitcher, you know, someone like an R.A. Dickey or Wakefield. Very, very different, mechanically different, speed different. Everything is different than, you know, a six foot five guy who's throwing a hundred miles an hour.

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: How do you evaluate that? Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: That's on the extreme ends, right? Hey, that's what we're here for.

Tarek: Exactly. Right.

Brian: I love it. I love it. And that's what I think was is beautiful about baseball and it's romantic about baseball and nostalgic. And it gives us hope. Right. Like because Tim Wakefield could walk in here and he looks like just one of the guys. Right. Right. You know, throwing 60 miles and throwing 60 miles an hour. Like, how are you doing that? How do you have the confidence to do that? That's crazy. But, you know, but the seven seven foot two power forward walks in here, you know exactly what that is. That's different. So. But yeah, how hey, if that guy can do it, you know, maybe I can do that. Right. That's kind of what I think of about that. But when evaluating a Tim Wakefield or an extreme guy like, you know, career pinch runners, right. Guys that are really just put on this team to go. Dave Roberts is the manager of the of the right.

Tarek: Also an ex Red Sox.

Brian: Exactly. Right. Stole a big bag in the World Series and it led to the win. Yeah, absolutely. But he was there because one outstanding makeup. Great guy. Right. But he could really run and he could steal a base. And he was going to help that team win on any given day. So, yeah, definitely on the extreme ends. Like when I'm going to the high school game, I'm not looking for that guy. That's kind of a byproduct of just adapting. Right. He just stuck it out and he loved the game and found his niche. And there you go. Get to be a part of something big.

Tarek: This may be boring to our listeners, but I am just curious as a baseball fan. Why are there not more knuckleball pitchers? They've had a lot of success in the major leagues. It seems like it's a skill that's accessible to anybody because you don't have to have the physical makeup. You know, you could you could be a five foot ten, five foot eleven guy throwing a knuckler. Yeah.

Brian: It's a great question. Honestly, it's such a unique skill. And from the guys I have talked to about it, because I did ask, I'm like, well, I had one kid in at the high school level that actually had a really good one. And what I wanted, first of all, to throw a good one really means like completely deadening the spin. Right. It's hard to do. And the practice and the repetition to that is incredible. And then on the other end, have somebody to actually catch it. Right. That's that takes, you know, so high school kids like, you know, they all try to throw it. They all think it's fun. Right. But a high school coach to put him in there like, oh, I don't know, this might might turn into a track meet. Right. Like ball four, ball eight, ball 12. And it's it's all over the place. But yeah, the the the the art form of the knuckleball. Yeah, it's it's been limited to just a handful over the years. Absolutely. And they're fun to watch. I mean, that's there. That's great. The R.A. Dickeys of the world for sure.

Tarek: Yeah, I think people are always just, you know, mesmerized that these big bombers can, you know, hit homers on hundred mile an hour fastballs, but get struck out on these 60 mile an hour little floaters going across the way.

Brian: Right. Right. The the out certainly the outliers again, the the not something I'm going to the ballpark looking for. But when you see it, it's it's definitely it catches you off guard.

Tarek: You don't know where to what box to put it into. You've been doing this 25 years. What has changed the most? And in my mind, I just think, you know, college sports in general has changed a lot because these college kids are now getting paid when in times past, if you wanted to get paid playing baseball, you got to get drafted and go into the minors. What what are you seeing that has changed the most? And and I'm especially interested in like the the character of this generation versus prior generations for good and for bad.

Brian: Yeah. What I've noticed the most like as far as the changes go, like the the the role of the scout is to identify players, to observe, to to report, to evaluate and report and do the research on that. And then, you know, the ultimate the drafting process. But the draft has changed on one end. The identification process has started. That's changed. When I first started, you know, getting to a high school game required calling the school for the address and calling or using a TomTom or MapQuest in, you know, and then the cell phone pops out. All right. Now I got a I got a fighting chance to find this field. Right. But what it also changed was I was using my network of coaches and and scouts. We talk and and other players and just going to tournaments, actually working and communicating. Now they've got rankings for 12 year olds online. And so the names that I get, the volume of names that I hear at such young ages. Right. Cody Bellinger, I saw Cody Bellinger when he was in Little League. I went with a friend to go watch a Little League game. I recognize the last name. Right. His dad had played in the big leagues. Months later, he's on TV playing in the Little League World Series and then he's at the local high school and he's, yeah, onto the, you know, the Dodgers take him and onto the big leagues. And so but, yeah, identifying him, I never had to identify him. We just kind of it was there.

Tarek: And so it's a guy like that. Let's say, you know, this kid's going to be just a total stud. Yeah. What is the next process like? Because there are loads of other guys like you, you know, as part of the group. So now you come together and you're sharing notes and you're talking about different guys. Are you if you're high on these three players, you start bringing other scouts as sort of confirmation.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So the process would be, again, I kind of described as a as kind of the gold panner. Right. I'm trying to find the nugget. Right. And so I'm I'm now once I see that and I've observed it and evaluate like, hey, I we call it ringing the bell and ring the bell like this is a good player. We need to be this guy needs to be seen more. And so at my level, I'm at the area scout level. You've got cross checkers above that. And so I am comparing the high school shortstop at Gilbert, Arizona, and the right handed pitcher in Denver, Colorado and the catcher in El Paso. They are evaluating their their their their scope is bigger and they are evaluating that same shortstop to a shortstop in Florida and one in Illinois. And so it just gives us another layer of looks on that. But, you know, it starts with our evaluation at the area level and then pushing it up the upstream. And then, yeah, we want those looks. We want those looks from those guys. Ultimately, it's the scouting director's decision to to select the player in the draft, but it's not without a lot of input from a lot of very skilled and different perspectives of cross checkers and other scouts.

Tarek: What does a typical week look like for you? Give me give me even even, you know, a day in the life, if you will.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And that definitely the season dictates that. Right. My whole life I've been I lived by the seasons or had like baseball season and offseason. Those are my two seasons. So right now, you know, in the in the fall months, you're looking at a wide lens of evaluating of just observing players. And I'm I'm I'm catching up on all the summer talent that I've seen and writing reports on those. We call those follow reports. And we're just we're prepping all of those those players. I'm watching high school tournaments and scout teams and scout leagues right now with the high school kids. I'm watching junior college games. I'm watching the four year schools practice, scrimmage, play exhibition games. Right. And so all of it with the goal of, again, I'm always ranking. I've always got lists going. I'm scratching. I'm circling. And so that come January. All right. Here's my top 10 list. Here's my hit list. These are the guys I have to go see. Here's that. Here's the guys you have to go see the next the next year. We need to see these guys early. We need to stay on these. So that the day in the life really hits the most interesting part, I think that the part that people don't see because they just see is that games. Right. They think, oh, what a great job. You get to go watch baseball. It's the absolute best part of the job. Yes. There's other parts that make it feel like a job. Right. I'm in front of my computer a lot. But yeah, going to the games is the most enjoyable. But getting those lists ready for February 14th is the big kickoff for Division I, living in Gilbert, Arizona, covering the Four Corner states. I'm going to get warm weather in Arizona and Vegas. I'm going to have to wait for Utah and Colorado to kind of thaw out a little bit. Right. But my I've got weeks in the in March where my day I might see four or five games a day. Parts of right. Because I may go see a hitter, but lay my eyes on a hitter that I'm aware of. I might see a pitcher that I've never seen before. I'll give him a little more time. And I want to see it from behind home plate. I want to go down to the side and just see how the body moves. And again, I'm always the lens is open to everything. But I am really narrowed my focus on that draft class. Right. I'm really kind of honing in on those guys.

Tarek: So when you find a guy that you really like, yeah, let's say he's out of Arizona and you're like, this is this is my guy. Yeah, he's he's great. Yeah. And then he goes and plays in the Cape Cod League. Yeah. Yeah. Summer. Yep. Are you going out to Cape Cod to follow the player or does that get transferred to a different region? Yeah. Does that work?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's actually it's really good. It's one of those where we're a team within a team. Right. We are working together. On this with one common goal, get the best players. So as area guys, we get territorial like that's my guy. Right. The ASU guy. That's my guy. The Grand Canyon guy's my guy. But if he goes and pitches in the Cape and there's somebody in the Cape to see him. Absolutely. Let's get some more eyeballs on that. What did you see? This is what I've got. What did you see? And I saw, you know, I saw the fastball today up to ninety four. Right. It was like, oh, wow. I saw it up to ninety seven. This guy, you know, maybe we're again that pin in the timeline. Oh, maybe we're on a trend here. Maybe we've got something. So it definitely that collaboration. You have to have it. I talk to guys on the West Coast a lot because there's a lot of overlap with with my area. I talk to guys in Texas and Oklahoma. We have scouts in those areas. So I'm one of 15 scouts that do this for the for the New York Mets. I cover the Four Corner states and Vegas. Got two guys, three guys in California, two guys in Texas, and then the rest of the country is divided up accordingly. Midwest, East Coast, Southeast. And so, yeah, we're always communicating. It's it's it's really fun to sit back and kind of listen to other scouts and how they just how they describe players. I think you can learn a lot from that. And so when we do have meetings and talk about players and lining up these boards and stuff and the the the learning curve goes up exponentially every year for me, when I can just sit back and listen to these guys talk about players. And you asked earlier about like the changes in in scouting, the changes in the game, the changes in the players. It's happening with us, too. We're having to evolve to these kids that are so visual learners. They're so much bigger and stronger and faster and they know how to interpret data and they've got all these little edges to them. They're also not playing multiple sports as much anymore. Right. And they're they're concentrating on one sport earlier than we would certainly like. There is something to that. It's not just the. Going off to play football or basketball and because of the physical nature of it, it's the mental break of taking that time off from baseball, you need to let your mind heal just as much as the body.

Tarek: Are you jumping on social media? Absolutely. See what what these kids are posting and talk about how important that is, because your reaction has like it's you.

Brian: Absolutely. Right. The social media, you can tell your story, right? You can tell the story that you want to tell. The idea of posting your own videos to self promote. Great. Right. Like, I love seeing those kind of stuff. I've identified some really good things or things that have caught my eye or things like that. That's he's not quite ready. You know, so it's sped up my evaluation process in some in some cases. Liking other friends' posts or other people's celebrations. Absolutely. Hey, there's a teammate. He's thinking outside of him himself. Right. And he has some social awareness. He is in tune with what else is going on, you know, posting something at 2 a.m. Yeah. It gives me another little insight into what what's going on in that world. Right. Right. Yeah. For every 5 a.m., you know, up and grinding. Here's the 2 a.m. Red Solo Cup. Like I can put the pieces together here.

Tarek: Right.

Brian: If that's the story you want to tell me, that's great.

Tarek: Hey, I love the honesty.

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Tarek: It's really interesting because scouting has similarities to the hiring process in the corporate world. And, you know, in my business, in the precious metals business, it's not like there's a lot of people in our industry. It's a very small industry. And nearly every employee that we've ever hired has come from outside the industry. I have some phenomenal employees, some of whom I pulled from Best Buy, you know, or medical sales or, you know, the oil and gas field. And what you're looking for are certain qualities and attributes. And, you know, even even just an inherent sense of urgency in some cases you were talking about, like running the bases, that to me is like the equivalent of is this guy going to, you know, be willing to commit the time when we really need them. And and so I think, yeah, there's certainly a lot of overlap there. And we do the same. Like we look at social media and we see how people are presenting themselves and how professional they are. And I think these are, you know, good lessons for anybody listening that is young and going into the workforce that everybody's paying attention because everybody is trying to get as much information about the candidate as possible.

Brian: Because, yeah. You know, it's so readily available now. Right. Like that's again, the changes of this world that that's my research is much deeper than it ever has been. Right. It used to be the phone calls and the and the the sit and meet in the meet and greets and try to do that and try to figure a player out in 30 minutes. Well, now I get years of data and the the posts and the different. Yeah. I mean, there's different ways to do it. And everybody, you know, whatever. This is where kind of parents jump in. Right. Like where where's the where are the parameters right here, where are the bumpers on some of this stuff. And it's it comes very natural to some because they're genuine about what they like. Right. Like I like my friends and I support them. Boom. Click. And then there's others that just there's an awareness there. And and within a within a within a workplace, within a clubhouse, within a team environment. Right. There's got to be that collaboration and and the get along. Right. And then. So, hey, how's this guy going to fit into our clubhouse? Talent separates. But when talent is all kind of grouped together, that's that's the difference. Like I'm sure in your world, too, like you're trying to separate those minute little either between the employee that I'm going to hire or the trend that I'm going to follow. Right. I I do the same thing. I'm like, how's this guy going to fit into the clubhouse? Hey, we know this guy might need a little longer rope to get this thing along a longer runway. You know, this guy can jump right in because he's fully aware of what's expected of him and can hit the ground running.

Tarek: Well, I think one of the most underappreciated qualities in anyone is their ability to build relationships with people and connections. You've talked about that, like being in the dugout. I'm curious how that also applies to you as a scout. How important are the relationships that you're building with the coaches, with the universities? And I'm I'm guessing and you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing there are some scouts who some coaches are like, I just never want to talk to that guy, or schools are like, get him off campus. Like how would you talk about the relationship, the importance of relationships in your business?

Brian: Yeah. And it probably goes vice versa. There's probably some scouts that have no no need for that guy.

Tarek: All right.

Brian: The the emergence and again, changes in the game over the 25 years, the emergence of the agents. Right. They they are very much in the picture from the amateur level, the younger level. And they're part of it. They're not going away. And they're and they're they they serve. They do a great job. You know, some of them do a wonderful job. Now, there's still that stigma to the agent, the slimy, sleazy agent that, you know, looking out for himself and not looking out for his client. I'm sure they're out there. I've had a very good relationship with a lot of agents and they they are there to do what's best for their client. Right. And so they can help along. So there's a trust level there. Right. And there's an experience and the coaches. Absolutely. College baseball, college athletics in general, there's a lot of movement, transfer portals and NIL money and and roster changes and all that stuff. Yeah, it's all about the relationships. It's it's meeting the young, the young assistant coach at the small school in Colorado. And now he ends up becoming our bench coach for the New York Mets. Kai Correa. Because he's an outstanding human being. He's confident in what he does. He's he's he's competent in what he does. He brings an energy and a different life to it. But, yeah, I met him when he was in northern Colorado at a, you know, a small Division I school in Greeley, Colorado, on staff with a bunch of young guys that had a ton of energy and and got a chance to just share their love of the game and their passion with some with with those kids. And it it moved them in in great direction. And again, being on our big league staff and with the Mets, he's an incredible human being. One and then two, he's a great baseball guy. He's just full of knowledge and willing to share and passionate about it.

Tarek: Are there athletes that you scouted now in the bigs who you still have relationships with to this day?

Brian: Absolutely. Players that I actually scouted and drafted, players I scouted and didn't draft. I've had I've had a couple of ex players that I didn't draft, that I did scout and had a relationship. They lived with me for a short time because they got signed by somebody else and they needed a place to stay.

Tarek: Are you involved in the draft itself?

Brian: Absolutely. Yes.

Tarek: Yeah. How does that work for the major league draft? Is it all does it all occur in one location or are each of the teams in their own separate locations?

Brian: Each of the teams are in their own location. Yeah, it's it's our Christmas, right? It's our build up for the three hundred sixty five days of work building up to making those selections. And. Yeah, so there's been there's been years where I've been at home and ready to go, but the prep that goes up to that. Yeah, very much involved. This is my list. These are the guys that we should talk about. Right. Hey, I'm really going to push for this guy. Hey, which guy do you really like? Which one? Which one do we have to have? This guy right here? You know, which guys do you have question marks on? And we know there's talent there, but question marks. This kind of lies into this, you know. And you're drafting from talent. It's talent acquisition. Right. We're doing it. The the the the major league scouts and the professional scouts. They're doing they're they're they're looking for trades. They're looking for free agent signings. So they're evaluating at the minor and major league level. I'm the amateur level. I'm watching the high school and the colleges. Right. Our our purpose is for the draft. That's how we acquire. International, that's a different signing. So three levels of acquiring talent. Right. But at the core is this. Yeah. The the the amateur draft bringing new talent into the system that hopefully we get our our ROI. Right. We want to we want to we want to see it and we want to see it quickly at the major league level. You know, how's this going to affect our big league team? So, yeah. Lining up the board. Take the right. Take the guy you like the best and hope he can hope he can make a difference.

Tarek: Right. What what is the the success rate on the draft? It's got to be immensely low.

Brian: You'd be. Yeah. Well, good. I'm glad you said that because, yes, it is. It's shockingly low for the amount of expertise, the amount of time, the amount of data that we're into. But it's it's a human game. Right. There's that human element to it. And again, the biggest misses I've had just because I didn't know the human. And and it's hard. It's a hard game. Right. If it was easy, we'd we wouldn't be doing this right now. We'd be having a catch and play. But yeah, it's extremely difficult. The levels to get to the guys that we see on TV again, I'm seeing them at the high school level, 15, 16 years old. And then I may not see him again until they're on TV at 24, 25, 26 years old.

Tarek: Do you see yourself doing this until retirement?

Brian: If they'll have me. Absolutely. Right. It's a great job. I love it. I love I love it. I love the the different every day is the same. Every day is different. Right. I get to meet new people. It's led me. It's sent me to places I never thought I would, you know, never get to be. I'm here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Right. I haven't been here in 25 years, but the last time I was here, it was to watch a ballgame. Right. And it's beautiful. Like I've been up and down the West Coast. I think I've been to forty five of the 50 states. Forty six. Still looking for the Dakotas. I need to get to the Dakotas. But yeah. No. Love it. And and now as I've hit twenty five years of service, as I've it's time to give back. Right. I want to I want to. It's the it started years ago. But like the process of educating the part of the process of being an ambassador to the game. Right. I'm well aware. I walk into a ballpark, especially in a high school game. Yes. We're we're we're pretty noticeable. We joke that we were. Yeah. We all look that we look like ex athletes. We look like golfers, but we look like maybe we should just be at the clubhouse with our backpacks on. Right. We have a certain look to us. But and they don't remember names. Parents don't remember names. They remember teams. Right. And so when I walk into a ballpark, I know that I am representing Major League Baseball. I'm representing the New York Mets. They have they've been wonderful to me. I spent 15 years. Great years with the Detroit Tigers. Loved every minute of that. But I'm a representative of professional baseball and I'm stepping in. I might be the first time a young kid gets to meet a professional baseball scout. Small towns, I might be the only time they ever meet a professional baseball scout. And so if I can educate parents along the way, if I can help them with their journey, if I can share some experiences, if I can share some stories, which everybody loves baseball, I think they like talking about baseball. Right. I just I enjoy it. I enjoy every part of that. The passion is there.

Tarek: I have one of the coolest things I've seen in front of me. This is yours. This is a lifetime pass. Brian Reid and guest from the Commissioner of Baseball. In appreciation of long and meritorious service. Gives you access to any Major League Baseball game.

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: Anytime, anywhere.

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: Talk to me about how you got this.

Brian: Exclusions include Opening Day and playoffs. Right. But yeah, they surprised me. They were. I was recognized. My twenty five years of scouting service had been recognized at the draft. They caught me. It was it was cool. It was cool. Yeah. It's one of those little little little hidden gems in the in the baseball world. I grew up in a baseball family, so I was aware of it. But I was in a room with guys. Some guys had never heard of it. Some guys had never seen one. Right. And I walked out of there being the only guy with one. And in a group of very well respected and good scouts like I was, it was it was an honor and it's cool. It does work. I've tried it. My son and I took in a ballgame. We watched the Diamondbacks game and yeah, it was a cool experience. Like my son thinks that's super cool.

Tarek: Like but who do you show this to? You show it to the ticket agent?

Brian: Yeah. Go right up to the will call.

Tarek: And they know exactly.

Brian: Boom. They're like, oh, look at you. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. I will give you a little side note on that one. I am the third one in my family to receive one.

Tarek: Really?

Brian: And I know your dad. My dad was in the game for fifty two years. My sister has been in the game for twenty seven years. She's worked for Major League Baseball for twenty seven years.

Tarek: For a team or for MLB?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Advanced Media. She worked for she worked in New York for a number of years to work for the clubs. She worked in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? We are a baseball family. It's it comes and it comes honestly. Yeah.

Tarek: Let's talk about your filmmaking career. I'm interested. It's when I think of baseball scout, I don't think of filmmaker. My notes say that you have made a couple of films, Silo Killer, Silo Killer 2 and some short films. Let's talk about this.

Brian: So this is the one where you when you go around the room and you say something about you that people wouldn't expect.

Tarek: Right.

Brian: Tell us something that nobody knows about you. Yeah.

Tarek: So you didn't name the film Career Killer.

Brian: Career Killer. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. This is a failed filmmaker turned professional baseball scout.

Tarek: Right.

Brian: Yeah. So I finished college. I was a college baseball player. Loved the game. Wasn't it wasn't very good. I learned how to scout very early by watching and observing. But I had a buddy on the team that was really good. He just didn't really care. So. But we had a common theme and we liked watching movies and we liked talking about movies. And we thought, what the heck? We can make a movie. Right. I graduated from college. My mom was it was very it was a very simple conversation. What are you Brian? What are you passionate about? Well, I like baseball and I like movies. Mom like, well, it looks like baseball's come to an end. Thank you, Mom. Nice, friendly reminder. Right. She's like, well, try the movie thing. Well, all right, I'll go do that then. So I moved to L.A. like every other, you know, I'm just gonna go get a waiter's job and somebody will find me and I'll be an actor and that'll be that. Right. And so it wasn't quite that path. But I really quickly found the I mean, you hear it all the time, right. Athletes want to be musicians. Musicians want to be athletes. Right. The acting world is a little bit of the same. The entertainment world, baseball is a little bit of the entertainment sport. Right. It's a but put the butts in the seats. We just they they root for wins and losses. And so I saw I found a lot of parallels very early. And what I found that I was good at was just putting people in the right position to have success. And so. Like a manager would write his lineup card. I need somebody on lights. Anybody passionate about lights? Yeah. OK, let's do that. You're on lights. You want to direct. All right. Let's jump in the chair. Right. We had written enough that we thought, you know, we knew what we were doing. But we we spent a couple of years, my buddy Billy and I, we kind of our own film, our own film school, because we were both baseball players. That's what we knew. Right. What our identity when you when you finish playing a sport. I don't care what age you are. You you're always identified with being that that person. And there's some people really struggle with it afterwards. And so, you know, we Mine was an easy transition, like I am. I'm not going to be a baseball player anymore. I'm going to be a filmmaker. So, yeah, the long and the short of it, I got frustrated with a real job, you know, a nine to fiver after kind of struggling a little bit and said, you know what, let's just go make a movie. OK, what does that mean? Well, I don't know. We could shoot a short film. We could shoot this. We could shoot a horror film because I know the elements. Right. I know what we need to do.

Tarek: And how much did it cost?

Brian: Ten, twelve thousand, somewhere.

Tarek: Not a ton of money.

Brian: No, we're talking 90. No, I'm talking 2001 on video. Right. OK, we had to make the big decision the first time on either film or video. Right. And we chose film and I got myself into a nice hefty credit card debt because I paid for the whole thing, baby. So, yeah, no, we're going digital. We're going to shoot 90 percent of it in about two weeks in the Arizona desert. I'm going to get friends and family.

Tarek: And you acted in it.

Brian: I knew I was going to be there every day. So, yes, I did. Front and center. I knew the lines. I was going to say them.

Tarek: So it must have been at least modestly successful because there's a Silo Killer 2.

Brian: I mean, you give the people what they want. Right. When they when they when they crave for Silo Killer 2, you just give it to them. So that was. Yeah, that was film school. Part two. Right. Now we're like, yeah, we've got some more Adobe things that we can do and some special effects.

Tarek: Did you ever make any money on any of these?

Brian: We made money on the first one. Enough to think we could make a second one.

Tarek: Yeah.

Brian: And then it ran out.

Tarek: And then you've done a few short films as well.

Brian: Some short films. Yeah. So, yeah, with that, like that that coincided like a Silo Killer ended. We had it. We distributed it. We got it out to a couple of countries. We made a couple of bucks. But it was like, wow, it's next year. What are we going to do? And then again, my dad, stoic, classy, professional, hair never out of place. Old school baseball guy. All right. Well, you've had your fun. I think you'd be good at scouting. So that's when I got into scouting. So now I had to I did. I did. You know, I had to fight this. OK, I'm going to go become an adult and actually get a real job. Right.

Tarek: Yeah.

Brian: But I'm going to go watch baseball. I can handle this. Yeah. So, I mean, the interest didn't go away. My contacts that I had met were still good. And so I still wanted to do it. I still had these relationships. But then, you know, life gets in there and kids.

Tarek: And you've got a couple.

Brian: Yeah. A few. Yeah. They take up some time. And then I got lucky. I fell in love. I got married to my sweetheart, my soulmate within eighty nine days during an offseason. We we had some kids. We got a house and a dog. And you look and put my head down. And I just did the work. I did. I did the job that I was passionate about. And every now and then I'd look up and like, hey, what about this? And we made Silo Killer 2. Put my head down and look up and like, what about this project? And I executive produced another project that it went nowhere. And I kind of got slapped in the face on that one. Head back down.

Tarek: All right. You have some ideas now?

Brian: A lot of ideas. Got a lot of ideas. Yeah. No, it's it'd be awesome in a vacuum. Right. You give me the lottery money. Let's go make some movies. Let's go have a little bit of fun with that. But, yeah, the short films, they just kind of stirred up the creative vibes. Right. And and then I did a podcast a couple of years ago, got the got the juices flowing, got to talk about some things. And it's it's just been in there. And again, my wife, none of it would happen without my wife. She's being incredibly supportive and and and kind of puts up with my stuff. Right. But. But, yeah, it's it's just I think it's and it's ended up being kind of the theme of the podcast, like we I'm always fascinated by people that do what they do. But this life, this other life that they live, not a secret life, but where the passion comes from. Right. We all have jobs and we all have to report to somebody. But there's always those things outside there that. Yeah. Like I know important. I know family is important to you and and and the other interests you have and and and your story. And then, yeah, I just have mine just happens to be two things that people like to talk about at parties. Yeah.

Tarek: Twenty five years in the game. One piece of advice that you would give to any young up and coming athlete, number one, and then for non-athletes, just one one piece of career advice that you would share.

Brian: Yeah.

Tarek: Easy.

Brian: It just starts with the passion. Just chase the passion. Right. If you really love it. I have a hard time telling kids that they're not going to be big leaguers and I see it every day because I see that passion and that love. But we. I say we because we know what it's going to translate to. Right. Like being being athletic. The world needs more athletes. We need kids that see a goal and try to strive for it. And they are going to fail. They're just the way. And then pick it back up and try again and keep going. And when you've got that passion in you, I think that that inner drive. I think that that pushes forward the talent. Talent gets dispersed in odd ways. Right. And we all have a certain talent to us. And whether we maximize it or not, usually comes out of the passion part of it. And so for a young kid that that loves baseball and gives it everything he has and plays hard and it comes to an end and he's gone through all the sacrifices and he's been humbled. But he got back up. That guy becomes extremely employable. That guy becomes an outstanding husband and he becomes an incredible father. And at the end of the day, that really is what matters. And and when you put all that together, hopefully there's a recognition that they can then give back and help the next generation and serve the next the next generation. And I think it all stems from the passion of what you do.

Tarek: What great advice. And we'll we'll end it there. Before I do. You talked about part of your job is sifting for gold. I have some real gold for you that you get as a parting gift. One of these Dallas Goldbacks.

Brian: All right. That's very good.

Tarek: Brian.

Brian: Very cool.

Tarek: Thank you so much for joining us today on Y'all Street.

Brian: Thank you.

Outro: That's the all street. That's not.