As the baseball guy here at ABI, as well as an aspiring scout, I will sometimes be using "scout speak" in my posts. I wanted to give everyone a general idea of what that means to avoid any "what the hell is he talking about?" questions.
In baseball, a player's abilities are referred to as "tools." The 5 main tools are hitting, running, fielding, throwing, and power. So, I may say something like "I really like Prince Fielder's power tool", which would mean in layman's terms that I love the power Prince Fielder has (who doesn't?)
Furthermore, scouts use a scale of 20-80 to "grade" a players tools. 20 being horrendous, and 80 being the best there is. For example, Benjie Molina has a 20 speed tool, because he's the slowest person on earth. Conversely, Justin Verlander has an 80 fastball, because it's the best there is.
Along with the 20-80 scale are adjective qualifiers, such as "average", "plus", etc. The scale and qualifiers are as follows:
20-Shouldn't even be in baseball
30-Organizational guy, should never be considered a prospect, stuck in minors to fill roster, etc
40-"Minus"-worse than below average, still may be a major leaguer because of other tools, etc
45-"Below Average"
50-"Average"-the baseline average for Major Leaguers
55-"Above Average"
60-"Plus"-one of the best of that particular skill set
65-"Plus Plus"-Just outstanding
70 and 75 are used to describe varying levels of "Plus Plus", with the higher the number, obviously the better the tool
80-The best there is
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