By 1995, Darryl Strawberry was not wanted in the White Sox Organization for “Obvious Reasons”

Today is a slow day at work with the impeding holiday weekend unofficially underway. I was looking for something interesting to read when I stumbled across Diamond Mines. And my life as I know it will never be the same.

Naturally when I went to Diamond Mines – a site where you can view old scouting reports of former Major Leaguers – I went hunting for Darryl Strawberry. What I found was a series of four scouting reports that tell the tale of his once remarkable upside and bitter decline.

After checking out scouting reports from 1980 and 1988 (in the ’88 report, Strawberry is regarded as a perennial MVP player with “no weakness”), I wanted to see if the scouts were up to snuff on 1995 Strawberry’s skills. In the 1995 report Strawberry was in AAA Columbus rehabbing a tender hamstring, or something. The scout remarks that Strawberry still has “tremendous bat speed and power” and “can really drop the head to the ball”. However by this time in his career “all other baseball tools are fringy” and his weak points are “well documented”. In summation the scout “would not want this guy in our organization for obvious reasons“.

All these years later, knowing what we know now; it’s still cool to allow a few scouting reports tell a story for you.