Pirates Scouting Mike Trout, Enlist Navy for Help

Mike Trout is a right-handed high school pitcher from Millville, New Jersey. Prior to the season, Baseball America rated him as the 80th-best high school prospect in the country, which would make him approximately a fifth- or sixth-rounder in the draft if nothing changed between then and now. His stock has apparently risen significantly since the list was compiled, though and he is now drawing attention in the third round or higher. Regardless, a team would be expected to scout a player of that pedigree fairly extensively, regardless of their degree of interest, simply as a matter of due diligence. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Pirates are checking him out . File Trout's name away for now, and we'll see what happens in July.

The more interesting part of Watanabe's article about Trout indicates that the Pirates "administered a test given to U.S. Navy SEALs" during the course of their evaluation, but gives no details about the nature of the test. MLB teams use all manner of different tests to evaluate prospects - there's an interesting post about the Orioles' former system under Dave Ritterpusch here , for example. After some half-assed research, I came up with two reasonable candidates for the SEAL test described in the article:

*The PST (Physical Screening Test) : As the name suggests, it's a series of exercises which must be performed within a given time frame, similar to the fitness exams performed by police and firemen. It includes the following steps:

*500-yard swim using breast and/or sidestroke in less than 12 minutes and 30 seconds
*10-minute rest
*Perform a minimum of 42 push-ups in 2 minutes
*2-minute rest
*Perform a minimum of 50 sit-ups in 2 minutes
*2-minute rest
*Perform a minimum of 6 pull-ups (no time limit)
*10-minute rest
*Run 1 ½ miles wearing RUNNING SHOES and SHORTS in under 11 minutes

That seems fairly plausible, with the exception of the swimming, which would obviously require a pool and swimsuit, and in my opinion would be of dubious predictive value for the evaluation of a baseball player (unless he plans to go fishing for balls in the Allegheny).

*The ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) : The ASVAB is a pen-and-paper test given to recruits when they enter the armed services. It's a general aptitude test with ten sections:

• General Science (GS)
• Arithmetic Reasoning (AR)
• Word Knowledge (WK)
• Paragraph Comprehension (PC)
• Mathematics Knowledge (MK)
• Electronics Information (EI)
• Auto Shop (AS)
• Mechanical Comprehension (MC)
• Assembling Objects (AO)

As you can tell from the headings, it's got academic sections dealing with science, math, and communication, as well as various vocational-type questions. The scores within each section are used to first determine whether a recruit is smart/capable enough to enlist, and then to help place him within a special role if applicable (a MOS, if you know what that is). There's a practice test here , if you'd like to give it a try.

This test seemed less likely to me than the PST, in that most of the information covered would not be useful within a baseball context. Still, the team might see it as a reasonable proxy for intelligence and focus, like the Wonderlic Test given to NFL prospects at the combine.

Regardless of which test is being used, t'll be interesting to track this in the future, to determine the extent of the team's testing, and to evaluate the performance of the picks made after its application.