About Baseball Census

For coaches and scouts serious about their subscription to Baseball Census, here’s a quick rundown of how to navigate our work in a way that can benefit you. First, we provide several free, publicly available prospect profiles so you can better understand what you’re getting when you subscribe:

Julian Huerta, 2021, 2B, West Los Angeles College
Xavier Dubon, 2022, RHP, Los Angeles Valley College
Aaron Harper, 2022, SS, Mt. San Jacinto College
Josh Landry, 2022, LHP, Cypress College
Carmelo Hernandez, 2022, C, Los Angeles Pierce College


OFP Grades

Every prospect evaluated on this site is given a numerical OFP rating between 1.0 and 4.0 in an attempt to distill player groups by talent level so coaches and scouts can quickly determine which prospects (and which talent levels) are most worth pursuing. The OFP Grade isn’t a mathematically rigorous number but a broad estimation, roughly to be followed like this:

4.0 OFP — High Level (MLB Draft, High D1)
3.0 OFP — Mid Level (Mid/High D1, High D2, NAIA)
2.0 OFP — Low Level (Mid/Smaller D2, D3, NAIA)
1.0 OFP — Org Depth (small school ceiling)

Of course, scouting each player is far more nuanced than reducing his entire baseball future to a single number, and there will be exceptions within those OFP grades (i.e., a 3.0 OFP player who gets drafted, a 4.0 OFP prospect who fits best at an NAIA program, etc.). Each subscriber can quickly determine which OFP level(s) and which type of players best fit your own program; simply use the OFP grades as a jumping-off point meant to loosely categorize groups of players to help streamline the selection process.


Database

The Player Database page holds all of our scouting reports and player videos, all logged by prospect, school, position, height, weight, and OFP grade, all behind the paywall and meant only for subscribers. Aside from the free profiles (above), you must subscribe for access to players in the database.


Frequently Asked Questions

What comes with purchasing a subscription?
When you subscribe, you gain full access to every exclusive scouting report and prospect game video in the database, as well as applicable prospect news and analysis. In total, that includes hundreds of original, individual scouting reports every year, as well as several thousand professionally-edited, high-definition prospect videos. Reports and videos are only available to subscribers, and cannot be seen or accessed by those who have not paid to do so.

How do I pay for a subscription?
All major credit cards and debit cards are accepted via the site’s secure online payment system run by Stripe. You do not need an account with Stripe to purchase a subscription. Simply enter your credit card information directly on the ‘Subscribe’ page, create your account, and receive immediate access to the site’s paywalled content!

Do you offer any coupon codes for subscriptions?
Not often. Occasionally, we will decide to run a discount, and if so it’ll be noted on the ‘Subscribe’ page on this website. We also recommend you follow Baseball Census on Twitter. If/when we do put together a discount code, we may publicize it there.

Can I get a refund on my subscription?
No. There are no refunds on subscription purchases.

Can I reprint or share your content with other coaches?
No. All the content on this site is copyrighted by Baseball Census, and all rights are reserved. No portion of this content may be disseminated, reprinted or reproduced for any reason without our written consent. As a subscriber, you are paying for access for yourself and your program alone (i.e., one subscription per college program). Under no circumstances short of our written approval may you reprint or prepackage the content for anyone other than you and the coaches within your program. Coaches from one college program using another staff’s login view prospects is not allowed.

Help! I’m having technical issues with your website!
As with everything, the site occasionally suffers minor technical issues (pages down, site down, subscription or coupon code not working, account not recognized, login issues, links broken, etc., etc.). If you’re having trouble — especially if you’re having trouble logging in — clear your web browser’s cache, cookies, and history before coming back to the site to try again. If the problem persists, email us: baseballcensus [at] gmail [dot] com.

Who uses your scouting reports?
A lot of college programs and several MLB organizations! We do not disclose the site’s subscriber list, but broadly speaking, that list includes college programs from every single NCAA level (D1, D2, and D3) as well as NAIA programs, MLB area scouts, and front office members. Lately, we are also starting to add summer college baseball team general managers and field managers who are seeking reliable information on potential players to add to their wood bat league rosters, as well. In the first full year of work in 2018, this site picked up more than 50 college-level subscribers, and it’s been growing ever since!

Do you scout junior college baseball all year long?
Obviously, COVID-19 impacted this a bit in 2020, but generally the answer is yes. Spring and fall seasons are busy with games, scrimmages, and practices. From January to the end of May, and early September through late November, we’re all over southern California. We Have also recently ventured into putting High School Prospects on the site into their own database and will launch in early 2021!

What’s your scouting territory?
Based in Los Angeles, our time is best served remaining virtually full-time in California to track the state’s junior college and High School baseball programs. Our typical scouting territory is limited to central and southern California, usually from the middle of the Central Valley (Fresno, Visalia, Stockton, etc.) on down through San Diego. As much as we are able, we continue to add more NorCal schools to our scouting work each year, too. From time to time, we may see Arizona programs as our schedule allows, as well.

How often do you see the players you scout?
As many times as possible! In some cases, we’ll only see a player once, and that can make it tough to fully evaluate him. Generally speaking, we hope to see a player anywhere from 2-8 times across his two-year career in southern California, though that may depend on his team’s location and schedule, our week-to-week priorities, and more. Still, the point stands: we are more valuable as experts when we see players multiple times and track their improvement rather than trying to get one look at as many players as possible; depth is more valuable than breadth.

We are a small-school program. Do you scout guys that can play at our level, too, or just D1 kids?
We scout every kid who we believe can play at any level of four-year college baseball, and then some. Even with as much JuCo talent as there is in California every year, only a small handful of those prospects will be D1-quality, but there are hundreds more who fit better with D2, D3, and NAIA programs, and the vast majority of prospects scouted on this site fall into those categories. The exact numbers will differ each year, of course, but mid-major and smaller programs at all levels (D1, D2, D3, NAIA) can expect to sift through hundreds of scouting reports on this site.

Is this scouting service NCAA-compliant?
Currently, the NCAA’s compliance rules for scouting services only cover basketball and football. For all other NCAA sports (including baseball), Baseball Census explicitly follows the rules posted within NCAA Bylaw 13.14.3.2, titled “Sports Other Than Basketball and Football.” As the bylaw requires, our service is available to all institutions, and at the same fee rate for all subscribers. The information provided is standardized in format, and it is available to all in the same manner, with individual analysis of each prospect and free samples provided for potential subscribers (above).

Can junior college players create profiles on this site?
No. Junior college baseball players, their parents, and their coaches have no impact on what is published here. They cannot create or pay to create profiles, pages, videos, or any other material on Baseball Census. We purposefully created this as an independent scouting resource intended for coaches and scouts just so that it would not be another recruiting service for players to use. The scouting reports and profiles here are based entirely and only on our own objective observation, information-gathering, and data accumulation. Nothing on this site can be created, edited, published, or otherwise unduly influenced by a junior college player, their parent, or their coach.

You produce a lot of prospect video. Can we hire you to do a recruiting video?
Yes. If you have interest in making a personal video, we can accommodate that for you!


Contact Us

Don’t see your question answered here? Fire away: baseballcensus [at] gmail [dot] com.

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