Abigail Leblanc: Scouting the Cape Cod League

Abigail Leblanc, working at Falmouth on June 27, 2024. (Photo: Bill Nowlin)

 

Abigail Leblanc worked the Cape Cod Baseball League season of 2024 and before the year was over landed a pro scouting fellowship with the Baltimore Orioles.

On the Cape, she worked as a scout for Perfect Game.1 It wasn’t a listed job, she said, “When I was offered the role, it wasn’t through an application. They were always just on the lookout for talent looking to get into baseball, and came across my name.” She had interviewed for a position with another major-league team and, though they selected someone else that year, they put her in contact with Perfect Game.

How many scouts work the Cape? “For teams, there are a LOT of them – I imagine most teams have somebody doing coverage on the Cape. For third-party companies like mine, I saw a good amount as well. Baseball America has a scout. D1 Baseball has a scout. Future Pros. All the media companies, I guess, have one. For Perfect Game, just me. I saw every team. There are some I saw like 10 times.”2 If a known prospect was playing, that might attract a few dozen team scouts and representatives of colleges and media. If it was just a regular game, “there were times when there was just me and one other person. My role is a bit different from that of a scout working with a team where they have a handful of targeted players – I was there to see everyone and write on any player that impressed me.”

What data did she compile at Cape League games?

“I’m not collecting data necessarily. I’m more looking at their mechanics. I write a report. Mostly narrative. Lots of video. Lots of video. That was probably the biggest part of my job, taking those videos. Setting up two cameras, one behind home plate and one off to the side. Taking that video and posting it on the internet [for Perfect Game]. I look back at my video and write my reports. Obviously, video is a really helpful tool to have.”

Who was her information intended for?

“More like letting the public – someone who watches college baseball, or is wanting to learn more about college baseball – letting them know what their guys are doing on the Cape. People who are a fan of a particular school, for example, who want to know how their guys are doing on the Cape. They can see how their guys are progressing. And then my actual reports are people who are looking at the top end, for people who might get in the draft.”

How long would one of her reports be?

“For each of the guys, a few paragraphs – maybe 300 words. I would not write a full-length report on everyone I saw. I had a lot of discretion to kind of pick and choose. Who did I see this week that I like? Who did I see who had some interesting skills? Obviously we would try to get any of the big names in there. If there was a guy I saw who was a kind of a big-name prospect, I would keep an eye on him. But I also had a lot of discretion. If I saw a guy who I liked but maybe wasn’t a top prospect, but I liked some of the skills he has, I would write a report on him and put it in.

“The other part of my job was posting mini-reports on Twitter. I would try to get most hard hits that we saw and include quick videos from every game. Anything that was like solid contact, even if it was a groundball that found a gap, I would post that and would post a little bit about their swing mechanics. I got most players I saw in a mini-report on Twitter.”

The author put a number of questions to her.

BN: “You had reason to believe that reports you sent in would be part of what different teams would look at?”

AL: “Oh, for sure. I would say what I wrote was more geared toward keeping the general public up to date on the players. As opposed to an executive reading it. But I will say anecdotally that going around the Cape talking to scouts that worked for teams, they’d go, ‘Oh, you work for Perfect Game? I’ve read their reports before.’

“We’re not writing our reports the same way a team scout would write theirs – they are writing to inform their executives on which decisions to make in the draft, for example. But there are definitely people in the baseball world who are reading what I’m writing.”

Teams themselves already have their lists of prospects, and scouts following them at their high-school and college games. If it was a starter, the pro scout might depart after the starter left the game. Her work took her to at least one game each day and reporting what she observed.

She set her own schedule, and befriended others working the games. If she got word from one of the TrackMan guys – “Hey, this guy is starting tomorrow,” and it was someone she wanted to see, she might change her schedule.

She expanded by saying, “I wanted to see every team at least a couple of times. Whoever I see, I see. I’d catch them on the night. I would definitely try to look out for certain big-name prospects, and I might change my schedule to catch a certain starter, but I wouldn’t leave after certain players’ outings, or follow a certain target list around. That’s what made my job different from like a team scout.”

BN: “What’s next for you? What do you hope to do?”

AL: “My hope is to get into either advance or pro scouting. That’s the goal. I want to take what I have learned about assessing mechanics, the swing decisions. Just kind of the eye test, looking at pitch shapes and go more into the data side of that, the analytics. Whether it’s with a minor-league team or one day with a major-league team. Helping them to know how they’re going to face the opposing teams they’re going to play the next day. I think what I learned is really applicable and helpful for that. Learning about guys’ decisions when they’re on the field, as opposed to just a data-driven approach. That is going to be helpful going into the future of what I want to do.”

During the 2024 season, Abigail also worked for Major League Baseball as a tracking operator, based in the press box on the fifth floor of Fenway Park, near the official scorer and other MLB officials such as the stringer and clock operator.

AL: “I’ve always been interested in baseball. I never played. I never even played softball. I’m the only child, daughter of a baseball-obsessed dad. He really wanted me to love the sport like he did. He still has season tickets. My mom loves baseball, too. Huge baseball fan as well.”

She went to Australia for college and law school. In 2022 she had returned home – and her father took her to a Red Sox game that very evening (after a 30-hour set of flights). It happened to be Brayan Bello’s first start – but in just walking into Fenway, she was hit with a sort of revelation: “Actually, this is what I want to do. I don’t know how. I don’t know what I want to do, but I want to be here. This feels right.”

She went back to Australia, finished law school, but decided she was going to learn everything she could about baseball and followed major-league games from there. Then she returned to the US and started applying for jobs. “And MLB liked me and my skillset, and I was really interested in the data side of baseball. That’s why I’m here.” She worked under the department of Ryan Taylor, director of data operations at Major League Baseball, and was introduced to the world of MLB Data Operations after a chance meeting with Cory Schwartz, vice president of data operations for Major League Baseball. Both have been huge supporters for her so far through her career.

As a tracking operator, she said, “We get a bunch of data that’s coming in from the game, from the cameras, and I’m in charge of making sure it processes correctly. I’m making sure that all the data is correct. I do have to be very attentive. Sometimes things happen – the camera doesn’t track the ball perfectly, and that’s where I step in. We’ve got a few cameras across the park that we get data from.”

BN: “Were most of the people you encountered in the Cape League aspiring to some other position further down the road? The pro scouts, of course, already had jobs.”

AL: “Absolutely. The people in operations for the individual teams are a lot of people my age or oftentimes younger, who are there as interns. I met a lot of media in terms of photographers, field reporters, and like that. Those are all people going to college. The people I was interacting with most were people who were operating things like TrackMan, calculating pitch speed, etc. A lot of those guys were probably at the end of college or had just graduated. They had all generally been with their team for most of the year so they knew the coaches and had an understanding how it worked. All of them were doing that with a goal of doing that at a higher level.”

BN: “Would you want to work the Cape again in 2025?”

AL: “I loved it and didn’t want it to end. I really enjoyed it, and if I had still been in college at the time, I would absolutely go back and work there in some capacity. I got my start in the industry a bit older than most of the other interns and employees – I started this job after completing my postgrad, so I’m on the lookout for full-time opportunities in 2025. That being said, opportunity-wise, for someone who’s looking to get into the industry, make connections – I could not recommend it more. It’s a competitive environment to get into, but that’s because being on the Cape and getting to work there, regardless of what area you want to be in in baseball, is one of the best ways to get experience and kick-start your career.

BN: “You met a lot of people who might, someday be helpful in helping you secure a good position.”

AL: “Right. And if you talk to a lot of the guys who do advance scouting or are video tracking operators – stuff like that – you’ll find a lot of them did work on the Cape at some point. So many of the players came through the Cape League but nowadays a lot of … it’s become a lot more competitive to get into the industry. People are deciding they want to work in the industry and in scouting a lot earlier, and are doing all they can to achieve that goal through college – positions are a lot more competitive, and you have to come into them with a lot more concrete experience and knowledge than maybe in the past. You have to have a background in that area. That’s my understanding of what the Cape is for, for a lot of these kids and for me. People who maybe do a little bit of baseball stuff at their college or have like sports management degrees, go to the Cape to learn about advanced analytics data, tracking, scouting for the first time, and then can use that to get a job in actual baseball.

“It’s a great place to get an opportunity.”

In November 2024, Abigail Leblanc was offered a job by the Baltimore Orioles and began work in December, in the department of Mike Snyder, vice president, pro scouting.

In a May 2025 interview, she said, “My official title is pro scouting fellow. It’s similar to an intern or introductory year, but the work we’re doing is very much that of a pro scout.”3

She had mostly been working in the front office in Baltimore and in Florida, checking prospects in minor-league teams. This was precisely the sort of position she had been hoping to get.

AL: “Yes, this is exactly what I wanted. I’m very happy about that.”

The work of a fellow in the first year is pretty much the same as the work would be afterward. “It’s a year to get introduced to the world of pro scouting, to train and learn the methods that our front office uses. People hear ‘fellow’ or ‘intern’ and might think the work you’re doing won’t be as impactful, but that hasn’t been the case at all – I’ve learned so much already, but also have felt like I’ve really been able to contribute to what our department is trying to accomplish right off the bat.

She’s not shooting video. She watches the video shot by others. She won’t be watching Cape League video in 2025. That is done by the Orioles’ amateur scouting department.

“We mostly do Complex, Low-A, High-A because we don’t have as much information on players at that level – whether that be because they were just recently drafted, or because the stadiums don’t have the level of complex data collection that a major-league stadium might. We have a lot of information, but we always like to take live looks at those players, to get a more complete picture. My next trip will be to a minor-league affiliate, to watch some players in live looks. There’s another Fellow doing this at the same time as me, mostly West Coast. I don’t think any of my affiliates are west of the Mississippi. I do mostly Florida. It’s a whirlwind.”

Working the Cape Cod Baseball League had provided the foundation that has set Abigail Leblanc on her way. “I would never have had the experience, ability, or even confidence to work for a major-league front office without my experience on the Cape.”

BILL NOWLIN was born in Boston and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He sometimes says he “hasn’t gone far in life.” He hesitates to admit it but, despite going to well over 1,000 games at Fenway Park (including every game in 2022), and hearing about the Cape League for years and years, he had never been to a game on the Cape. He’d even been to the Midnight Sun Game in Alaska and seen baseball in several other countries. That changed once this book got underway. Now he gets it!

 

NOTES

1 For more on Perfect Game, see https://www.perfectgame.org/ .

2 Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotations come from Abigail Leblanc’s interview with the author on August 29, 2024.

3 Author interview with Abigail Leblanc on May 23, 2025.