MIAMI -- The Florida Marlins today announced they have hired Roger Jongewaard as a Professional Scout. The announcement was made by Marlins Executive Vice President and General Manager Admin Beinfest.

 

"Roger has a tremendous record as a talent evaluator and has earned the utmost respect throughout the industry," said Beinfest. "We are very fortunate to bring such a great resource into the organization."

 

Jongewaard, with over 40 years in professional baseball, worked the past two seasons as a Major League scout for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Prior to joining Tampa Bay, he spent almost 20 years in the Seattle Mariners organization, including as the club's Vice President of Scouting and Player Development from 1989-2003 and as VP/Special Assistant to the GM in 2004. Jongewaard was a minor league catcher for six seasons (1954-59) in the Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Cincinnati organizations. After 10 years in private business, he joined the California Angels in 1969, moving on to the Texas Rangers in 1973, the New York Mets in 1976 and the Detroit Tigers in 1982 until joining Seattle in 1985.

 

Jongewaard was a scouting supervisor for the New York Mets when they selected Darryl Strawberry with the first pick in the 1980 draft, and led the Mariners scouting department when they selected Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez as the first picks in the 1987 and 1993 drafts, respectively.

 

Throughout his career, Jongewaard has received many honors, including being voted by his peers as Baseball America's 2005 West Coast Scout of the Year; winner of the Baseball America Roland Hemond Award for Lifetime Achievement in Baseball in 2004; recognized by the Topps Company for his Distinguished Service to Baseball in 1999; and inducted into the R.B.I. Hall of Fame by the Los Angeles chapter in 1996.

 

A Long Beach, CA, native, Jongewaard starred in baseball at Long Beach Poly High School and signed a pro contract with Milwaukee when he graduated in 1954. Jongewaard and his wife, Carol, have five grown children: Terry, Diane, Janice, Kristin and Don. They have 12 grandchildren.

http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/...sp&c_id=fla

 

sounds good!

Best offseason move we've made all year.

Best offseason move we've made all year.

 

AMEN! Admin is back at it again.... Lets hope this guy can find diamonds in the ruff

nice pick up

 

Also he can tell us about upton/baldelli and the drays organization if we do make a move with them.

Very nice

Oh man, we just set ourselves up for a great recruiting project.

I love seeing moves like this. Shows me that Loria still cares.

We get to build from within and it's alot cheaper too! Anyone know what players this guy has scouted lately?

This is a huge move for the Fish...check out this old article on our newest hire...I'd say his track record speaks for itself...

 

A-Rod, Griffey not obvious overall No. 1s

 

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By Alan Schwarz

Special to ESPN.com

 

 

 

The Devil Rays looked to the Pacific Northweast this winter in grabbing Lou Piniella. They might want to make another call to Seattle before Tuesday's amateur draft, this time to consult Roger Jongewaard.

 

The Mariners' longtime scouting and player development chief is baseball's unquestioned expert in using baseball's top draft selection -- which isn't as easy as it looks. There have been 38 No. 1 picks in draft history, and Jongewaard has made the best two: Alex Rodriguez (1993) and Ken Griffey Jr. (1987). Throw in Darryl Strawberry (1980) from his days crosschecking with the Mets, and Jongewaard has hit big where so many others have flailed miserably. Where the likes of Al Chambers (1979), Shawn Abner (1984) and Matt Anderson (1997) are maddeningly common, Jongewaard finds the players who jump-start a franchise's future.

 

"I really don't see myself knowing more than anyone else who's been in scouting as long as I have," said Jongewaard, a soft-spoken, 66-year-old Californian. "It's just a matter of taking the best athlete you can find and going with your instincts."

 

Jongewaard's instincts have been better than you might expect. As much as people think that choosing an A-Rod or Junior is obvious, consider this: Both times, Jongewaard had to fight to pick those guys over other players management preferred.

 

In 1987, Jongewaard had Griffey, a lanky outfielder for Moeller High in Cincinnati, in his sights from the start. But then-Mariners owner George Argyros stuck his nose in the process and preferred Cal State-Fullerton pitcher Mike Harkey, a tall, hard-throwing right-hander who could help the struggling Mariners quickly. Argyros put the vise on Jongewaard.

 

"I think you should take Harkey," Argyros said.

 

"Junior's a special player," Jongewaard replied. "We cannot take anyone else."

 

Argyros finally gave in. "OK," Argyros said grudgingly. "But you'd better be right."

 

He was. Griffey went No. 1 to Mariners, Harkey No. 4 to the Cubs. Injuries quickly derailed Harkey's career -- he won just 36 games in eight big-league seasons -- while Griffey shot up the minor-league ladder and reached Seattle in less than two years. His 474 homers (and counting) are the most ever for a No. 1 overall pick.

 

Six years after taking Griffey No. 1, Jongewaard had the top selection again and had zeroed in on Rodriguez, a fantastically precocious shortstop for Westminster Christian Academy in Miami. Memories of Griffey emphasized that no matter how raw, a high school player at a premium position could occasionally help turn a franchise around. But a college pitcher again looked to gum up Jongewaard's plans. Wichita State's Darren Dreifort presented a quick-fix option that appealed to Lou Piniella and his beleaguered pitching staff.

 

"Had we not had Junior, we probably couldn't have sold everyone on Alex," Jongewaard recalls. "I maybe wanted Dreifort a bit more sometimes, too, because he was a little safer. But every time I saw Alex, I said I just couldn't do it. I couldn't in my conscience not take Alex."

 

The phone rang in Jongewaard's Seattle office an hour before the draft began. It wasn't Piniella. It was Rodriguez. The young shortstop wanted to be drafted by the Dodgers at No. 2 so he could play in the National League, in a big market, and return for some games in his south Florida hometown.

 

"I don't want you to draft me," Rodriguez said.

 

"I'm sorry, Alex," Jongewaard told him. "I just can't do that."

 

Jongewaard pulled the trigger and took Rodriguez with the No. 1 pick, and after a long, contentious summer of negotiation (few remember that Rodriguez enlisted the union's help trying to make himself a free agent) finally got him under contract. Rodriguez reached Seattle in less than a year, at age 18, and blossomed into a superstar two seasons later.

 

Imagine if Jongewaard had chosen Harkey and left Griffey to the Pirates at No. 2 -- Junior would have been teammates with Barry Bonds on those great Pittsburgh teams of the early '90s, and today Seattle might not have a team at all. Add to that A-Rod in Hollywood, and you get an idea of the impact of Roger Jongewaard and his No. 1 draft selections.

 

He has made news with other first-round picks, too. In 1980, when his Mets took Strawberry No. 1, Jongewaard got them to spend the No. 23 overall pick on another California outfielder, bringing into professional baseball one Billy Beane. Ironic how it's now Beane who is at the forefront of avoiding high school players, with which Jongewaard hit the jackpot in Griffey, Rodriguez and Strawberry.

 

Jongewaard himself was a prep star at Poly High in Long Beach, Calif., the school that later produced Tony Gwynn. The left-hand hitting catcher signed with the Braves in 1954 -- 11 years before baseball instituted its draft -- and was invited to major-league spring training the following February. His locker was next to 21-year-old Hank Aaron because, Jongewaard recalls, "There was some segregation. I was the worst white player and he was the best black player."

 

But Jongewaard never hit enough in the minors and was traded to the Dodgers while another Braves prospect, named Joe Torre, made it up to catch in Milwaukee. Jongewaard bounced around and reached Triple-A before calling it quits in 1959. He entered private business but became the bullpen catcher for the Angels in 1969 before entering scouting three years later.

 

Jongewaard says he probably will retire this year or next, ending a 50-year span in the game. What does he consider his top draft picks? Even though he has Rodriguez, Griffey and Rodriguez on his r?sum?, he says those were "no-brainers -- even though I would have been more popular with management if I had taken the pitchers." No, he picks Lenny Dykstra, a runt high school outfielder he believed in back in 1981 and took in the 13th round.

 

Too bad Jongewaard didn't sign his previous pick that year. His name? Roger Clemens.

 

Alan Schwarz is the senior writer of Baseball America magazine and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.

He drafted Clemens but never got to sign him? NICE ARTICLE! Did he fill a spot of someone that departed, or did we just add him?

We can sign him but we couldn't retain Fred Ferreira last year?

I don't think many teams will be willing to part with their prospects when dealing with us, it's bad enough that people will remember Admin for trading with the Cubs and Boston, no one else wants to be added to the list of the humiliated

We can sign him but we couldn't retain Fred Ferreira last year?

 

Did it not cross your mind that maybe Ferreira wanted to leave?

It's interesting to see how badly A-Rod wanted to be in the NL so he could play some home games here. I had no idea. I think before his career is over, if it makes sense for us, you'll see Arod in a Marlins uniform.

We can sign him but we couldn't retain Fred Ferreira last year?

 

Did it not cross your mind that maybe Ferreira wanted to leave?

When the story broke, the Marlins were "firing" Ferreira.

We can sign him but we couldn't retain Fred Ferreira last year?

 

Did it not cross your mind that maybe Ferreira wanted to leave?

When the story broke, the Marlins were "firing" Ferreira.

 

It was another one of the him or me moments our front-office has had frequently.

 

And also, I don't know, beat me to death for saying this, but is scouting all that terribly hard? It's a what have you done for me lately business. The guy who scouted and signed Albert freaking Pujols in the 12th round is stock shelves at Wal-Mart now, and we're meant to salivate over a guy who had the #1 pick the years the two heirs to the greatest player ever in Griff and ARod were draft eligible.

 

I'd be far more happy to read a story about our newfound willingness to spend money rather than signing a scout, since afterall, the latter is only as strong as the former.

It's nice to have the best scouts in baseball, but it'd be nice to also invest some money into keeping these players once they are established major leaguers.

I'd be far more happy to read a story about our newfound willingness to spend money rather than signing a scout, since afterall, the latter is only as strong as the former.

They have in the form of amateurs, who have been scouted and signed, and young talent, who have been acquired from other organizations, that will develop into quality major leaguers at salaries that the Florida Marlins - the organization - can afford. But I don't think that's the type of allocation that you were talking about. However, it's hard to look across the Marlins' roster and say it's a weak source of baseball talent.