SE: K-State Baseball Alum Yancy Ayres Loves Life as MLB Scout
Jun 04, 2018 | Baseball, Sports Extra
By Corbin McGuire
Every time Yancy Ayres drives across the K-18 bridge into the east side of Manhattan, whether it's to watch a basketball game with his daughters or a baseball game for work, a sense of comfort comes over him.
"It feels like I'm home," the K-State baseball alum said. "I love coming back."
As the San Diego Padres' Midwest Scouting Supervisor, in charge of cross-checking area scouts from Canada all the way down to Mexico, Ayres does his best to schedule stops in Manhattan.
For one, he lives in Topeka and it allows him to sleep in his own bed at night — a rarity during the college baseball season. Secondly, his returns to K-State are a way to see old friends, like his former head coach Mike Clark, and remember how his time here prepared him for his life as a professional scout.
Ayres, who played at K-State from 1994-98, remembers coming back from one road trip late at night after it had been raining for hours and literally sponging water off the mound because the tarp had holes in it.
He also recalled players shoveling snow off the field, doing their own laundry for uniforms and changing in the parking lot.
"Being at K-State, you have to work for everything. You're not handed anything. Our facility back then was nothing compared to what it is now. The facility there is deluxe now, and it's going to be even better. You had to work for everything you had when you were there, which was a good thing," he said. "As a scout, you have to have a lot of self-motivation because it's pretty easy to just cruise and not put in the effort to work as hard as you can. It's still a competition. You're still competing against 29 other teams, so there's still that competitive drive that you have."
This competitive drive keeps the best scouts going during a grueling schedule. From February to June, Ayres travels up and down the Midwest to watch, on average, at least one baseball game a day.
During this time, Ayres juggles a number of skillsets — self-motivation, organization and, to some degree, fortunetelling.
"The first thing you do when you wake up is look at the weather because you have to have plan A, B and C, especially in the Midwest. You're not only trying to scout, you're trying to be a weatherman," he said. "You're trying to be a fortuneteller, watching 18-year-old kids and trying to report and say what they're going to be when they're 25 years old."
Ayres' hectic schedule culminates this week with the MLB Draft, which starts Monday and ends Wednesday. Two weeks before it each year, he flies out to San Diego along with the rest of the scouting department to start prepping for the 40-round process.
"It's like you're cramming for a test right before the draft because it's just a lot of information," Ayres said of the draft preparation, which will include going over more than 1,200 players. "Basically, you go over every player who's been turned in by a scout in the country."
Ayres' downtime is brief, maybe three days after the draft. Then he's off to scout the Cape Cod League, high school summer tournaments and even some minor league games, essentially starting the cycle all over.
"It's a grind because you're on the road so much but you're watching baseball every day," he said. "No matter how bad it is, you can step back and say, 'I'm watching baseball.' It's a pretty cool gig."
Days like April 5 serve as additional reminders for Ayres of why he loves his job.
On that day this year, he stood inside the Padres' Petco Park, next to the organization's general manager, A.J. Preller, as Joey Lucchesi made his career debut on the mound.
Ayres is a big reason why San Diego picked the left-handed Lucchesi in the fourth round of the 2016 MLB Draft out of Southeast Missouri State. Two years later, Lucchesi pitched well enough to crack San Diego's rotation. So the Padres flew the scout who urged them to take him out to watch.
"I was talking to our GM," Ayres recalled of that day, "and I was, like, 'Dude, I'm from Smith Center, Kansas. This is pretty cool.'"
Those moments, while few and far between for any scout, are what they work for, to bring a player to the majors through the draft. It's why they hop on countless planes, spend painstaking amounts of time away from family and hold up radar guns for thousands of pitches every year.
"That's your ultimate goal to recommend guys that end up panning out and help the big league club," Ayres said. "Obviously in the draft, if you sign a guy that becomes a Major League everyday player, it saves the club millions of dollars because of free agency now."
Ayres never made it there as a player, spending two years in the minor leagues and another three playing independent baseball.
From there, he started working on his master's degree and helping coach at Emporia State under Bob Fornelli. Then an opportunity to serve as an area scout for the Oakland Athletics became available in 2006. Ayres took it and never looked back, working for the Athletics until 2015 when the Padres offered him a higher-ranking position in their scouting department.
"I love it," Ayres said. "A lot of guys can complain about it. There's a guy I worked with at Oakland, his name's Billy Owens (assistant general manager/director of player personnel), and whenever he came in town he would make you feel like this was the best job in the world, and it would give you a little rejuvenation and remind you, 'I'm watching baseball every day. What are you (complaining) about?'"
Every time Yancy Ayres drives across the K-18 bridge into the east side of Manhattan, whether it's to watch a basketball game with his daughters or a baseball game for work, a sense of comfort comes over him.
"It feels like I'm home," the K-State baseball alum said. "I love coming back."
As the San Diego Padres' Midwest Scouting Supervisor, in charge of cross-checking area scouts from Canada all the way down to Mexico, Ayres does his best to schedule stops in Manhattan.
For one, he lives in Topeka and it allows him to sleep in his own bed at night — a rarity during the college baseball season. Secondly, his returns to K-State are a way to see old friends, like his former head coach Mike Clark, and remember how his time here prepared him for his life as a professional scout.
Ayres, who played at K-State from 1994-98, remembers coming back from one road trip late at night after it had been raining for hours and literally sponging water off the mound because the tarp had holes in it.
He also recalled players shoveling snow off the field, doing their own laundry for uniforms and changing in the parking lot.
"Being at K-State, you have to work for everything. You're not handed anything. Our facility back then was nothing compared to what it is now. The facility there is deluxe now, and it's going to be even better. You had to work for everything you had when you were there, which was a good thing," he said. "As a scout, you have to have a lot of self-motivation because it's pretty easy to just cruise and not put in the effort to work as hard as you can. It's still a competition. You're still competing against 29 other teams, so there's still that competitive drive that you have."
This competitive drive keeps the best scouts going during a grueling schedule. From February to June, Ayres travels up and down the Midwest to watch, on average, at least one baseball game a day.
During this time, Ayres juggles a number of skillsets — self-motivation, organization and, to some degree, fortunetelling.
"The first thing you do when you wake up is look at the weather because you have to have plan A, B and C, especially in the Midwest. You're not only trying to scout, you're trying to be a weatherman," he said. "You're trying to be a fortuneteller, watching 18-year-old kids and trying to report and say what they're going to be when they're 25 years old."
Ayres' hectic schedule culminates this week with the MLB Draft, which starts Monday and ends Wednesday. Two weeks before it each year, he flies out to San Diego along with the rest of the scouting department to start prepping for the 40-round process.
"It's like you're cramming for a test right before the draft because it's just a lot of information," Ayres said of the draft preparation, which will include going over more than 1,200 players. "Basically, you go over every player who's been turned in by a scout in the country."
Ayres' downtime is brief, maybe three days after the draft. Then he's off to scout the Cape Cod League, high school summer tournaments and even some minor league games, essentially starting the cycle all over.
"It's a grind because you're on the road so much but you're watching baseball every day," he said. "No matter how bad it is, you can step back and say, 'I'm watching baseball.' It's a pretty cool gig."
Days like April 5 serve as additional reminders for Ayres of why he loves his job.
On that day this year, he stood inside the Padres' Petco Park, next to the organization's general manager, A.J. Preller, as Joey Lucchesi made his career debut on the mound.
Ayres is a big reason why San Diego picked the left-handed Lucchesi in the fourth round of the 2016 MLB Draft out of Southeast Missouri State. Two years later, Lucchesi pitched well enough to crack San Diego's rotation. So the Padres flew the scout who urged them to take him out to watch.
"I was talking to our GM," Ayres recalled of that day, "and I was, like, 'Dude, I'm from Smith Center, Kansas. This is pretty cool.'"
Those moments, while few and far between for any scout, are what they work for, to bring a player to the majors through the draft. It's why they hop on countless planes, spend painstaking amounts of time away from family and hold up radar guns for thousands of pitches every year.
"That's your ultimate goal to recommend guys that end up panning out and help the big league club," Ayres said. "Obviously in the draft, if you sign a guy that becomes a Major League everyday player, it saves the club millions of dollars because of free agency now."
Ayres never made it there as a player, spending two years in the minor leagues and another three playing independent baseball.
From there, he started working on his master's degree and helping coach at Emporia State under Bob Fornelli. Then an opportunity to serve as an area scout for the Oakland Athletics became available in 2006. Ayres took it and never looked back, working for the Athletics until 2015 when the Padres offered him a higher-ranking position in their scouting department.
"I love it," Ayres said. "A lot of guys can complain about it. There's a guy I worked with at Oakland, his name's Billy Owens (assistant general manager/director of player personnel), and whenever he came in town he would make you feel like this was the best job in the world, and it would give you a little rejuvenation and remind you, 'I'm watching baseball every day. What are you (complaining) about?'"
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