We have given you only 5 rankings for each skill (poor, fair, average, good, great) from which you are to select. Please don’t be shy to use the entire spectrum of categories. If you were to imagine that each of our 5 categories comprises 20% of the D1 starters, that may help avoid the “clumping” around the middle values and the near-complete avoidance of giving a poor or great evaluation that we often see with things like this.

I imagine that most of the evaluations that you give will be for your “home” team. Please don’t hesitate though to evaluate an opposition player if you feel you have seen enough of him during the year to have confidence in your evaluation. The last question we ask concerning each player is a measure of your confidence in that evaluation. That was done to encourage you to evaluate players that perhaps you have not seen as much as others – but yet still have something to say about them.

At the end of each team site, you will notice that we ask you for your name and email address. Giving your name is optional but we do require that you give us your email address. Do not worry, we will not spam you, this is just in case the major league team that we are working with is interested in contacting you. If you were asked by someone to participate in this, please note that in the “how did you hear about this.”

If you evaluate a player early in the season and then want to change it, all you have to do is redo his evaluation and as long as you give us the same email address as before, it will be overwritten in the database.

Thanks again for your evaluation – without your efforts, this would not be possible. The collaborative results of all those that participated will be shared at the end of the season.

And, most importantly, do not, absolutely do not, look at any numbers. Don't look at his fielding percentage, range factor, zone ratings, or anything else that someone else is telling you. I just want you to rely on your eyes. You are the scout. I need you to rely completely on your own observations.

We know the fans know what they are talking about. We know they know how to observe good and bad fielding. Now, I just want to know what the fans know. And, hopefully, so do you.