I'm likewise confused by your original statement about being "second-hand." You seemed to imply that Law ranks the Yankees highly based on what the Yankees say about their own players. Is that really what you were saying? I think he is saying that BA rarely goes out and watches the players and comes up with their own independant opinions. They go out and interview the scouts, managers, etc. and compile their opinions. Firsthand info would come from the scouts, secondhand info would come from getting the first hand info from the scouts. From my understanding most of their scouting reports come from either the managers and coaches of the player or the managers and coaches of opposing teams. The latter see the player two or three times a season, so it's not really a fair assessment. My main reasoning was saying that it's not physically BA doing most of their scouting and ESPN does a LOT less scouting than BA. Of course BA's work is a lot better than Laws because I would assume they have more contacts.