Jerry Kelley

Posted by Mike Balster 
 
     Sandy Nichols introduced Jerry Kelley who edited his first video in 1974 for the Playmate Resource Company and rose to become an executive director of the company. Since that time Jerry started his own company, Hollywood South, which began as a video editing company. In 1988 his company was asked to duplicate videos for a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. He noted to the team owner that he could edit the raw footage to make it more useful and user friendly.
 

He provided the owner with the edited video and an indexed CD making player information contiguous and easily accessible. Within a week Jerry received a call from the baseball commissioner and the team owner. They explained that each team currently had between 3 and 20 talent scouts on staff and larger teams had the advantage of more scouts on staff. They asked Jerry if he could produce similar edited videos and indexed CDs for all of the players scouted. Jerry accepted their offer and became a pillar of the multi-million dollar advance scouting arm of the MLB.

     The advance scouts are responsible for particular areas and Jerry employs video photographers and video editors to support the collection and editing of the player's abilities. The videos are collected for high school seniors, community college freshmen and sophomores, college juniors and seniors, minor league, and major league players. The scouts are responsible for areas inside the US and Canada and internationally. All this is done with four camera men and a fifth to be added soon.

     The videos evaluate player hitting ability, power, running ability, fielding ability, and versatility. This information is used by all MLB teams to evaluate future potential and is critical in determining draft positions. The top players are offered signing bonuses of up to $10M to join the team's minor league team and begin development for a major league debut. The signing bonus doesn't guarantee the player will ever make it to the major leagues so the advance scouting videos are critical. After the players enter the minor league that receive $925/wk until they advance to the major league.

     In 1985 the first video of a minor league player was recorded. In 1987 a radar gun and stop watch were incorporated into the video camera and the video quality increased dramatically. In 1998, the MLB scouting bureau meets Hollywood South.