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The 20-80 scouting scale
How scouts grade a player's tools, why a 17-year-old grades low today, and what Mosaic does with the scale.
Updated September 20, 2026
Professional scouts grade every tool on a scale from 20 to 80. A 50 is a major league average. A 60 is plus. An 80 is the best in the game, and it is rare. The scale runs in steps of 5 or 10, and the distance between steps is not even: the jump from 70 to 80 is far harder to make than the jump from 30 to 40.
Two grades, not one
When a scout writes up a 17-year-old, the report carries two numbers for each tool: a present grade and a future grade. You will see it written as 30/60.
| Grade | What it measures | Example for a 17-year-old |
|---|---|---|
| Present | How the tool compares to major league players today. | 30 game power: mostly singles and doubles, with the occasional home run in a high school park. |
| Future | The expected ceiling of the tool at physical maturity, usually age 24 to 27, with professional coaching. | 60 future power: the frame, bat speed, and hip rotation project to 25 to 30 home runs a year at the top level. |
A teenager's present grades are almost always low, often 20 or 30. That is not an insult. A 17-year-old is physically undeveloped and is not ready to face major league pitching. The number that matters for a young player is the future grade, because it is a forecast of what the player becomes.
How scouts project a teenager
Projection is the hardest part of scouting. Three things drive it.
Physical projectability comes first. A player who is 6 feet 3 inches and 175 pounds is assumed to add 20 to 25 pounds of muscle as he fills out, and that growth raises the future grades on power and fastball velocity.
Athletic aptitude comes second. Smooth actions, body control, and clean mechanics tell a scout the player learns fast, which lifts the future grades on fielding and pitch command.
Some tools barely move. Pure running speed and raw arm strength are close to fixed by 17. What you see is close to what you get. Hitting and power are the opposite; they need the most projection and carry the most risk.
When a 17-year-old appears on a prospect list at MLB Pipeline or FanGraphs, the single number next to the name is the future value grade: a forecast of the player's eventual major league role.
What Mosaic does with the scale
Mosaic does not grade tools the way a scout does. It has no video and no live look. What it has are the showcase measurements you enter: exit velocity, 60-yard time, arm velocity, pop time, fastball velocity. On the player card, each of those is shown against the range that college programs at each level typically recruit from, so a family can see where a number sits without learning the scale.
Coaches and consultants who think in 20-80 terms can read the same bars that way: the middle of the bar is roughly a 50 for the college level shown, and the right edge is a 60 or better. The tier range on the player card is Mosaic's version of a future grade, built from those numbers plus academics. See Ability tiers for how it is calculated.