The great Willie McCovey passed away yesterday at the age of 80 following a long battle with a number of health issues. A first ballot Hall of Famer in 1986, McCovey was just the fourth left-handed hitter to reach the 500 career home-run plateau and ranked 12th on the all-time career list at the time of his retirement in 1980.

I loved to watch McCovey hit, there was no cable or streaming services when he played so the only opportunities were nationally televised broadcasts or on local TV when the Giants played the Mets. I do remember his two bombs in the 1969 All-Star game and his subsequent MVP award that year.

But what kind of prospect was he as an amateur?

Thanks to the archives at the Baseball Hall of Fame, we get an idea.

According to Mark Armour’s great SABR bio, McCovey attended Central High School in Mobile, Alabama but dropped out at age 16 to help out with the family finances (he was the seventh of ten children). Despite not playing high school baseball he stayed active on the playgrounds and his hitting exploits gained the attention of a Giants scout who signed him in 1955.

It lists him as a "fair-streaky" hitter with fair to good arm, fair hustle and attitude. He has a "chance to A" prospect status overall with power being his strength and weak against good pitching, especially on the curve being areas of improvement.

The summary says he "hit quite a few homeruns, shows power, appears lazy, shuffles but runs good. It went on to conclude if his age is correct has time to develop and worth following but not ready for higher leagues.

How does that translate to the 2-8 scale?

McCovey was born on January 10th, 1938 and the report was written on August 27th, 1955 which would’ve made his age as 17/10. Already being fully grown at 6’4" although pretty thin at 180 would’ve had today’s evaluators speculating on his growth potential. Most reports as a major leaguer had him around 200 pounds, for a guy that tall gaining 20 isn’t much.

The report mentions his power twice so it was noticeable even at that age. As his major league career progressed McCovey leaned to being primarily a pull hitter. If his amateur career was an indicator, his raw might have garnered a current 6 with a possible projection to 7.

This is a guy who averaged 20 homers a year in the minors and 33 in the majors so fair to say his game power would have projected to a current 5 and an eventual 6 which he would have exceeded.

McCovey retired with a .270 average with a .374 OBP and .515 slugging and only hit .300 once. He struck out quite a bit for the era he played in but also walked a lot which balanced things out. The report pointed twice to weaknesses against good pitching especially breaking balls, so his current hit would have been below average, maybe a 4 but could have projected to a 5 as a major leaguer allowing room for improvement due to experience and again I think he would have exceeded that.

Defensively McCovey’s arm was good enough that he played two seasons in left field before moving permanently to first base. A "fair" arm in left would translate to average to plus at first. He ranks 45th all-time in Range Factor for a first baseman but 28th in both assists and putouts and 31st in double plays. He also ranks 21st in errors with everyone ahead of him and the immediate few behind him coming from the dead-ball era or shortly thereafter so I think it’s fair to say he was a below average defender overall, so a 4.

As Armour’s bio alludes to, McCovey had bad feet and arthritic knees which impacted him on the field, especially the second half of his career so it’s safe to say he would be a below average runner as well.

So, in an exercise which admittedly is complete guesswork, if I was the scout writing the report in 1955 I would have gone like this.

Hit: Current 4 Future 5, eventually got to 6.

Raw Power: Current 6, Future 7, safe guess.

Game Power: Current 5, Future 6, eventually got to 7

Run: Current 3, Future 4, probably didn’t get there, stayed at 3

Throw: Current 4, Future 5, accurate.

Field: Current 4, Future 4, accurate.

The report said he could eventually become an A prospect and considering Willie Mac eventually reached the sport's highest level I’d say the scout did a great job.