Reds scouting director Joe Katuska on his first year in charge of the club’s draft

CINCINNATI — Joe Katuska was on his way home Thursday night after another day of meetings with the team’s amateur scouting department. At some point, he said, “it’s like Groundhog Day” and it’s time to go home, recharge and get back to the draft board the next day.

The Reds’ draft board is literally that — a board with the names of hundreds and hundreds of draft-eligible players on magnets, put in order of the team’s preferences. Some teams have digitized the board, but the Reds have stayed old school, just to be safe — power could be lost, the internet could slow or another team could have discovered a password and infiltrated their system, putting the organization at a disadvantage.

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This year, as every year, the group comes to Great American Ball Park from across the country to finalize the order of those names, to go over medical files and to listen to the years of experience and hours of seeing players live and on video. It wasn’t that long ago that many of the same people sat in the same room and discussed the merits of Tyler Stephenson or Jonathan India or Hunter Greene.

Katuska has spent his fair share of time in that room over the 17 years he’s been with the Reds. This year, though, is his first as the man in charge, his first since taking over as the Director of Amateur Scouting last November when Brad Meador was promoted to Vice President/Assistant General Manager, Scouting and Player Development.

Meador is still in the room, but it’s now Katuska’s room. Katuska spoke with The Athletic on Thursday ahead of the 20-round MLB Draft which begins Sunday. The Reds have the 18th-overall pick and four picks on the first night, picking again at 32, 55 and 73.

(Editor’s note: This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity)

So, do you have a new chair? Like, are you at the head of the table now?

Pretty much. It’s a little bit different. I’m running the room and the board at this point. It’s a collaborative process for everyone. I’m spearheading it now and leaning on other people in their new roles as well.

Does it feel different?

It finally does. Brad involved me a lot in the past. So I was looped into a lot of the things going on, but it is starting to feel a little bit different now that we’re finally to the point that we’re about to make a draft pick. Up to this, it felt like doing a lot of the same job, but now it’s a little bit different.

Is that first pick going to be strange? In the past, you could make recommendations, but now you’re making the call.

It’s something that Brad said for a while and I knew was true but you only realize the magnitude of it when you’re the one making the pick. It’s a lot easier to recommend the guy than it is to actually take the guy.

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This year were you on the road as much? 

I was on the road just as much, but it was with a little different focus. A lot of it under Brad was that I was getting more volume and making sure he got in directed to the right place. The rest of the staff did that as well, but Brad and I worked side-by-side in that regard. but now I had to spend more time on the top players, making sure that the guys lined up way up at the top that we’re getting those guys right. It was pretty much the same amount of time on the road but seeing fewer players overall.

Was that more enjoyable?

It took a little getting used to. It was fun. But it definitely took a little getting used to because there are players that are in spots in the draft that I normally would have seen with my own eyes that I haven’t, It’s just a little bit different feel for it. You have to listen to the whole staff on this and lean on your guys and their experience and what their views were. But it is different when it’s a smaller crop of players that I can actually speak to live looks on as we’re in the room.

You are new in this role, but so many of the people in that room are the same, it’s just different roles. Has that been helpful?

That’s one of the things that has made the transition smoother for me is that this group has been together for a while. It’s a lot of people that know who each other are, we know how we work. We know what sorts of players we like and how we talk about players and all that kind of stuff. That’s made it made the transition a lot smoother.

Is there like a typical Reds player, especially up high? 

I think we’re pretty traditional in the way that we start the process with amateur scouting. We’re starting in the middle-of-the-field, middle-of-diamond athletes that have had the baseball tools still, and then starting pitching. We incorporate every piece of information into the process that we think adds value to it. But it’s certainly not any one type of player, but up-the-middle athletes and impact starting pitching is always where we start.

You’ve had some success recently — all of your first picks from 2015 to 2019 were essentially on the Opening Day roster (Nick Lodolo was in the rotation, but not active for the official Opening Day) — is there anything to take from that?

That was something that as a staff we’re proud of. I know that (former scouting director Chris Buckley) was real proud of the fact that the last four first-round picks he had as a director were lined up playing catcher (Tyler Stephenson), starting pitcher (Hunter Greene), second base (Jonathan India) and center field (Nick Senzel). Like I said, start from the middle of the diamond with the baseball athletes and that’s a pretty good way to start right there. We know where we are, as an organization, we have to find our best players in the draft. And we’ve done a pretty good job of that recently.

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You’re picking at 18 this year, what are the advantages and disadvantages of that spot?

Well, it’s tough to say that there’s a huge advantage in it. We’re picking 18, but 16 teams have shots at players before us and it’s easier to narrow your focus and the pool of players at the very top. You get a good idea of the handful of guys that you’re looking at picking up there. We’ve had to scout a wider group of players. It’s tricky when you’re picking where we are right now because we don’t have a great idea of a dozen or 15 players that are going in front of us. I think there are about eight that will definitely go ahead of us and another handful that we think will go. I could see very real scenarios where guys get to our pick that we didn’t anticipate getting there.

I guess last year was the perfect example, getting Matt McLain at No. 17?

We didn’t anticipate that he was going to get to our pick. And he did. You know just never know how it’s gonna all play out until until the names start coming off the board.

You have four picks that first night, that means you get four really good players?

It’s going to be a really late night on Sunday. I thought our last pick will probably be made at about 12:30 in the morning, but it’s always fun to have that number of picks and the draft pool (money) that’s associated with it should allow us to target some players that we really like because we’ve been able to do that in the last couple of years.

Is that where players like Jay Allen II and Taylor Trammell come in? First-round talents with higher signing bonus demands?

It provides so much more space to get it done. There are ways to save money in different spots, but if you’re starting from a higher top end, you can do a lot more there.

So, after the draft concludes on Tuesday, what are your plans for Wednesday?

My whole family is driving down to Florida on Saturday, my oldest is playing in USSSA nationals for softball, so Wednesday I’ll be taking a flight down to Panama City to try to watch her play for a couple of days before heading out to Goodyear (Arizona) for the minicamp for all of our newly drafted guys.

Your off-time, your few days off, will be spent at a diamond?

Spent at a diamond in a place I scouted a player for this year’s draft. Right back to it.

At least it’s familiar territory?

It’s way more familiar than most. Getting on a plane and connecting in Atlanta and ending up at a baseball/softball complex is certainly charted territory.

(Top photo of Hunter Greene at the 2017 draft: Julio Cortez / Associated Press)