The Tigers are facing a lawsuit from two former scouts who allege the organization has engaged in “age discrimination” over their firing.
Gary Pellant and Randall Johnson filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, and are accusing the Tigers that their firing back in 2020 was due to a “false stereotype” that older scouts are less in tune with modern-day scouting techniques as clubs around the MLB make a bigger shift towards advanced metrics and analytics.
According to the Detroit News, the suit also cites wrongful termination, and violations of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act as the former Tigers scouts are seeking, among other things, back pay, and compensatory and punitive damages.
“As part of the reform process, MLB endeavored to begin heavily recruiting younger scouts, at the same time intentionally pushing out, from the older scouts with prior knowledge, qualifications, expertise, and training, based on a false stereotype that older scouts lacked the ability to use analytics and engage in video scouting with the same acumen as younger scouts,” the lawsuit alleges.
The suit also claims that in 2020, the 30 MLB clubs didn’t renew contracts with 51 of at least 83 older scouts, while after the pandemic, the Tigers refused to hire back their older scouts. Furthermore, the plaintiffs say other scouts over the age of 60 were terminated with the remaining ranging in age from their early 20s to their early 50s.
Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Major League Baseball teams have increasingly expanded their analytical departments to maximize their returns as player salaries have risen.
