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Cullen Freeman

Mrs. Neumann

English 12/1

15 March, 2021

The Life of a baseball general manager:

What I know:

Sports can unite and draw people together from everywhere around the world. People can

drop political differences, racial differences, and previous issues to be entertained by some of the

greatest athletes in the world. Since I was a little kid, I have been drawn to sports. By the time I

could walk, I always had a ball in my hand or my feet. One of my first memories was watching

the Colorado Rockies miraculous 2007 World Series run, and remembering myself glued to the

TV night after night. Playing sports fascinated me when I was younger, but as I got older and

older I became fascinated by the business side of sports. I became intrigued by how the people

who run sports teams would construct their rosters, and the implications and complications

around that. When I was about twelve years old, I watched the movie, Moneyball for the first

time, and became even further drawn to the business side of sports. I began to understand and be

intrigued by the financial side of the business and the implications surrounding ticket sales,

marketing, and television revenue, and how that would affect the roster the team’s would put out

on the field and their position within the league. Thus, I began to study the finances of the sports

team, and how it affected everyone throughout the organization and the league. It did not take me

long to realize that I wanted this to be my future, I wanted to be a sports general manager.

Around the time I realized all this, a new wave was taking over sports, specifically baseball,

advanced statistical metrics. I had always been intrigued by statistics and the importance of them.
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I began to try to further my understanding of statistics and the importance of them within

baseball. Over time, I began to put the dots together, I wanted to be a baseball general manager.

Once I realized what I wanted to do, I shifted my focus more towards how I was going to

get there. I began to research the career path of baseball general manager’s. As I expected,

almost all of the general managers started towards the bottom of organizations and work their

way up. Furthermore, most put themselves in a strong position by getting a quality collegiate

education. Thus, I began to research colleges that I might be interested in that offered the degrees

I was looking for in business or economics. Over time, I began to garner a list of schools and

programs I would be interested in. Around this time, out of luck I ran into an employee working

in the Los Angeles Dodgers Scouting Department on an airplane. Over the course of the flight, I

picked apart his brain regarding his path to his job and what it takes to be a general manager. I

was able to get his contact information as well. Talking to someone within a major league

organization only enhanced my desire, I wanted to be a Major League Baseball General

Manager.

What I want to know:

The idea of wanting to know what it’s like being a Major League Baseball General

Manager seems extremely vague, yet that is exactly what I want to know in the simplest form.

First off, I want to know the recommended path I should take in college. I want to know what

classes I should look to take in college and whether I should be a double major or minor in

anything. Further, I want to know what internship opportunities I should be looking for in

college. I want to create the best resume I can prior to going into my job field, so I want to gather

as much knowledge and information as I can get. Finally, I want to know if I should be looking

to get an MBA, and if so what degree I should be targeting.

Next, I want to know what I should expect once I get into my career field. To start, I want

to know what role and opportunities I should be targeting coming out of college, and what I

should expect in that role. I want to know what my employer will be looking for, and how I

should be looking to impress them in order to be promoted. Further, I want to gain an

understanding of what I should expect my everyday life to be like, and how I should manage my

life and money outside of my job in order to gain an advantage. Finally, I want to gain an

understanding of how I should make connections throughout the workplace and throughout the

league. Connections are so important in the business world, and for someone like me who is not

extremely outgoing, it will be something I have to focus on in order to steadily rise into the

position I want to be in and not stagnate.

Lastly, I want to further my understanding of the game itself, specifically the financial

side. There has only been so much information I have been able to get access to being an

eighteen year old high school student, mostly relating to the financial side of the game and the

importance of it. I want to further my understanding of the financial side of baseball and grasp

the nuances involved in it. I want to understand what to look for financially, how I should look

for it, and the importance behind it. I want to further my understanding the relationships a

general manager has to have with his players, the people he works with every day, and his

owner, in order to be successful and maintain his job. And finally, I want to further my

understanding of the resources I can use in the present, and how I can use them to gain an

advantage over my future job competitors.

What I learned:

Going into my project, I felt as if my knowledge of the game of baseball, and my

intended career path were advanced for my age, and that the opportunities I had to learn and
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improve would be somewhat limited compared to others. However, after conducting over a

month and a half of research, I can firmly say I was mistaken. Throughout my time, my research

varied from my intended field of study in college to advanced metrics in baseball that I felt were

underappreciated or overused. Most importantly, I was able to gather specific research that I felt

like helped my overall understanding of my intended career path as well as helped me

understand how I want my career to look.

Going into this project, I had a firm understanding of the importance of education to a

deep understanding of the game of baseball, especially with the current wave of sabermetrics

seemingly taking over the game. One of the first things I did was a simple google search on

Wikipedia for the “List of Major League Baseball General Managers”, and scanned through their

college alma maters. There was a mix of schools, ranging from highly prestigious schools like

Harvard, Yale, etc to high-enrollment state schools like Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge.

I quickly began to understand the patterns of hiring across the league. General managers that

had little to no experience playing baseball came from prestigious universities, and their degrees

primarily focused on aspects that applied to sabermetrics, whether that was economics or some

type of business degree. I also learned that this was becoming a new trend across the league, as

almost all have been hired within the past five years. There were a couple outliers to this pattern,

as there were some general managers who came from less prestigious academic institutions and

had little to no experience playing baseball. I took this new knowledge and attempted to apply it

to my own college process, which was still ongoing. I focused my research on my top two

schools, High Point and Middlebury College. Prior to researching Middlebury, I was unaware of

how financially advantageous a degree from a school of their prestige could be, as well as the

connections I would have at my disposal. Quickly, I learned the “median salary of graduates at
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Middlebury being $75,400” (Middlebury College) as well as the multitude of connections I

would have to work with ranging from the world of business to journalism. When researching

High Point, I learned much of the same, however the numbers were not as impressive as

Middlebury. While I learned about the notable alumni and opportunities including the

“Entrepreneurs Club and the HPU Economics Association” (High Point University), I was also

made aware of the average starting salary coming out of High Point ($38,000). Overall, I was

able to conclude that Middlebury would likely offer me more opportunities as well as a better

position financially.

The majority of my research primarily revolved around one idea: What do I have to do to

become a Major League Baseball general manager? As I mentioned before, one of the first

things I researched was the education and career paths of current general managers, and I

selected a few that I wanted to further research. One of the first names that stood out to me was

Alex Anthopoulos, general manager of the Atlanta Braves. Mr. Anthopoulos did not play

baseball in college or professionally and got his start with the Toronto Blue Jays as an unpaid

intern. Alex enhanced his knowledge of baseball by sitting in the press box with scouts and

eavesdropping on their conversations, according to his wikipedia page titled “Alex

Anthopoulos”. In all of the research I conducted this was arguably the most encouraging piece I

read, as I was able to relate to Mr. Anthopoulos extremely well as someone who will not be

playing baseball in college or professionally. Another profile that caught my attention was

Michael Girsch, general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. According to his wikipedia page

titled “Michael Girsch”, he received a degree in mathematics and worked in valuations for a

consulting group in Boston before he wrote a paper regarding evaluations of players in the 2006

MLB draft and sent it out to teams. Going into the project, the image I created within my head
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regarding how someone would get into an MLB front office revolved around the idea of

connections and getting hired out of college. To research a story like Girsch’s was extremely

encouraging to me, as it provided me hope that there is a way to get into the game of baseball

without following the prototypical path. The last profile that grabbed my attention was Al

Avila’s, the general manager of the Detroit Tigers. Avila was a college assistant coach before

getting the opportunity to work in the front office of the then-expansion franchise Florida

Marlins as an assistant director of latin operations, according to his bio on MLB.com titled “Al

Avila bio”. Throughout the early parts of the project, I had created a stereotype in my head that

general managers had to either go to prestigious academic institutions or play baseball at a

collegiate or professional level, yet Avila did not check either of those boxes. Through

researching his background, I was able to learn that not all general managers have to follow the

stereotypical career path, and that there is a path to becoming a general manager for anyone if

they are persistent.

Going into my project, I was planning on focusing on how I would get into my intended

career path, however as the project played out over time I began to focus more of my attention

towards expanding my knowledge of the game of baseball. The book I chose to read throughout

the process was, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Moneyball

is famous for the movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, which is one of my personal favorites.

In the book, they dive deeper into the construction of the team, and how Oakland A’s GM Billy

Beane (portrayed by Brad Pitt) “took advantage of the market underutilizing advanced metrics

like on base percentage and slugging percentage” and “overvalued runs batted in, home runs, and

batting average”(Lewis). Learning about an organization like the Oakland Athletics was

arguably the most productive and eye opening moment throughout my whole research process,
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because it amazed me how detailed they were in their focus, and how they completely went

against the baseball establishment. The A’s were able to create a whole new way to think about

building a baseball team, and they had the rest of baseball trying to copy their success for the

next fifteen years. Thus, it brought me to the proposition of how I could become the next Billy

Beane, and how I could separate myself from everyone else within my intended field. While

baseball’s front offices are veering towards advanced statistics and metrics, I decided to shift

towards newer metrics that are being undervalued. I focused my attention on batter launch angle,

batter average exit velocity, and pitcher soft contact rate. Going into the project, I had a general

idea of the importance which launch angle has played in baseball for the last twelve years.

Launch angle describes the angle the ball leaves the bat after it’s struck in relation to the plane of

the ground, and helps determine the likelihood of a base hit. For example, most home runs are

hit on a launch angle between 28-35 degrees, while a negative launch angle indicates a ground

ball and likely an out. However, I was completely unaware of “how it can elevate a player from

an average hitter to an elite power hitter in some cases”(Darling). Being able to “ reconstruct

your swing and adapt to a higher launch angle has completely resurrected MLB players like Max

Muncy, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion careers”(Shepard). For example, Max Muncy’s

average launch angle was “12.5 degrees” and in 2018, it was “16.9 degrees”(Baseball Savant).

Uncoicidentally, Muncy had a career year in 2018. The importance of a detail so minute within

someone’s swing was completely groundbreaking to me. Similar to launch angle, batter exit

velocity was something I had always been aware of, but had not realized the importance of it.

Exit velocity measures the speed by which a struck ball leaves the bat, and along with launch

angle has much to do with the likelihood of success for the hitter. I had not connected the

correlation between the “top statistical players in the league each year having the highest exit
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velocity”(Mueller). The decision the 2014 Mets had to make is a perfect example of the

importance of exit velocity. The Mets were deciding between players Ike Davis and Lucas Duda

for their starting first baseman. The Mets went with Duda, “[i]n large part due to his superior exit

velocity”, and the choice ended up working out as “Duda [hit] 57 homers over the next couple

seasons” and “Davis bounced from Pittsburgh to Oakland and is currently a free

agent”(Petriello). Prior to my research, I had always considered exit velocity at the dependent

variable to hitting well in baseball. Doing further research and seeing the countless examples and

correlations between exit velocity and hitting success showed how important exit velocity is for a

batter, and how it is the independent variable within the equation. The final piece of data I

focused my research around was hard contact rate, a statistic measured for pitchers. Unlike the

previous two pieces of data, I had not heard of the statistic, which refers to how often a pitcher

gives up a high exit velocity hit versus a lower one. However, I quickly realized the correlation

between the statistic and success for pitchers, as “there is a steep dropoff in opponents batting

average the lower the hard contact rate”(Mueller). I decided to use the 2020 season as a test to

prove this theory, and I was amazed by the results. Arguably the two most dominant pitchers in

the National League, Sonny Gray and Max Fried, had the lowest hard contact rates in the league.

The results easily proved the importance of hard contact rate, and it’s importance to a pitcher's

success. Overall, my findings and the research process elevated my knowledge of the game of

baseball and allowed me to gain an edge on my peers.

My final focus for my research within my project was the everyday interactions of a

baseball general manager, and their relationship with everyone in the organization. Thus, I was

fortunate enough to meet with a scout for the most well-run organization in baseball, the World

Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Alan Matthews boasts over fifteen years of experience
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within the game of baseball, and I was able to speak with him regarding his break into the

business of baseball. One of my biggest questions going into the project was the everyday

interaction of a baseball general manager, specifically how much work they did themselves and

how much was delegated to others. Matthews spoke to me about his relationship with Andrew

Friedman, the general manager of the Dodgers, and how he would speak with Friedman “two

weeks prior to the draft and then every day up until the draft” and then he would not speak to

him “until the same time next year”(Matthews). Further, Matthews spoke as to how Friedman

would give him “no instruction” and would “only read his scouting reports, but never comment

on them until the draft process”(Matthews). The information Matthews provided to me was

completely different than the perspective I had created in my head, as I thought that general

managers would communicate with scouts and other employees higher up in the organization on

a daily or weekly basis. And after conducting independent research, the information provided by

Matthews was corroborated. I decided to continue my research of Andrew Friedman, the

Dodgers general manager. In his body of work, Friedman mainly “focuses on every day

operations surrounding roster management”, and delegates other tasks to “people smarter than

him that give him a different perspective”(Timmons).

After garnering a better understanding of the everyday operations of a Major League

general manager, I turned my attention to their feelings towards sabermetrics and how they use it

within their every day operations. First, I was able to speak to Mr. Matthews regarding his use

of sabermetrics in his work as a scout. Matthews described the Dodgers as using a “50-50

approach” in regards to sabermetrics and pure talent when scouting a player. He later told me

that most front office’s operate in a similar manner. Matthews told me that while this idea does

come from Friedman and others at the top, they let Matthews and his other scouts handle the
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evaluations. To add on to this, I read an article that discussed how scouts had originally been

extremely frustrated by sabermetrics in their regard to evaluating players, but as time passed

“scouts have begun to find sabermetrics extremely useful, especially within the college

game”(Berkowitz). After gathering a better understanding of how sabermetrics affects scouts, I

returned to my intended question of how general managers use it every single day. Across the

league, MLB front offices are leaning away from hiring ex-players and instead focusing on

“younger, analytic guru, computer nerd types”(Crasnick). Crasnick pinpointed the recent hires

of David Stearns and Billy Eppler as examples of teams having success using this strategy.

Organizations are taking analytics to a whole new level and almost devaluing physical and

mental tools. For me, this was extremely eye-opening and encouraging because while I was

aware that sabermetrics are becoming the new fad in baseball, I did not realize that organizations

are no longer valuing the experience of playing baseball at some level within the hiring process

for their front offices. Coming out of this, I feel much more comfortable and confident about the

opportunities I might be able to have in regards to a general manager position as well as potential

career path opportunities using my degree.

Why this is important to me:

Going into this project, I had a basic vision and understanding of how I thought I

could become a general manager, and what my daily life would look like in that role. I was

somewhat naive with my understanding of the game of baseball, and thought just because I had

above average intelligence and above average understanding of the game, that I was somehow a

leg up on all my future competitors. I was completely wrong about both of these beliefs, and this

project served as the major eye opener I needed in order to prepare myself for my future.
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First and foremost, this project presumed that being a Major League Baseball General

Manager is something that I would want to do as a career. Going into the project, I was fairly

certain that I wanted to be a GM, but I had never really done deep research and talked to people

around the game of baseball. After all, I did stop playing baseball as a sophomore in high school

because I no longer loved it anymore and my passion was for another sport. But my findings in

the project have completely alleviated all of my skepticism. Seeing the sabermetrics being put to

use every day by people running the rosters of organizations has brought me great enthusiasm, as

I have always been extremely intrigued by the statistical aspects of baseball, while also seeing

that a general manager has somewhat of a limited role and is surrounded by people smarter or

just as smart as him, has brought me relief. Being able to learn about a relationship between a

general manager and someone within his organization personally was also an enlightening

experience and opportunity and I am extremely grateful that Alan Matthews took the time to

answer my questions. Learning about the nuances within the relationship and how a general

manager lets his scouts do much of his job 50 weeks out of the year was assuring, as it made me

understand that almost all of my focus as a general manager lies in putting together the best team

of people to support me, as no GM can do it all by themselves. Most of all, hearing from a

someone employed by a major league baseball organization talk about how the sacrifices he

makes each year and the long hours he puts in each day all pay off if you truly love the game of

baseball was music to my ears, and furthered my belief that I want to be a MLB GM when I am

older.

Going into this project, I was not under the belief that I was going to further my

knowledge of baseball very much, and by no means did I think I would further it to the point I

did now. Yet, my biggest takeaway from this project will be my hugely expanded knowledge of
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the game of baseball, and how I can use what I know now to gain a leg up on my future

competitors and how I can always expand my knowledge. Prior to this project, I knew about

statistics like launch angle, exit velocity, and other advanced metrics, but I had never thought

about their correlations to success, and you can use them in today’s market. Yet, being able to

learn about baseball every day from writers and people who work around the game made me

realize not only how important these statistics were, but how important so many other advanced

metrics are that are being undervalued in today’s game. Being able to read about the Billy Beane

and the Oakland Athletics, and how they completely transformed the game of baseball and had

the rest of the league copying them for the next fifteen years was extremely inspiring, as he was

able to do his work with the lowest budget in baseball and outside-the-box thinking. It gave me

hope that I could be the next Billy Beane if I continue to expand my knowledge and

understanding of the game of baseball, and look for a way to find a leg up on everyone else.

Most of all, the project put into perspective that the game of baseball is truly evolving

towards sabermetrics and that it is possible for someone like myself who will not play baseball in

college or professionally to come into a front office and be able to take over an organization and

run the way I want to, which was my biggest question going in, and will be my biggest

encouragement going forward.

Work Cited

Berkowitz, Ari. “Scouts and Sabermetrics Can Get along!” Beyond the Box Score, SB

Nation, 26 Oct. 2012.

Bradley, John. “Al Avila Bio.” MLB.com, MLB.com, 4 Jan. 2021.

Bradley, John. “Michael Girsch - Vice President & General Manager.” MLB.com, 2 Feb.

2017.

College, Middlebury. “Economics”. Middlebury, Middlebury College, 18 Mar. 2020.

Crasnick, Jerry. “New-Age Thinking Is Now in Full Force When It Comes to the GM

Position.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 23 Sept. 2015.

Darling, Ron. “Launch Angle (LA): Glossary.” MLB.com, 11 Jan. 2018.

Lewis, Michael.”Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”W.W. Norton. 2013.

Matthews, Alan. Interview. By Cullen Freeman. 24 February.2021.

Matthews, Alan. Interview. By Cullen Freeman. 18 February.2021.

Matthews, Alan. Interview. By Cullen Freeman. 4 March.2021.

Mueller, Bobby. “The Importance of Hard-Hit Percentage.” Community Blog,

FanGraphs, 19 June 2015.

Petriello, Mike. “Statcast's Debut Shows Where Exit Velocity Matters for Hitters.”

MLB.com, MLB, 13 Jan. 2016.

Savant, Baseball. “Max Muncy Statcast, Visuals & Advanced Metrics: MLB.com.”

Baseballsavant.com, MLB.com, 11 Nov. 2020.

Sheppard, James. “The Importance of the Launch Angle.” Elite Diamond Performance,

Elite Diamond Performance, 19 Nov. 2017.

Siegel, Jeremy. “The Importance of 90th Percentile Exit Velocity.” Pitcher List, Pitcher

List, 9 Feb. 2021.

Timmons, Mark. “Andrew Friedman's Ten Commandments.” LA Dodger Talk, LA

Dodger Talk, 29 Dec. 2020.

University, High Point. “School of Business.” Earl N. Phillips School of Business, 2 Feb.

2021.

Wikipedia.“List of Major League Baseball General Managers.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia

Foundation, 27 Jan. 2021.

Wikipedia.“Alex Anthopoulos.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2021.