How To Acquire Top Talent Like A Major League Baseball General Manager

Lessons in talent acquisition and management from baseball front offices

“The whole organization has work in harmony if things are to go right,” Baseball Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog wrote. “You can’t acquire or develop good players unless everyone in the front office is thinking alike, or unless there’s one strong personality in charge.” Baseball front offices have spent the past nearly 200 years trying to beat their opponents. And the most important factor is acquiring and developing better players. Some of the lessons from successful teams can be ported beyond baseball. Herzog’s appeal for having an organizational philosophy is the first and most basic. There are others as well.

Having harmony or an organizational philosophy does not mean everyone should think alike or player development plans are one size fits all. It does mean everyone should understand how they fit into the organization and what is expected of them. In baseball, the franchises first associated with this concept—the Cardinal Way, the Dodger Way, the Oriole Way—all had long stretches of dominance. All three were revered for their player development and organizational excellence. Though perhaps not as explicit today, top teams like the Houston Astros, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Atlanta Braves have distinctive approaches to team building. An organizational philosophy that augments organizational learning and excellence should help any team or company find and grow talent. 

Continuing with Herzog, acquiring and developing good players requires harmony, but it also requires more. For example, securing star amateur players through the draft or international signings entails both great scouting and solid analytics—the intuitive human evaluation and the analytical assessment. In 2009, the St. Louis Cardinals selected Matt Adams in the 23rd round of the draft from a Division II college. The player represented a collaboration between scout Brian Hopkins and analyst Sig Mejdal: Hopkins liked what he saw, while Mejdal had crafted a projection model for college ballplayers at lower levels that offered a solid forecast.  Adams went on to play ten years in the majors, an extreme rarity among players drafted that low. Outside of baseball, both methods—under very different circumstances and approaches—can also be used to evaluate potential talent.

Of course, not only must a team sign the best players, they also need to develop them. The best organizations are consistently at the forefront of player development, both in the techniques themselves and in the consistency of the teaching. In the early 1960s, for example, during spring training the Baltimore Orioles introduced a comprehensive guidebook that covered specifically designed drills for each position on the field, held classes to instill the knowledge, and even devised individual development plans for certain players. At the time, many other teams were functioning much more informally based on how the manager and his coaches had operated in the past. Talent needs nurturing, training, and experience to grow. The best organizations understand this.

Another lesson from baseball general managers is to cast as wide a net as possible to find players. Hall of Fame general manager Pat Gillick called it searching in many rivers. As GM of the Toronto Blue Jays, Gillick was at the forefront of creating a baseball academy in the player-rich Dominican Republic. In the draft, he occasionally selected multi-sport athletes that other teams might have shied away from. He exploited an often-overlooked player source, the Rule 5 draft of veteran minor leaguers, to land key contributors. Later while in Seattle, Gillick built a team that tied the all-time record for most wins in a season by making astute free agent signings. He also looked overseas, signing Ichiro Suzuki, major-league baseball’s first Japanese position player, who quickly became a sensation in the United States. To build a winner, organizations should use every available avenue to find talent. 

Being persistent also paid off for Gillick. Star prospect John Olerud had told all the teams not to draft him in 1989, that he intended to come back and play his senior college season. Gillick, who had already invested time in courting Olerud, continued to pursue him. He drafted Olerud in the third round, visited him nine times, and offered a large signing bonus, eventually signing the future star first baseman. For his persistence and creativity, Gillick landed a first-round talent in the third round.

In the competitive environment of professional sports, baseball teams have been forced to refine their methods over many years. Unlike other industries, however, baseball teams acquire talent from a very small talent pool under a narrow, explicitly constrained structure. Nevertheless, some of the general principles that have led to success in baseball can be applied more broadly: have a solid organizational philosophy, look widely and in previously under-explored areas, use both intuitive and analytical techniques, stay persistent and creative, and when you find the best, know how to develop them. One never knows where the next superstar might come from.

Award-winning writer Daniel R. Levitt is the author of multiple books and numerous well-respected and well-received articles. As Executive Vice President for Ryan Companies US, he’s overseen more than $10 billion of capital transactions in the past five years. Dan is also one of the nation’s most astute baseball commentators on ownership, general managers, business strategies, and the ethics that surround the sport. Dan is an occasional MLB Network TV guest commentator and an experienced radio guest.  He is a regular speaker at SABR’s annual convention and has presented at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. He is the recipient of the highest award of the Society for American Baseball Research, the prestigious Bob Davids Award. In 2017, he won SABR’s Chadwick Award, a lifetime achievement award honoring baseball’s great researchers.  Visit daniel-levitt.com