Word: depodesta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...surge of former Ivy Leaguers making their way into baseball operations first came to the forefront in Michael Lewis’ 2003 book “Moneyball.” Lewis followed the inner workings of the Oakland Athletics front office, making specific reference to Paul DePodesta ’95, a Harvard graduate who served as Assistant General Manager to Billy Beane in Oakland at the time and has since moved on to become General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers...
...DePodesta was largely portrayed as the stereotypical Ivy League nerd in the book—perpetually crouched behind the screen of his omnipresent laptop—but at the same time he was given tremendous credit for guiding the A’s through statistical analyses rather than relying solely on conventional scouting methods...
Encouraged by the business aspect of the game that the book highlighted, the number of Ivy graduates attempting to enter baseball front offices increased dramatically. Even before Moneyball reached the bestseller list, however, DePodesta and Hill—along with Theo Epstein, a 1995 Yale graduate and current Red Sox General Manager, and Mark Shapiro, a 1989 Princeton graduate and current Cleveland Indians General Manager—were all well-entrenched in the game. They have now become the examples for the many Ivy Leaguers aspiring to find a way into baseball...
...former talk about sports and Harvard was once how our graduates were invading Major League Baseball, led by Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta ‘95, Red Sox Director of Player Operations Peter Woodfork ‘99, A’s Assistant GM (and Billy Beane’s right-hand man) David Forst ‘98, and recently-promoted Marlins VP and Assistant GM Mike Hill...
...irony, though, is that while Ivy League alums like Red Sox GM Theo Epstein (who didn’t play sports at Yale, but did write about them for the Yale Daily News) and Los Angeles GM Paul DePodesta ’95 (who only played JV baseball at Harvard) have embraced sabermetrics as a valuable tool, current Ivy League ball players are much more likely to get drafted by front offices that still rely heavily on tools-based scouting...