My Baseball Career: Noah Landow

Breaking Into Baseball Blog: Noah Landow, STL

Here at Baseball Connect, we are always looking to bring our audience the most direct and impactful tools to help you grow your understanding of the game of Baseball. With the Fall being the peak of hiring season for MLB Teams, we wanted to bring you a new blog series where we interview current MLB Employees and ask them all questions we wish we knew the answers to when we were seeking jobs in the industry.

It’s so important to get first-hand stories from people who have been in your very shoes, because sometimes you’ll get the exact answer to questions you may have, and more importantly, you’re very likely to hear an answer to a question you never even thought to ask! So, without further ado, let’s dive into our first “Breaking Into Baseball” blog with our interview with Major League Video and Technology Specialist for the St. Louis Cardinals, Noah Landow!

BC: Noah, let’s start out by you telling us about yourself and what you currently do in Baseball?

Noah: My name is Noah Landow, and I am the Major League Video and Technology Specialist for the St Louis Cardinals. I work with everything having to do with video, technology and assisting with advance scouting on our hitting side, being a resource for our hitting coaches and our staff when it comes to batted ball tracking data, any senors we use, biomechanic devices, and playing a part in preparing our reports on the opposing pitching staff and preparing our players for what their plan is going to be night in and night out.

BC: What was your first Baseball job, and how did you get it?

Noah: My first job in baseball was while I was in school, where I was the student manager for the NYU baseball program. I entered that role by having a relationship with the coach from my playing days, I had talked to him when I was in high school. I had some things come up health wise where i had to pivot to the operations direction rather than playing, but i stayed in touch with him and he opened up a student manager position that would help him out with paperwork, correspondence with making sure we were scheduling practices at good times for our players, helping with basic on field reports, hitting fungos on field and more. It was my first opportunity to get my hands on baseball tech, like setting up and breaking down Rapsodo, operating a pitching session, I also started digging into the rapsodo certifications, as well as articles online about those technologies while I was learning on the fly how to use the info we were getting for it. That was my first opportunity working in the game that helped me get to where I am now.

BC: For people that don’t have any current baseball experience but want to work in the game, what can they do to gain some beginner level experience that would help their resume?

Noah: I think now more than ever there is so much publicly available information, whether that’s blogs or articles on websites like Baseball Savant or Fangraphs where you can see swing data and visualizations on baseball savant, even if you can’t get your hands on baseball tech, company websites like rapsodo and their certified program, blast motion, and others have explainer videos on the metrics they collect. Baseball Connect’s videos were also incredibly helpful when I first got into pro ball, so being able to go back to those free videos as a resource helped me become a master at what is publicly available. I then used that data to create my own research projects to show teams that I have gained that knowledge that has turned into a pre-requsiite for those entry level positions.

BC: How important is specializing in one area of the game vs being able to add value in a number of ways?

Noah: I think it’s important to become a master of something, being able to answer any question someone has, and make a name for yourself in that area. Creating that path for yourself to be useful to an organization. It’s important to understand a little bit of everything that’s going on to be a liaison between departments that work together toward that same role, and there are positions for that; but when you’re first trying to break in and teams are trying to gauge where can this person help us now? Being a master in your speciality is what will help you get noticed in my opinion.

BC: What kind of people do you see tend to thrive in a Baseball environment?

Noah: I think one thing you realize quickly is whether you are someone who likes Baseball or you love working in Baseball. Liking Baseball is not enough to be successful in this game. In order to meet the personal requirements the game brings upon us every single day over the course of a long season, you need more than simply liking Baseball. People that are truly passionate about working in the game and making a difference and who have that competition factor, people that are grinders, that when challenged with something they don’t know how to do, instead of giving up and accepting they can’t do it, they spend that extra time to study up on whatever it is so the next time you’re faced with that task, you’re able to complete it.

Learning through that process, being able to take criticism at times, because it’s tough and you’re not going to do everything correctly, taking the emotion out of the miss and taking the information out of it is key. With life too, you have to have thick skin, you’re going to work with different people that are in stressful situations, and you might hear about it if you make a mistake, but putting that emotion aside to make the necessary adjustments is what’s most important. People that have that motivation for self-improvement, having thick skin, having a drive and passion for the inner workings and the details, not just the “ i want to win a world series because that’s cool”, but behind the scenes, taking appreciation of the little things that go into it, that’s who thrives.

BC: Have mentors played a role in your career path? If so, how can someone find a mentor in baseball?

Noah: Definitely, I think it’s important, networking in this game is everything. When you get into the game, it’s a small circle. There are small steps you can take now as a job seeker, whether it’s through attending the Winter Meetings, or reaching out to people on linkedin who aren’t in the highest positions with teams, but Managers or Coordinators. These people can break down their day to day and give insight on those entry level positions, and are who usually run the hiring process for those roles, so getting those opinions and their advice is important. You can send emails out to 50 people and it only takes 1 yes to spend 10 minutes on a phone call that can totally change the game for you. So leveraging those opportunities with your in person interactions can change everything. I was lucky to get some of those introductory conversations that helped me get here and I may not be doing this at this point without those people taking the time to answer my emails.

BC: Lastly Noah, Once you are inside the Baseball industry as you are, how do you keep improving so you move up the ladder once your foot is in the door?

Noah: Well, it is extremely important not to be complacent ever, during our live call with BC we discussed how you may be in the Major Leagues but there are always people waiting in the wings to take your spot. The game never stops growing, so you can either grow with it or you can get out. Some ways I keep improving and growing are in continuing to enhance and innovate our process to allow us to get more things done, trying to increase our bandwidth without sacrificing what we are able to accomplish. I also look to use AI to accomplish certain tasks, as teams are looking for more ways to get into that world, trying every year to increase our output, automate processes, learning new skills on coding side or AI or video software for us that we can use. Adding more tools to the toolbox for when those unexpected situations arise during the year.