Baseball operations is a section of a Major League club’s front offices that handles all aspects of running the baseball portion of the club.
Baseball operations are further divided into certain departments including; multiple scouting sections, major league operations, minor league operations, and research and development.
Baseball operations are separate from other front office departments such as; marketing, ticket sales, gameday operations, accounting, legal, etc. Simply put, baseball operations’ sole focus is to construct the roster for the major league team and minor league affiliates.
Structure
The baseball operations department is usually led by the General Manager or President of Baseball Operations. This individual is usually an executive of the organization and will answer solely to the team owner or chairman of the board.
They will oversee all baseball operations departments. Below the GM or President of Baseball Operations will be assistant GMs or Directors for each individual department within baseball operations. Together these members are the leadership of baseball operations.
Departments
Major league operations are a department within baseball operations that is responsible for acquiring and selecting players, coaches, and other staff for the major league roster. Major league operations assist the team manager and coaches with advance scouting and game planning.
They will be responsible for negotiating player and coach contracts, determining off-season acquisition strategy, and all operational tasks regarding the major league team.
Most teams will have multiple scouting departments, all under the umbrella of baseball operations. The traditional setup includes three scouting sections: amateur scouting, professional scouting, and international scouting. Each section targets a specific area of baseball and all aim to assist in the development of the organization as a whole.
Amateur scouting works on analyzing high school, junior college, and college players. Professional scouting covers all minor and major league teams, as well as independent professional leagues so that clubs are prepared and in the know when trades are being worked out and during free agency.
International scouting searches for players in geographic locations outside of the United States. The most popular areas include South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Asia. Teams will mostly target young amateur players to bring into the organization and develop, but in certain cases, such as the Nippon Baseball League, in Japan, targets can include professional players close to or at physical and mental maturity.
Minor league operations, sometimes referred to as, “player development’, is a section of baseball operations that focuses on the function and development of the club’s minor league players, coaches, and staff.
Duties include organizing travel throughout the year (to and from spring training, in-season travel, and to and from off-season camps), creating and managing affiliate team budgets, developing and implementing development plans for players, and various other tasks to help the advancement and progression of the players and staff.
Research and development are the newest departments within most baseball operations units as the influx of data and information has rapidly grown in baseball over the past decade or two.
Sometimes shortened to, “R&D”, the research and development department is an analytically based team that uses objective data to analyze the game of baseball. They use computer programming to create and maintain internal databases, statistics, and tools to assist in the operation of the baseball operations department.
Summary
Baseball operations departments vary in size and construction from club to club but they all have the common goal of constructing championship-caliber teams. They are complex and cover many areas of the game from the major leagues to minor leagues to data development and collection to the amateur ranks. The baseball operations departments help produce, develop, and maintain the on-field product that MLB fans love to consume.
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