Hoornstra: What entry-level pro baseball job descriptions can tell us

On Sept. 1, 1950, the Dodgers hired a 17-year-old named Bill DeLury to work in their mail room in Brooklyn. He moved west with the team to Los Angeles seven years later, and remained employed in various organizational capacities until his death in 2015.

This is not the typical career path in baseball. These days, an entry-level job with an MLB team can be found where every other entry-level job is found: on the internet. In a few weeks, dozens of college kids and recent graduates will descend upon the Winter Meetings in Nashville hoping to snag a vacancy.

The offseason for baseball players is showtime for 30 human resources departments across North America. It’s hiring season.

This is true at the top of baseball operations departments, too. Since the end of the 2023 season, seven teams have changed managers. The Boston Red Sox, Miami Marlins and New York Mets have brought in new executives to lead their front office.

Often, big changes at the top come with new mandates that trickle down to the rest of an organization. So, who and what are teams looking for these days? What can your basic entry-level job listing teach us about trends within the baseball industry?

Here are three job listings I found to be revealing of some especially important lessons:

1. The days of poorly fed minor leaguers are gone

The Houston Astros are looking for a minor-league dietitian apprentice to work with their affiliate in the Class-A Carolina League, the Fayetteville Woodpeckers. The position requires a Bachelor’s Degree (preferably a Master’s), a Registered Dietitian credential, a license from the state, and preferably fluency in English and Spanish.

We also learn from the job listing that the Astros already have a minor-league nutrition coordinator, ostensibly someone who oversees meals for all the parent club’s affiliates. It isn’t just meals, though. Under the banner of “performance nutrition,” the dietitian apprentice must engage in “education, medical nutrition therapy, counseling, and practice and competition fueling,” among other duties as assigned.

The pay for this position isn’t given in the job description, but it’s revealing of how many qualifications are required of even a low-level support staff position with a minor-league affiliate. The Astros are a progressive organization when it comes to player development, so maybe it’s unfair to extrapolate too much from one job listing. But it’s safe to assume that, for minor-league players, we’re past the time when peanut butter and jelly sandwiches counted as full meals.

2. ‘Scouting versus analytics’ is a false choice

The New York Mets are looking for an Amateur Scouting Associate, someone who can “support the Amateur Scouting Department in the day-to-day operations, research projects, and administration tasks.”

Naturally, the amateur scouting associate will be working with amateur scouts to identify possible future Mets currently playing in high school or college. Stereotypically, I think that still conjures an image of men holding a radar gun in one hand and a clipboard in the other while standing behind a chain-link fence behind home plate.

In reality? The amateur scouting associate will “process daily scout video,” and “input, map, and/or tag any Trackman data and stats in our database/website.” Familiarity with quantitative data from Trackman, Blast Motion, K-Vest is expected. Experience with the coding language SQL is “a plus but not required.” So is actual baseball or softball playing experience.

If Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball” introduced a scouts-versus-stats paradigm that dominates how fans and media think about baseball operations, we need a new movie to tear the paradigm down.

While I was reporting a story four years ago, one National League scout told me his organization had found “a happy medium” of both quantitative analytics and traditional scouting. Now these happy mediums are struck within the same department, even within the same job.

3. Conduits still matter

The 2019 book “The MVP Machine” accurately portrayed the idea of “conduits” – people with blended backgrounds in baseball and data analytics who can communicate complex quantitative analyses in terms players will understand. Four years later, what exactly do these people do?

The Cleveland Guardians’ job listing for a Baseball Technology Fellow offers some clues. From the description, job candidates “will be expected to manage the collection of multiple data streams and operate as a resource for both coaches and players” for one minor-league affiliate team. Those data streams include bat/ball-tracking technology, pregame, in-game and postgame video, and “other sports science technology.”

From the job description, “the candidate will be able to clearly communicate with others, build strong relationships, and have the ability to present complex topics to a wide range of audiences.” That includes players, coaches, player development personnel, and baseball operations folks – a broad audience with wildly varying degrees of familiarity with technology.

For the new hire’s sake, I hope the job pays well.