35 under 35: How Andrew Ball went from blogger to exec with the Angels

It did not take much for Mike Trout to inspire words from Andrew Ball, much as is the case for many a young baseball fanatic.

The game’s best player requires several articles, posts, think pieces and statistical analyses to be fully appreciated and understood. This has been the case with Trout since his near-MVP finish as American League Rookie of the Year in 2012 to now. Take this piece from SB Nation’s Beyond the Box Score, a witty fake banter scripted about Trout’s hypothetical contract extension at age 22 between Trout’s agent, Craig Landis, and then-Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto, “with the caveat that I do not know either of these men, nor do I truly know what they would say in a conversation about Trout.”

The conversation ultimately resulted in fake Landis and fake Dipoto agreeing to a historic eight-year, $152 million contract extension that, as fake Landis put it, “will almost assuredly make someone look foolish four years from now, but only time will tell which one of us that shall be.”

The post was perfect baseball blogging of the era, answering the hypothetical, intriguing what-ifs of the sport while also pooling together data and public research to put forth a compelling argument. It was one of several written by Ball, who at the time was in his mid-20s and worked in the baseball operations department for the independent York Revolution. Blogging for the SB Nation site allowed him to display his baseball knowledge to clubs.

That article also nearly predicted Trout’s eventual contract extension, as the budding superstar signed a six-year, $144.5 million deal the following spring. Five years later, Trout received a second contract extension with the Angels: a 12-year, $426.5 million megadeal that ensured the two-time MVP would be an Angel for life and set the record for the richest contract the sport has ever seen.

As Trout spoke in front of the Angel Stadium crowd in March after signing the deal, Ball sat in the front row as the club’s 30-year-old director of baseball operations.

“If you told 15-year-old me that I would get to do this one day, I would be over the moon,” Ball said.

The barrier for baseball bloggers to get behind the curtain and into actual front offices has been down for decades, from the hirings of then-Baseball Prospectus writer Keith Law by the Blue Jays in 2002 and longtime baseball sabermetrician and writer Bill James by the Red Sox in 2003 to the most recent hirings, such as FanGraph’s Dave Cameron by the Padres in 2018.

With baseball’s doors opening to non-traditional backgrounds, new paths into the game emerged. It also allowed those whose playing careers never materialized to create careers out of almost nothing.

Baseball had long been a passion for Ball while growing up in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, a small town about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It allowed him to connect with family, as the numbers and history of the game took as big a piece of his heart as the joys of playing the sport. He was a pitcher, earning a spot on the staff for the Division III Gwynedd-Mercy College Griffins.

Ball figured he would add velocity when he grew into his body. There were Division III success stories after all, and maybe he would be one of them and make it to the big leagues someday. By his sophomore year, he realized he wouldn’t reach the majors as a player.

Ball immersed himself in the baseball blog sphere, gaining as much knowledge as possible about the different avenues into the sport. He read “The Book” by Tom Tango, Mitchel G. Lichtman and Andrew E. Dolphin, which took a deep dive into the numbers within the sport and how they should be applied. Articles on FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus became appointment reading.

“It was really just anything I could kind of get my hands on at that point,” Ball said. “Because it was all so new to me.”

He became aware of the path blazed by the likes of Law, James and Mike Fast, who was hired by the Astros in 2012 after stints at Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times and ran Houston’s research and development before being lured away by the Braves last offseason. Ball set his sights on following them, but he kept his expectations low.

A college friend who decided to get into writing suggested Ball do so as well. Ball would go on to be the assistant managing editor of SB Nation’s Beyond the Box Score, continuing to put out feelers and cold-calling clubs in search of a job.

“It was kind of a way to get affiliated teams to notice some of the work I was doing,” Ball said. “Just the biggest thing for me was, I was a little bit nervous starting out doing it, but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected to.

“I think it did actually help a lot in terms of just putting together some research, putting together some commentary and getting some feedback on ‘Are you looking into the right things? Are you communicating things in the right way?’ I kind of enjoyed it. But I’m also glad that I didn’t have to do it for too long.”

One of those calls was to the York Revolution, an independent club in the Atlantic League (equal to a Double-A or Triple-A league). They agreed to bring him in for an interview — for a stadium operations position. Given Ball’s course load at Gwynedd-Mercy, his schedule wouldn’t allow him to take the job.

They kept Ball in mind, however, and hired him when a part-time gig in their tiny baseball operations department opened up. Within a year, Ball was promoted to a full-time position that he would hold over the next three years. In that span, York would go 217-187 (.517), including a 2011 Atlantic League championship over the Long Island Ducks.

In Ball’s time with the Revolution, 14 players managed to work their way back into affiliated ball, including seven who made the majors. One of those players, right-hander Ian Thomas, stands out to Ball.

Thomas, a former undrafted reliever out of Virginia Commonwealth University, had nearly quit baseball after a brief independent ball stint with Winnipeg of the American Association, but he parlayed a strong showing with York into a contract with Atlanta. Thomas would eventually make it to the big leagues, making 30 appearances with the Braves and Dodgers.

“It is kind of a second-chance league in a lot of ways, or a first chance for some guys,” Ball said of the Atlantic League. “So that was really cool to kind of see (Ian) get an opportunity, and to see him kind of hit his dreams in a sense.”

Over that time, Ball kept writing — the Trout prose wasn’t going to write itself — and kept looking for opportunities in affiliated ball. A brief stint as an associate scout for his hometown Phillies was his first taste and eventually helped him get hired by the Rays just prior to the 2014 season as an advance scouting intern.

It was his writing that got the attention of affiliated clubs, notably Tampa’s.

“In some cases it helped,” Ball said. “In some cases, maybe not so much.”

Within a year, he was brought on full-time as a baseball operations assistant. By October 2016, the Rays moved Ball up to the role of assistant director of pro scouting. It wasn’t long until other organizations took notice.

Angels general manager Billy Eppler called Ball before the 2017 season. While he had heard of Eppler’s exploits during his time with the Yankees and in Anaheim with fellow former Yankees executive Steve Martone and Dipoto-era holdovers such as Jonathan Strangio and Mike LaCassa, he hadn’t had direct conversations with anyone on the Angels.

Ball thought he bombed his interview. As he spoke to Eppler, he felt unprepared for the job that was being discussed. While flying back to the East Coast, he pondered all the strides he still had to make to become a director of baseball operations, a gap only further exposed over the course of his meeting with Eppler.

Then Eppler called. Ball got the job.

“I just think it’s one of those things where, for whatever reason, Billy and the group kind of saw something in me, that they maybe gave me an opportunity even before I think I fully thought I was ready to take on the job,” Ball said. “They gave me a lot of support and abilities to go kind of grow and develop in that and continue to give me that support. I’m really grateful for that.

“The biggest takeaway for me from working with them is just the relationship building, with the staff, with players, with agents, with whoever it is and how important that is. That’s one of the things that’s evident with (Eppler) right away. It’s one of the things that drew me, and I think a lot of the other people that have joined the front office, and working here is just kind of the culture, the environment that they’ve created here. It’s palpable, kind of as soon as you get here, and you feel that. We’re really fortunate to be a part of it.”

Even now, in his third season with the Angels, Ball finds himself in disbelief at his current role which, in his view, is an even more magnified version of his role with York. In a baseball operations department of 200-plus people, Ball assists in overseeing each facet — from the big-league club down to the lowest rungs of the Dominican Summer League.

That means getting the chance to experience the greatness of Trout and Shohei Ohtani while also serving as an ally for a club looking to build something sustainable despite not having a winning record since 2015.

“In some ways, it feels like work going to a baseball game,” Ball said. “I can’t always sit back and enjoy it the same way I did. But on the flip side of that, you know, the bad days that we have in our jobs, we’re still on the baseball field. That beats the heck out of a lot of things.

“There’s a lot of things that aren’t like the things that are more like maybe fantasy baseball. … (There were) a lot of things that I couldn’t even envision being something that we would have to do or that has to happen to kind of produce that 25-man roster for just a random game in August.”

The path for a baseball writer to someday run his own club seems clearer than ever, particularly as front offices get younger and more non-traditional. Eppler himself never played beyond his collegiate pitching career at the University of Connecticut. Erik Neander of the Rays and David Stearns of the Brewers are running franchises while in their 30s.

With writers flooding front offices, perhaps one of them will soon get a chance to run a club. Maybe it’ll be Ball.

“It could be,” he said. “I think people are open-minded to people from a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of things. I mean, I’ve worked with Jonathan Strangio. He’s an English major, and maybe has, in some senses a more traditional background, but in some not. I’ve worked with Chaim Bloom (the Rays’ senior vice president of baseball operations), who I think is certainly on the cusp of getting that next step somewhere and is already in a very high step. He’s a classics major.

“I’m really happy in the role that I have here, and just kind of continuing to grow and learn. But I think baseball is changing the way that, as long as you kind of bring something to the table, people are open-minded to how you can come have an impact.”

(Top photo of Andrew Ball: Fabian Ardaya / The Athletic)

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35 under 35: How Andrew Ball went from blogger to exec with the Angels