Experience Spotlight - Alex Gimenez, Cleveland Indians

In this semester's Experience Spotlight series, the blog will be featuring Cornell ILR SBS members who have excelled in positions in the sports industry. Many talented Cornell students are making impressions all across the sports world, and this is their chance to showcase their experiences.

This week's Spotlight focuses on Alex Gimenez '15.  Alex is a senior in Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. He has been a dedicated member of the club since his freshman year at Cornell, serving as the Ivy Sports Representative in 2013.  Alex has also founded Cornell at Bat, and eventually, the Big Red Sports Network.  He can be reached at ajg322@cornell.edu.

Alex worked with the Cleveland Indians from January through August 2014 as part of the ILR credit internship program.  Alex served as a Strategy Intern with the Indians, and was kind enough to answer some questions about his experience.


What were some of your day-to-day responsibilities of the position?

The day-to-day responsibilities surrounding my job really vary depending on the projects I’m working on. I’ll typically have two major projects and one smaller project. It is basically up to me to manage my time in a way that allows me to complete the projects effectively and efficiently. I’ve worked on everything from realigning our pricing locations down the foul lines and creating a "point pricing system" for our season ticket holder loyalty program, to redeveloping our program for customer service initiatives and helping in the creation of our dynamic ticket pricing models. 

How were you able to get the internship?

It’s actually a fairly long story. I was paired with an ILRSBS alum, Gabe Gershenfeld through an ILR alumni mentorship program my freshman year, and Gabe helped to facilitate a meeting with one of the Indians' Senior Vice Presidents during the MIT Conference. We really hit it off and remained in touch over the next year. Last May, he invited me out to Cleveland to meet others in the organization and I presented the possibility of using the ILR Credit Internship program as an opportunity to do an internship. Five months later, after many interviews,  a new internship position  was created through the Indians HR Department, and approved by the ILR  credit internship office, I accepted the offer in late November.

How has this experience shaped your career plans?

My experience has helped me to really understand myself, my interests, and my skill set and how they best fit in the sports industry. I’ve had interest in working in professional baseball for a long time and this experience helped me to focus in on more specific areas. Being able to gain this experience as a junior where I still have a full year of college left was crucial. I feel like I am in a much better place to make an informed decision on my next steps that will allow me to be happy and successful while providing high value to my future employer. Ultimately, the experience helped show me that the broadcasting, media and PR side of the industry may be the best fit for me, and realizing that this early on was really beneficial.

What advice would you give another student interested in a similar experience?

1. You are going to be challenged in ways that you might not have ever imagined. I’ve been lucky that the Indians have really trusted me with some challenging and important projects, but that definitely brings with its fair share of pressure. There are a lot of days where my 9-5 job becomes a 9-8 job so you have to be prepared to work hard and do what is necessary to get the job done and get it done the right way. 

2. Despite spending most of my life following sports and much of the last four years trying to better understand the business side of the industry, there is so much about the operation of a professional sports franchise that I never knew before stepping into the front office. Understand that, and try to gain as much knowledge as you can before you step in the door. It will really help you in getting a job if you can demonstrate that you understand the business. When you do get your foot in the door, be open to learning about every aspect of the operation, because you never know when you’ll be able to use that knowledge. 

3. Gain a mastery of Excel, Powerpoint, and Word and try to gain some coding experience in programs like SQL, R, or even C++. I know it sounds strange, but you will use Excel a ton and being able to manipulate data in the program will make your learning curve once on the job so much easier. Understanding code will give you an edge over a lot of people when applying for jobs in baseball (player) operations or business operations because coding is used to pull data from databases within these organizations. 

4. Network with people and find ways to get them interested in you by showing how you can provide value to them. I would not have been able to get this opportunity, but for my connections who were willing to make a sacrifice and take a risk on me in a professional setting. The only way to find jobs in the sports industry is to be proactive. 

5. In regards to networking, remember that the highest level people, the team presidents, the GMs, etc are in most cases not the people who are making hiring decisions for entry level positions. While networking with them can still lead to something great, don’t forget to network with middle level managers who make hiring decisions. They will be the people who end up giving you your first job, and in many cases, will end up moving up the ranks to become a high level executive down the road. 

6. In any entry level experience in sports or otherwise, make sure you are not just blindly accepting a position because the name of the company means something to you. Look for opportunities where you will be able to learn and grow your skill set while gaining valuable experience on meaningful projects. At the end of the day, people who are making hiring decisions care more about what you did at an organization , not the name of that organization.

What was your favorite aspect of the experience? 

It is difficult to pick just one. As far as one single event, it was having the opportunity to sit in the draft room for day 2 of the draft. I’m not in baseball operations, but I definitely have an interest in that side of the industry so getting to see what went on from within was a great opportunity. It was much less chaotic than I expected it to be. 

Aside from the draft, I’ve really just enjoyed being able to interact with a Major League Baseball team. Learning from meeting a lot of different people has been great, and I’ve been lucky to have some experiences outside of business and analytics such as watching the draft from the draft room or calling games in a spare radio booth for practice.

Thank you to Alex and the Cleveland Indians for allowing us to share this awesome experience. We hope you have learned about some of the wonderful opportunities that Cornell, the ILR School, and the ILR Sports Business Society can provide in the sports world. We hope to feature many more stories from students and employers this fall!

Batting Leadoff: Is Making Offseason Headlines a Good Thing?

This post originally appeared on Batting Leadoff. Batting Leadoff is a website dedicated to providing readers with premium baseball content. Posts from the site will appear regularly on the Sports Business Society Blog (view the information in the sidebar for updated information.)

-By Alex Smith

As we enter the 2013 offseason, we’re going to hear a lot about the free agent activities of Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Shin-Soo Choo, as well as possible trades involving David Price and Troy Tulowitzki. However, it’s likely that the signings and trades of other lesser-known players will have a bigger impact on the outcome of the 2014 season than the signings and possible trades of these superstars.

If you look at recent history, it’s the teams who have made shrewd value driven acquisitions rather than a lot of noise that have made the largest jumps in the standings on a year-to-year basis. If we compare the standings from 2012 to 2013, the Red Sox made the grandest jump in wins at 28, the Cleveland Indians made the second largest leap at 24, the Royals the third highest at 18, and the Pirates the fourth greatest leap at 15 wins.

In case you didn’t notice, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Angels, despite being last winter’s biggest headliners, failed to make this list. In fact, the Blue Jays only won 1 more game in 2013 than they did in 2012 and the Angels actually lost 11 more games. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds also made a lot of news around the blogosphere last winter, but the Dodgers broke the bank to make sure that spending was worth it and the Reds simply added an established outfielder in Choo to an already playoff-bound core.

So what does this all teach us? First, let’s analyze how the Red Sox, Indians, Royals, and Pirates made their jumps to the top of the standings. Red Sox fans were frustrated last offseason with the lack of a notable moves after getting rid of the contracts of Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Carl Crawford. However, they received fantastic value in the signings of Shane Victorino, Koji Uehara, and Mike Napoli. This value, combined with healthier seasons from Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury, the reemergence of Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, and David Ortiz’s ability to fend off father time, led them to a championship.

The Indians made some headlines last winter by signing outfielders Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, yet it wasn’t just these signings that led the Tribe to earn one of the wildcard births. Between them, they only posted a WAR of 4.4 in 2013, 1.8 WAR below Michael Bourn’s personal 2012 WAR. The Indians were successful because Jason Kipnis broke out, Yan Gomes and Ryan Raburn far exceeded expectations, and Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Scott Kazmir all turned their careers around. In essence, rather than the noteworthy signings of Swisher and Bourn making the quintessential difference, it was the less noteworthy acquisitions of Kazmir, Gomes, and Raburn along with improvements from players they already had, that led Cleveland’s turnaround.

Of the four teams that made the biggest leaps in wins, the Royals are, in a way, the outlier. Their “big” trade last winter actually did pay off, at least in the context of 2013. By acquiring James Shields, the Royals were able to shore up what otherwise would have been a questionable pitching staff and win 90 games. The down-side to this, though, is the consequences that will come with the short-sightedness of the Shields trade.

Even though the Royals won 90 games, they gave up Wil Myers in the process. Myers could be a top five player in baseball in a few years and the Royals would have had six years of team control. Instead, they received two years of James Shields and they failed to make the postseason in year one. Yet, just stating that the Royals improvements can be attributed to Shields would be foolish. Like the Indians and Red Sox, the Royals also benefitted significantly from unheralded signings such as Ervin Santana and Jeremy Guthrie.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are the best example of how value-driven acquisitions can turn a franchise around. Without making too many national news outlets last year, the Pirates smartly picked up Russell Martin and Francisco Liriano via free agency and then traded for Marlon Byrd and Justin Morneau at mid-season to help fill holes in their lineup. It’s also important to note the chance Pittsburgh took on A.J. Burnett the year before that has paid off mightily. It is through these moves that the Pirates have been able to find effective supporting players for their home-grown superstars like NL MVP Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez.

Now that we’ve analyzed where it went right for the aforementioned four teams, let’s look at where it went wrong for the Blue Jays and Angels. The Blue Jays pitching staff was a wreck all year with no consistency behind Dickey and Buehrle, both of whom were only mediocre. Offensively, Reyes only played in 93 games and their lineup simply had too many holes around him. It’s hard to go anywhere when you only have two players in your lineup who played in more than 110 games and posted positive WARs.

The Los Angeles Angels were supposed to have one of the best lineups in baseball in 2013 after the addition of Josh Hamilton. All winter, fans were giddy about getting to see a top of the lineup featuring Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and Mark Trumbo. Yet, Pujols’ injury problems caused him to struggle until he eventually was forced to have season-ending surgery and Hamilton never lived up to expectations. However, the Angels would have needed both of these players to be absolutely spectacular if they were going to overcome their pitching deficiencies. The Angels had the fourth highest xFIP in the league and the 7th highest ERA, and only C.J. Wilson pitched more than 155 innings for the year.

After analyzing what went right and what went wrong in terms of 2012-13 offseason acquisitions, a major theme becomes clear: star players are nice and are good for building excitement going into a season, but filling holes is more important. These players, who can often be acquired cheaply and fly under the radar, serve as the glue for any team with the intentions of contending in the postseason.

The Oakland A’s, who built a team around such undervalued assets (they made their jump from 2011 to 2012 so it’s not chronicled in this article), are a perfect example of how having no holes can be more effective than trying to compensate for holes with star players. If you’re going to make a headline move, however, you must be adding to an existing core (see Cincinnati Reds) or you must be willing to spend like the current Los Angeles Dodgers or 2000s New York Yankees. If your team’s not doing this, they’re either selling out on their future to succeed (see Kansas City Royals) or only trying to sell tickets without caring about winning.

Knowing this trend, I encourage all fans to follow where players like Bronson Arroyo, Dan Haren, and David Murphy end up. Because while it will be fun seeing where Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury, Shin-Soo Choo, David Price, and Troy Tulowitzki land (and they will all definitely impact the 2014 season) it is the signings that go barely noticed that could be making the biggest difference next fall.

Alex Smith is a junior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. In addition to being the founder of Batting Leadoff, he works as a scout/field manager for Perfect Game USA and sits on the planning committee for the 2013 Ivy Sports Symposium. He is a relief pitcher on the Cornell varsity baseball team and hopes to one day pursue a career in baseball operations, player development, or amateur scouting. Contact him at aws77@cornell.edu or follow him on twitter @RealAlexSmith19.

This post originally appeared on Batting Leadoff. Batting Leadoff is a website dedicated to providing readers with premium baseball content. Posts from the site will appear regularly on the Sports Business Society Blog (view the information in the sidebar for updated information).

Event Recap: Gabe Gershenfeld ('11)

           

On April 16, 2012, Gabe Gershenfeld ’11 videoconferenced with the ILR Sports Business Society. A graduate of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations with minors in Economics and Information Science, Gabe currently works for the Cleveland Indians as a Strategic Analyst. Before coming to Cleveland, Gabe interned with Sara Lee, the San Diego Padres and Major League Baseball. He also was a presenter at the Evolution of Sport talks at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, discussing how Labor Relations, Human Resources and Sports intersect. While at Cornell, Gabe served as President of our organization, then called the ILR Sports Management Club. Gabe shared his career experiences and advice for students interested in entering the industry.

As an analyst, Gabe’s primary responsibilities relate strongly to the Indians’ development and execution of strategies. By using data to make decisions, Gabe and his colleagues improve the Indians’ approach to a number of business issues. Essentially, they focus on creating more effective and efficient ways for the franchise to make money.

 One thing Gabe touched on was the collaborative side of the business.  On the business side, teams are often willing to share best practices.  This is different from the highly competitive baseball operations field, where teams maintain a degree of secrecy to develop advantages.  By exchanging information about marketing, ticketing and other business competencies, franchises can make better decisions and drive more revenue.

Furthermore, Gabe discussed the importance of active networking and education.  Touching on the importance of developing as a professional early and often, he discussed how his internships and work at Cornell prepared him for his current job.  As a recent alum, his advice was particularly valuable to students, especially those preparing to enter the job market.

As always, ILRSBS thanks alumni like Gabe Gershenfeld who share their experiences in the sports industry with our members. We are truly appreciative of Gabe’s commitment to educating students on the sports industry and we hope to host him at another event in the future.