There is an episode of the classic Simpsons where Sly Businessman Mr. Burns recruits real major league baseball players and joins his company’s softball team to win the bet. But when the championship went to the line, Burns pulls the National League eight-time All-Star Daryl Strawberry for his replacement, Homer Simpson.
“You’re left-handed, and so are pitchers. If you send a right-handed batsman, it’s called playing percentages,” Burns tells Strawberry. “That’s what smart managers do to win the ball game.”
High-level baseball is very mathematically driven, with teams hiring dozens of data engineers to study granular statistics that can inform administrative decisions. But it’s fascinating to overanalyse baseball statistics to the point of absurdity, like Mr. Burns in that Simpsons episode.
The Oakland Ballers, an independent Pioneer League baseball team, have taken the concept of “playing percentages” to the next level. Now let AI manage teams for the game.
Ballers was founded by Edtech entrepreneur Paul Friedman as an ointment for the beloved Auckland A departure. They are not major league teams, but the Oakland Ballers (Coiley, Auckland B) have established an unprecedented national community of fans who have revolved their teams in protest of A’s departure. Just two seasons later, the Ballers won Oakland’s first baseball title since 1989.
“The Oakland Ballers have a unique experience of becoming like a major league team in the minor league market,” Friedman told TechCrunch. “We can have creative flexibility. We can play with things and experiment with things before the MLB or the NBA or any of those leagues do anything.”
Minor league baseball organizations are often required to test new technologies before being implemented in majors, such as instant replay footage and challenging calls with automated ball strike systems. Ballers accepted this attitude. Especially considering Friedman’s own high-tech background, he’s piloting things that he doesn’t actually make his debut in major league baseball.
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Last year, this meant that fans would make administrative decisions during one slow season game in partnership with Fan Control Sports. The Ballers ended up losing the game as fans advocated the decisions of the most entertaining managers rather than the most funny managers. At one point, the fans called out the pitcher to hit.
This time, as the team concludes the postseason berth, Ballers partnered with AI Company Distillery to commission AI software that allows them to manage baseball games in real time.
“Baseball is the perfect place to do first experiments like this because it’s very data-driven and decisions are made very analytical,” Friedman told TechCrunch. “There’s a pace where you can literally do something on a pitch.”
The distillery has trained over a century of baseball data and analysis, including Ballers Games, for over a century, and has estimated the decisions made by Ballers Manager Aaron Miles.
“What AI did was understand what our human coaches did. Strategies and conceptual ingenuity [Miles]and the ability to recognize patterns using data is something AI did throughout the course of the game,” Friedman said.
The AI-controlled game went smoothly. In fact, AI has created all the same choices in terms of pitching changes, lineup structure, and pinch hitters that the mile made. All Mile had to override the AI was to replace the starting catcher with a backup as he was sick.
Maybe it’s because he knows that his work isn’t actually in danger. In a video posted to Ballers’ Instagram, Miles walks to the home plate before the game and shakes hands with the opposing team’s manager. Instead of giving his hand, he runs the tablet to shake hands.
However, the use of AI will nerve Auckland fans, as companies like Openai, powered by distillery baseball AI, prioritize “winning” AI races over properly tested shipping products for safety. For many fans, the AI experiment felt like a betrayal similar to the desire of the kind of company that has driven three pro sports franchises out of Auckland in five years.
“It’s going to be a baller who tries to appeal to Bay Area engineers, not baseball fans,” wrote one commenter. “It’s so finished for Auckland.”
This backlash wasn’t what the Ballers expected, and Friedman is not planning to repeat this AI experiment. However, fan responses model baseball and even greater cultural tensions.
“It never feels good for your fans to be like, ‘We hate this’,” Friedman said. “But it’s not a bad thing that there’s more conversations about the positives and negatives of this new technology.
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