How to Get a Job in Baseball Operations

Finding a baseball operations job might be your dream if you love baseball. To land the perfect career in this industry, you’ll need to understand the types of opportunities available and what it takes to qualify for them. In this article, we’ll help you discover how to find a job in baseball operations, the education and experience needed, and more so you can prepare for success. 

Types of Careers in Baseball Operations

When considering the types of careers in baseball operations, there are MLB front office jobs and NCAA operations jobs available. Here are some of the opportunities in each of these career fields to consider: 

MLB Baseball Operations Jobs

  • Assistant coaching
  • Head of baseball operations
  • Strength and conditioning staff
  • Analytics department
  • Scout
  • Video analyst

NCAA Operations Jobs

  • Assistant and head coaching
  • College baseball recruiter
  • Head of baseball operations
  • Player development assistant

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General Duties and Responsibilities

The general duties and responsibilities for jobs in baseball operations depend on the specifics of your position. For example, if you become an assistant coach for a college team, your responsibilities may include:

MLB Baseball Operations Jobs
  • Help organize and lead practice
  • Assist the coach with strategic planning
  • Take ownership of a certain aspect of the team
  • Travel with the team to games
  • Work to get players assistance with their grades to maintain their eligibility

But your duties and responsibilities would be very different if you were hired in the analytics department for an MLB team. In this case, your responsibilities may include the following:

  • Collecting and organizing data from games and practices
  • Using various statistical analyses strategies to look for insights into data
  • Share your findings with the team
  • Help individual players improve their performance by understanding it better
  • Using a variety of programming and statistical formula to deliver meaningful baseball insights

As you can see, there’s really no way to say exactly what your responsibilities and duties will be unless you know the specific position that you want to apply for.

If you want more specific information about your field of work, consider checking out JobsInSports.com’s active baseball job listings. They’ll give you a better sense of what you would be responsible for in different types of baseball operations jobs.

Salary

According to data from Glassdoor, the average baseball operations salary is $64,400. But the website’s data also includes salaries from baseball operations interns, who will rarely make as much as a full-time baseball operations employee.

That means we can safely assume that the average salary for someone in baseball operations is a bit higher than $64,400 – potentially closer to $70,000.

Of course, the exact amount that you earn in a baseball operations position will depend on the exact nature of the job. The typical major league analyst earns $78,280 per year, and the average NCAA assistant coach earns about $57,096 annually.

Still, the average salary in the United States is just under $52,000, and the average baseball operations job will pay you more than that.

Education and Qualifications

The education and qualifications that you need to get hired for MLB operations jobs or NCAA operations jobs can also vary based on the specific position that you want. Take a look at the following information to learn more.

Degree

Most organizations want to see that you have at least a bachelor’s degree before hiring you for a baseball operations job. The specific degree that you need depends on the position that you want.

For example, an assistant coach can have many different types of degrees. But someone in strength and conditioning would need a degree in a field such as kinesiology or sports medicine. Similarly, someone who wants a job as a baseball analyst would likely need a degree in a subject area like statistics, programming, or statistical analysis.

You may even need a master’s or doctorate degree for some high-level positions.

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Baseball experience

Baseball experience is also a really big deal when it comes to most types of baseball operations jobs., which makes sense. If a team is going to hire you to help them perform better, they want to make sure that you know enough about the sport to make that happen.

The specific type of baseball experience that you need depends on the role you want. For example, a coach needs coaching experience, and a recruiter needs recruiting experience.

Professional experience

Teams may also look favorably on your application if you have high-level professional experience as well. But this may only be applicable to certain types of front office jobs.

For example, if you want to be an MLB analyst, being a successful analyst at one of the largest firms on Wall Street could help you out.

Connections

Finally, there are vastly fewer jobs in sports – especially at the highest levels – than there are people who want them. That means even if your application is perfect in every other way, you may still need the right connection to get hired for the baseball operations job that you want.

But that doesn’t mean you should give up now if you don’t have those connections. Instead, it’s a reminder that you should be working on creating the connections that you’ll need to eventually get a job in baseball operations now.

There are many ways to do this, which anyone can take advantage of, including:

  • Going to a team’s job fair
  • Going to national conferences that MLB and NCAA teams attend
  • Volunteering at community baseball events
  • Creating valuable baseball content and publishing it online
  • Building a following on social media with your baseball analysis

The more people who know your name, the better. You never know who the person that gets you your first baseball operations job will be.

Getting Started

If you’re ready to find a job in baseball operations, JobsInSports.com is here to help. We maintain an up-to-date list of the best jobs in baseball and other sports and produce a ton of useful content to help you get as much out of your job search as possible.

So why wait? Sign up for a free account today to get started.