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Paul Depodesta
Special Assistant for Baseball Operations
 As part of the program’s ongoing partnership with the San Diego Padres organization, SDSU Sports MBA students recently hosted Paul DePodesta, the club’s Special Assistant for Baseball Operations.
Mr. DePodesta spoke about his professional experiences, from throwing t-shirts into the crowd in the Canadian Football League to his appointment as the third-youngest General Manager in Major League Baseball history. Though the discussion touched upon baseball and sabermetrics as underlying themes, the lessons Mr. DePodesta left with the MBA candidates focused more on corporate strategy.
By using his time with the Oakland A’s under GM Billy Beane (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~cba/sports/billy_beane_treats.htm) as a reference, Mr. DePodesta explained how improving the process of an organization’s strategy through innovation can increase sustainability. When the A’s were first implementing a new way of player evaluation based on sabermetics (as chronicled in the Michael Lewis best-seller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game), the small market club was tied for the league lead in winning percentages with one of the lowest payrolls in the game.
Mr. DePodesta, an instrumental part of this success as the club’s Assistant General Manager, credited the culture of innovation engendered by A’s GM Billy Beane for the team’s unprecedented success. The A’s stressed that the key to success through innovation starts by asking Peter Drucker’s naïve question of “if we weren’t already doing things this way, is this the way we would start?” If the organization is ready and willing to embrace change, according to Mr. DePodesta, that organization can exploit inefficiencies in the market.
For the A’s, this meant looking outside the baseball world to examine corporate best practices, assembling a team with a diverse set of skills, and ensuring everyone in the organization was committed to one another and a common goal.
During the late 90’s, the A’s developed a completely new set of metrics for player evaluation, which focused on innovation in such fields as biomechanics, strength and conditioning, and statistical analysis. These innovations allowed the team to capitalize on inefficiencies in the market for baseball players, which ultimately led to the team making the playoffs for four straight years.
In presenting this analytical view of innovation to the class, Mr. DePodesta proved that applying the vision of a corporate CEO to the sports industry can lead to tremendous success. This lesson was an appropriate one for the students who are currently studying these concepts and their application to the sports industry for their MBA in Sports Business Management.
The SDSU Sports MBA Class of 2008 wishes to thank Mr. DePodesta for taking the time to share his inspirational insights with the class.
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