How to Apply to Mlbevents

8 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 7 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Apply through the MLB FFP Greenhouse board at boards.greenhouse.io/mlbfellowship; cycles typically open in early-to-mid fall with a November-ish deadline for a fellowship starting the following summer.
  • Two tracks: an 18-month Club-Based Fellowship at one of the 30 MLB clubs, or a multi-year rotational Office of the Commissioner Fellowship in New York City (one year each across International Operations, Umpiring/On-Field Rules, and League Economics).
  • Compensation is real but modest by tech or finance standards: the league-office Diversity Fellowship has been published at $25/hour under NYC pay transparency (roughly $50-55K annualized) plus benefits and a lodging stipend in some cases; club compensation varies by team.
  • Conversion to permanent roles is strong but not guaranteed: MLB has publicly cited 90%+ industry-wide placement from the first two completed cohorts (2018 and 2020), with named alumni now in Director of Baseball Operations and R&D Manager roles.
  • Geographic flexibility is mandatory; you cannot effectively pre-select a market and expect to advance, and final placement is determined by a residency-style mutual matching process between fellows and clubs.
  • Resume should lead with Python/R/SQL, name-check the modern baseball data stack, quantify domain-specific outcomes, and surface diverse identity transparently in the cover letter with a specific theory of contribution.
  • Interview prep must combine genuine, unfakeable baseball passion (specific players, moves, controversies, scouting reports) with sabermetric literacy beyond basics (xwOBA, DRC+, stuff models, framing, projection-system trade-offs) and post-Moneyball realism.
  • The DEI program context deserves honest engagement: this is an explicit pipeline for historically underrepresented candidates, has drawn industry critique on stipend levels and structural design, and the strongest applicants speak specifically about lived experience and contribution rather than performatively.
  • Treat the fellowship as a 10-year commitment starter, not a resume line; the people who have converted into permanent front-office careers spent the first decade building relationships, accepting smaller-market placements, and earning trust on small projects.

About Mlbevents

The MLB Front Office Fellowship Program (often referred to internally as 'FFP' and publicly as the MLB Diversity Fellowship Program) is Major League Baseball's flagship pipeline initiative for placing diverse, analytics-fluent early-career talent into front-office roles across the 30 MLB clubs and the Office of the Commissioner in New York City. The program was announced by then-Commissioner Rob Manfred in 2017 and welcomed its inaugural class of 22 fellows in January 2018, with leadership from Tyrone Brooks, MLB's Senior Director of the Front Office and Field Staff Diversity Pipeline Program, working alongside MLB's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion office. It was created in direct response to long-standing structural underrepresentation in baseball front offices, where women, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander professionals had historically been screened out of the entry-level analyst, scouting, and operations roles that feed the general manager pipeline. The program operates two parallel tracks. The Club-Based Fellowship is an 18-month commitment placing fellows into a single MLB club's front office or baseball operations department, with possible functional homes including major league operations, player development, amateur and international scouting, research and development, performance science, sports medicine analytics, communications, marketing, ticketing, and finance. The Office of the Commissioner Fellowship is a multi-year rotational program based at MLB's Park Avenue HQ in New York City, with fellows rotating roughly one year each through MLB's International Operations group, the Umpiring and On-Field Rules and Regulations Department, and the League Economics Department, giving exposure across baseball operations, competitive integrity, and league-wide business strategy. Cohort size has scaled meaningfully since the inaugural 22-fellow class, with subsequent cohorts placing fellows across most or all 30 clubs plus the league office; recent cycles have run roughly every two years, with the 2024-2025 cohort being the fourth class. MLB has publicly cited a placement rate of over 90 percent of fellows from the first two completed cohorts (2018 and 2020) into full-time industry roles, and named alumni include Albert Gilbert (2018 fellow, now Director of Baseball Operations at the Colorado Rockies), Julianna Rubin and Allison Florian (2022 fellows, both at the Rockies), Catherine Cage (Houston Astros, Manager of Research), and James Proctor (Princeton baseball alumnus, fellow). The program has also drawn substantive criticism within the industry, most notably a 2017 Beyond the Box Score critique arguing that an unpaid or low-paid 'diversity' fellowship into a billion-dollar industry can shift the cost of inclusion onto the very candidates it claims to serve, and observers continue to weigh MLB's stated DEI commitments against the lived economics of the program. Applications are administered through MLB FFP's Greenhouse-hosted board at boards.greenhouse.io/mlbfellowship, and the program is operationally managed out of MLB Central HQ in New York City with placement coordination across all 30 clubs.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Watch the MLB FFP Greenhouse board at boards

    Watch the MLB FFP Greenhouse board at boards.greenhouse.io/mlbfellowship and the MLB.com/inclusion/fellowship-programs landing page; the main Diversity Fellowship requisition typically opens in early-to-mid fall (recent cycles have used a November application deadline, e.g., November 4, 2024 for the 2024-2025 cohort) for a fellowship that begins the following summer, so build your application materials over the summer rather than rushing them in October.

  2. 2
    Submit a single application to the master Diversity Fellowship requisition (you

    Submit a single application to the master Diversity Fellowship requisition (you do not apply club-by-club at this stage); required materials are a current resume and a cover letter that explicitly addresses your career aspirations, why baseball, and why you should be considered for the diversity fellowship specifically, with a separate writing sample or analytics work product if you are targeting an R&D, baseball ops analytics, or communications/content track.

  3. 3
    Prepare role-specific evidence ahead of submission: for baseball operations and

    Prepare role-specific evidence ahead of submission: for baseball operations and R&D candidates, a public GitHub or PDF portfolio of sabermetric work (Statcast or pitch-tracking analysis, projection systems, valuation models, SQL/Python notebooks); for scouting candidates, written scouting reports on amateur or pro players with the 20-80 scale; for content/communications candidates, published clips, podcast episodes, or video work; for business operations candidates, case studies, marketing or revenue analyses, and any sports business plan competition work.

  4. 4
    Expect a recruiter screen with the MLB FFP team (often a 30-minute call) coverin

    Expect a recruiter screen with the MLB FFP team (often a 30-minute call) covering eligibility, baseball motivation, geographic flexibility, and cohort fit, followed in some tracks by a take-home analytics or writing exercise (R&D candidates have historically reported a SQL/Python or projection-model take-home; content fellows report writing prompts on assigned baseball topics).

  5. 5
    Advance to multi-team interviews where MLB shares your file with a subset of clu

    Advance to multi-team interviews where MLB shares your file with a subset of clubs whose openings match your skills and stated preferences; you may interview with three to six clubs across baseball ops, R&D, and business ops departments, typically over Zoom with the relevant department heads (Director of Baseball Ops, AGM, R&D Lead, VP of Marketing, etc.) and at least one HR/People representative per club.

  6. 6
    Participate in a structured matching process where MLB FFP, the participating cl

    Participate in a structured matching process where MLB FFP, the participating clubs, and you each rank preferences, with the league office acting as a clearinghouse; this is closer to a residency match than a typical job offer because you do not pick your club outright and your final placement city is determined by mutual fit, with location flexibility being a real screening criterion.

  7. 7
    Receive a written offer from MLB FFP (with the host club named) covering the 18-

    Receive a written offer from MLB FFP (with the host club named) covering the 18-month term, the stipend or hourly rate (recent cycles have published a $25/hour New York rate under NYC pay transparency law for league-office fellows, with club-based compensation set by each club and a lodging stipend provided in some cases), benefits, and the formal start date, which typically clusters in June or July to align with the start of the fellowship year.

Resume Tips for Mlbevents

recommended

Lead with quantified analytics fluency: Python (pandas, scikit-learn, PyMC), R (

Lead with quantified analytics fluency: Python (pandas, scikit-learn, PyMC), R (tidyverse, Stan), SQL (window functions, CTEs), and one cloud or warehouse stack (BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks); for baseball ops and R&D tracks, name-check Statcast, Hawk-Eye, TrackMan, Rapsodo, Edgertronic, Synergy, FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and Retrosheet with specific projects you built using them.

recommended

Demonstrate genuine baseball domain depth, not just sports interest: cite specif

Demonstrate genuine baseball domain depth, not just sports interest: cite specific sabermetric concepts you have implemented (xwOBA, FIP, SIERA, RV/100, run expectancy, pitcher usage modeling, defensive metrics like OAA/UZR/DRS, framing models, projection systems like ZiPS or Marcel), the rules of the modern game (pitch clock, shift restrictions, larger bases, ABS), and the structural realities of the CBA, draft, international signing, and arbitration.

recommended

For business operations candidates, lead with measurable revenue, ticketing, spo

For business operations candidates, lead with measurable revenue, ticketing, sponsorship, marketing, or fan-engagement outcomes (revenue lifted, conversion rate moved, CPA reduced, NPS improved, social engagement growth) and case-study experience from undergraduate sports business programs, MMA Mass Challenge / MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference participation, or internships at agencies, leagues, or teams.

recommended

For communications, content, and journalism candidates, build a public portfolio

For communications, content, and journalism candidates, build a public portfolio of long-form writing, video, podcast, or social work covering baseball at the major league, minor league, college, or international level, with metrics where available (pageviews, completion rates, social reach), and link it directly from the resume header.

recommended

Education matters more than the program publicly acknowledges: the inaugural and

Education matters more than the program publicly acknowledges: the inaugural and subsequent cohorts have leaned heavily on graduates of analytics-strong undergraduate programs (Penn, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia) and quantitative master's or MBA programs (MIT Sloan, Wharton, Berkeley Haas, Northwestern MSiA, Columbia SPS Sports Management), so list your degree, major, GPA if 3.5+, and relevant coursework (econometrics, statistical learning, causal inference, optimization, sports analytics).

recommended

Surface diverse identity transparently in the cover letter and any optional self

Surface diverse identity transparently in the cover letter and any optional self-identification section if you choose to opt in; the program is explicitly framed as a pipeline for women, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander candidates, and the strongest cover letters tie the candidate's lived background to a specific theory of how they will improve baseball decision-making, scouting reach, or fan growth.

recommended

Translate non-baseball quant work into baseball language: a finance candidate sh

Translate non-baseball quant work into baseball language: a finance candidate should reframe trading or risk models as 'player valuation' analogues, a tech-industry data scientist should map A/B testing experience to lineup or pitcher-usage experimentation, and an academic should rewrite thesis abstracts in plain-language terms that a Director of Baseball Operations will skim in 15 seconds.

recommended

Use a single-column, ATS-clean PDF parseable by Greenhouse: avoid columns, table

Use a single-column, ATS-clean PDF parseable by Greenhouse: avoid columns, tables, header/footer text, embedded images, and exotic fonts; keep the resume to one page for early-career candidates and two pages for those with significant prior industry or graduate experience, and make sure your name, email, phone, LinkedIn, GitHub, and portfolio URL are in plain text at the top.

ATS System: Greenhouse

MLB FFP runs the Diversity Fellowship application process on Greenhouse, the dominant ATS in modern sports, tech, and media hiring. The MLB Fellowship board is hosted at boards.greenhouse.io/mlbfellowship (with traffic now redirecting to job-boards.greenhouse.io/mlbfellowship). Greenhouse parses single-column PDF resumes cleanly, supports cover letter and writing-sample uploads, includes optional EEOC self-identification, and gives the MLB FFP team a structured candidate-review interface. Applications are reviewed manually after the cycle closes rather than on a rolling basis, so submission timing within the open window does not affect your odds.

  • Upload a single-column, ATS-clean PDF resume; avoid columns, tables, header/footer text, embedded images, and exotic fonts that break Greenhouse parsing.
  • Always submit the cover letter even if marked optional; for the MLB Diversity Fellowship the cover letter is the primary differentiation document, and a missing or generic cover letter is a near-certain rejection.
  • Use the writing-sample / portfolio upload field if your track is R&D, analytics, scouting, or content; link your GitHub, public sabermetric work, scouting reports, or published clips directly from the resume header as well, since reviewers will not always click through Greenhouse-internal links.
  • Complete the EEOC self-identification fields if you are comfortable doing so; this is a diversity pipeline program and the data is used to track the program's stated mission, not to filter applications.
  • Submit well before the published deadline to avoid Greenhouse server load on the closing day, but understand that early submission does not improve your odds because review is post-deadline rather than rolling.

Complete Greenhouse Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

MLB front-office interviews are relationship-driven, technically deeper than most candidates expect, and shaped by a baseball industry culture that is simultaneously traditional in its hierarchy and rapidly modernizing in its analytical sophistication. You will be evaluated by working baseball-operations professionals, R&D leads, scouts, business-ops directors, and at least one MLB FFP representative; very few of these people are professional recruiters, and they treat the interview as a hiring decision they personally have to live with for the next 18 months. Authentic baseball passion is genuinely required and genuinely tested. Interviewers will ask what teams you grew up rooting for, what player development stories you have followed in detail, which front-office moves you disagreed with last off-season and why, and how you would have constructed the bullpen for a specific recent postseason team; vague 'I love baseball' answers land badly and candidates who try to fake interest are filtered out quickly because the people across the table can tell. At the same time, this is the post-Moneyball era and sabermetric literacy is table stakes rather than a differentiator. R&D and baseball-ops candidates should expect to discuss the limitations of xwOBA versus DRC+, when run expectancy breaks down, how to construct a pitcher-stuff model, the trade-offs between Bayesian and frequentist projection systems, why framing values have compressed since the late 2010s, and how you would design an experiment to evaluate a new pitch-design intervention or hitting cue. Business-ops candidates should expect dynamic-pricing case questions, sponsorship-valuation cases, and questions about reaching the next generation of MLB fans against the demographic and cord-cutting headwinds the league actually faces. Geographic flexibility is a hard requirement, not a preference. Fellows are routinely asked whether they will accept a placement in any of the 30 markets, including smaller or geographically inconvenient ones, and a candidate who effectively rules out half the league will not advance. You may genuinely fellow with the San Francisco Giants for one rotation and the Cleveland Guardians for the next, or be placed full-time in Phoenix, Kansas City, Miami, or Pittsburgh; clubs notice and remember candidates who treat smaller markets as a step down. The diversity-programming context is also part of the interview frame in a way that deserves honest preparation. The program exists to correct structural underrepresentation, and interviewers often ask candidates to talk about how their lived experience will improve scouting reach, player development, fan engagement, or front-office decision-making; performative answers land badly, and the strongest candidates speak specifically and unsentimentally about what they bring. Behavioral questions follow STAR or CAR formats and frequently target conflict with senior staff (a scout who disagrees with your model, a coach who dislikes data, a marketing executive who pushes back on a research finding), demonstrating ownership when a recommendation goes wrong, and balancing competitive integrity against fan-experience considerations. Across every loop, expect interviewers to probe whether you understand that baseball-operations careers are long, low-paid for the first decade, and built on relationships you start forming in this fellowship.

What Mlbevents Looks For

  • Demonstrable analytics fluency in Python, R, and SQL, plus comfort with at least one of the major baseball data ecosystems (Statcast, TrackMan, Hawk-Eye, Rapsodo, Edgertronic, Synergy) and the open-source stack of FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Retrosheet, and pybaseball.
  • Genuine, unfakeable baseball domain depth that goes beyond fan loyalty into rules, history, scouting language, the 20-80 scale, sabermetric vocabulary, the CBA, the draft and international signing systems, and the modern player development pipeline.
  • Diverse identity and lived experience that meaningfully expands MLB's front-office talent pool, with a clear, specific articulation of how that perspective will improve baseball decisions, scouting reach, or fan growth (the program is explicitly designed for women, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, AI/AN, and NHPI candidates).
  • Geographic flexibility across all 30 club markets and the New York City office, with no hard veto on smaller or less-coveted cities; candidates who will only accept coastal placements rarely advance.
  • Strong written and oral communication, including the ability to write a one-page memo a GM will actually read, brief a coaching staff in plain language, and translate model output into actionable recommendations for non-technical decision-makers.
  • Track-specific evidence: for R&D, a public portfolio of original sabermetric work; for scouting, written scouting reports; for business ops, quantified marketing/revenue/ticketing case work; for content/comms, published clips and a defined editorial voice.
  • Long-term commitment to a baseball-operations or baseball-business career path; fellows who treat the fellowship as a resume line on the way to consulting or tech are screened out in favor of candidates who plan to spend a decade building inside the industry.
  • Cultural fit with a relationship-driven, hierarchical, occasionally traditional industry that has nonetheless been reshaped by analytics; candidates who can move fluently between an old-school scout and a Carnegie Mellon-trained R&D engineer in the same afternoon do best.

Frequently Asked Questions

Open Positions

Mlbevents currently has 7 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 7 open positions at Mlbevents

Related Resources

Similar Companies

Sources

  1. —
  2. —
  3. —
  4. —
  5. —
  6. —
  7. —
  8. —