I mentioned in Project Scoresheet – 1989 that I was an amateur baseball statistical analysis (“stathead”), and dreamed of working in an enlightened front office someday. At time of that post, 1989, there were no front offices truly embracing analytics. Moneyball documented how one club started the process, although Oakland wasn’t alone. By the time the mid 2010’s came along, most clubs were starting to hire data analysts and programmers.

I saw a job listing on some board somewhere for a job as a programmer for some team or another, and when I cliked on the link, it took me to Teamwork Online, which is a site that most of the major league clubs use to post jobs. I signed up for that site, and notifications for analysis and programming jobs.

Over the years, the small handful of positions that were sent to me were not all of that interesting, but one did stand out. The New York Yankees were hiring a mobile developer to work on its internal apps. What the hell? I applied.

A few weeks later, I received the following:

We want to thank you for your interest in the above mentioned position. We had many fine applicants for the position, including you. However, we have decided not to fill this position. We welcome you to apply for any future positions we have available that match your skills and experience.

Sincerely,

The Hiring Manager for the “Mobile Application Developer, Baseball Operations – New York Yankees (Bronx, NY)”
MLB Baseball Jobs

Moral of this story: A significant number of job postings disappear before being filled. I do not know if I would enjoyed living in a land which had real winter, but it was slightly disappointing not to be interviewed.