LOS ANGELES – When the Los Angeles Dodgers broke their 32-year championship drought last month, many could not see the impact the Haverford College baseball program had on that World Series title. Those Fords were in the background as Josh Byrnes '92 (Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations) and Pat O'Shea '18 (Advance Scouting Analyst) helped put the team in championship position with their work in the front office.
Haverford's connection to MLB front office's runs deep with O'Shea's ventures into the professional world of Major League Baseball being just one of many recent examples. Right out of college, O'Shea joined the Tampa Bay Rays as a Minor League Video Intern during the 2018 season. He joined the Dodgers in 2019 as an Associate of Advance Scouting before taking over his current position as an Advance Scouting Analyst after just one year in the organization.
O'Shea brought a winning foundation into his professional career as the Fords' reliever was a member of the 2016 Centennial Conference Championship team. He played in 47 games throughout his Haverford career, with all but three of those appearances coming out of the bullpen.
O'Shea recently reflected on his early success in Major League Baseball. He is one of two Haverford alumnus working in the Dodgers organization as Josh Byrnes '92 (Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations) was profiled earlier this week.
Question/Answer with Pat O'Shea '18
What is your role/major responsibilities in the Dodgers organization?
I am the Advance Scouting Analyst. In short, there are six of us in Baseball Operations who primarily focus on Major League Operations (usually which usually consists of sending materials to the coaching staff or the executives). After I started with the Dodgers in January 2019, all six of us kind of took over our own niche in the daily preparations for each opposing team, and I ended up taking over the Advance Book. The Advance Book is basically a 70+ page binder that I send out to the coaching staff and the executives three days prior to each series to give everyone a detailed look at who we are going to face. In doing so, the coaching staff can focus on the team we are currently playing while I look 4-5 days in the future throughout the season. The Advance Book consists of everything the coaching staff would need to learn about the opposing team, with a combination of dozens of automated reports and some manual reports that I compile by watching video and taking a deeper, more nuanced look at a lot of the data. The Book contains everything from what we project their rotation to be against us during the series to how their pitchers and catchers control the running game to their outfield and bunt defenses to when players bunt and/or steal bases to pitchers tipping pitches and much more. The Advance Book is a combination of large-sample analytics and what I see with my eyes in order to give our players, coaching staff, and front office the most complete picture of our opponent three days in advance of our series.
What role did the Haverford alumni connection play in helping you secure this position?
I think I may have come pretty close to talking to every graduate from the baseball team that is currently working in baseball. It was obviously a deeper conversation than just looking for them to set me up with a job with the main objective of each conversation being to get a better picture of how I could position myself to be the best possible candidate for a job as well as just learning more about what it was like to work in baseball. Jeremy Zoll '12, Eric Lee '04, Tony Petitti '83, Casey Fox '15, Jim Thompson '04, and especially Josh Studnitzer '14 all generously gave their time to tell me what they had learned thus far in their careers working in baseball and gave me invaluable advice on how to get my foot in the door with a team—working as a minor league video intern for a major league affiliate, which I did for the Tampa Bay Rays' Short-Season affiliate during the summer of 2018.
What steps did you take while at Haverford to allow you to transition into a career in Major League Baseball immediately after college?
I just tried to soak up as much information as I possibly could from a given conversation, whether it be from a professor giving me feedback on a first draft of an essay or a teammate or coach giving me constructive criticism. I also always wanted to be one of the most mentally prepared on the field so I made a point to ask hypothetical questions about situational baseball and I learned a lot about watching for pitch-tipping in real-time from teammates Jamie Ulrich '16 and Jared Deveau '17, among others, which has translated into finding actionable tipping on opposing pitchers.
How did Haverford College and the Haverford baseball program prepare you for this position?
Academics: When people think about Major League front offices now, they usually think of Moneyball, the movie in which Jonah Hill plays a stats whiz-kid that helps spark this new wave of baseball analytics. They usually don't think of an English major from a liberal arts college, but my background as an English major actually stood out to my now co-workers when I was going through the interview process, since I could bring a different perspective to the office and I could effectively communicate my ideas to others. The classes I took at Haverford directly prepared me for working in a major league front office because, just like at Haverford, I have to effectively digest information and then communicate it to a group no larger than 20 people. The dedication and attention to detail I need to put into each day's work at Dodger Stadium can be traced back to classes with Maud McInerney or Christina Zwarg and the many others at Haverford.
Baseball: I would say that the baseball program helped me hone my baseball knowledge in a way in which I didn't think was initially possible after arriving on campus in 2014. I got a front row seat to see Nat Ballenberg '07 completely modernize our pitching program to a point where I think it is safe to say that Haverford baseball was even ahead of some major league organizations in the way we look at player development. I got to see the dedication that was needed to excel at one's craft from watching future draft picks Tommy Bergjans '15 and Stephen Ridings '16. I learned invaluable lessons about preparedness, consistency, and innovation from Coach Beccaria, as well as to "make them stop you." Coaches Dan Crowley '90, Nicky Miranda '14, and Bill Bannard '14 also taught me a lot about how baserunners can pick up certain tells or tips from pitchers in order to steal bases, which I initially used to improve my own skills on the mound, but now I deliver pitcher run-control reports to the Dodger coaching staff on each of the opposing pitchers using those same skills that I learned at Haverford. Quick fun fact: when Mookie Betts stole second base in Game 1 of the World Series, he credited the tell that our first base coach read in my reports in the Advance Book, so I played a role in getting America free Doritios Locos Tacos! (Taco Bell runs a promotion that everyone gets a free taco when someone steals a base in the World Series).
What unique challenges did you face in your position with the abbreviated 60 game regular season?
During the regular season, the biggest challenges were probably the pace of the season and the uncertainty of roster moves. First, the pace of the season was obviously unique because it was only 60 games, but it also threw off a lot of the rhythm that comes with the Advance process. It's kind of hard to put into words, but it's kind of like riding a bike (to be cliché) since you get into a rhythm of sending the Book out every Tuesday and Friday and watching for certain things on video that are difficult to practice in the off-season. Also, we basically started from scratch with a lot of the scouting because there was no way to quantify which players got stronger or weaker or didn't work as hard during the 4-month shutdown, so we were kind of flying blind those first few series. We also had to be over-inclusive with the rosters that we prepped for in case a player was placed on the Injured List. The postseason presented an entire new list of challenges, with the biggest one being the expanded playoff structure. Instead of four other National League teams making it, seven others made it, which means we ended up prepping for five potential opponents for the Wild Card round leading into the final weekend of the season since the seeding wasn't determined until the final day of the season. In addition to keeping those five teams' tendencies and Advance Books straight in my head, we also prep for both teams for the next round. For example, while we were playing the Braves in the NLCS, myself and the others in the office were prepping for the Rays and the Astros simultaneously. Basically, October was a whirlwind of a month.
Were there any limitations to your job and being able to travel in preparing for future opponents?
So, I don't travel normally. I stay in Los Angeles and watch games on tv and pull video from specific plays so my normal day-to-day of prep wasn't all that different during the regular season. During the postseason, however, the Dodgers usually assign our Pro Scouts (they usually scout minor leaguers and some major leaguers that we would potentially acquire) to start travelling to watch big league teams in person so we have a few sets of eyes in the ballpark to pick up on things the broadcast misses in order to fill in a lot of the important gaps in our reports.
How would you describe the experience of being a part of a world championship organization in just your second season since graduating from Haverford?
It honestly hasn't sunk in yet. I've just been pinching myself since I got back from Texas, but I am so grateful and happy to have landed with such an incredible organization in the Dodgers, but I am also very thankful of all of the professors, classmates, teammates, alumni, and coaches at Haverford that helped me develop the skills that helped me get to where I am today and who supported me throughout college and have continued ever since.