In the early 2000s, the Oakland A’s became synonymous with using data to create a competitive advantage when “Moneyball” gave baseball fans a glimpse behind the curtain of the A’s statistical-minded front office. A quarter century later, a new team in Oakland will be pushing the use of data in baseball to a whole new level when the Oakland Ballers of the independent Pioneer League play an entire game managed by artificial intelligence.
On Saturday, Ballers manager Aaron Miles will cede his decision-making duties to an AI. It is believed to be the first time a professional sports team will be managed by an AI in a regular-season game.
The AI will determine most of the regular in-game decisions a typical manager would make. It isn’t choosing the starting pitcher since the Ballers are on a set rotation, but the AI will create the starting lineup, decide when pitchers need to be replaced and when to use pinch hitters, and position the infielders and outfielders. The Ballers will not be using the AI for base-running decisions, as it would be too difficult to relay in signs for a stolen base attempt or a runner attempting to score on a base hit in real time.
Saturday’s game is part of the Ballers’ Fan Appreciation Day. Last year, the Ballers allowed their fans to control the in-game decision-making on Fan Appreciation Day via an app that gave fans the chance to decide lineup changes and other in-game moves. The Ballers lost that game, so now the team is giving the machines a chance to see if they can successfully take the wheel.
Los Angeles-based nearshore software company Distillery was tapped to build the platform — and only had two weeks to do it. A small team of developers, some of whom are big baseball fans, according to Distillery CEO Andrey Kudievskiy, put together a cross-platform application powered by an AI that processes live game stats, past player performances, matchup data, weather conditions, etc. — any of the pieces of data a typical human manager would often have on hand (think Joe Girardi’s binder, but in an AI).
“Instead of showing you these hundreds of statistics and kind of overwhelming you with data, the system zeros in on exact decisions and basically tells you whether to change the pitcher, whether to adjust the lineup, pull someone out or make a replacement,” Kudievskiy said. “So it does the job of manager, and hopefully it does it well.”
Of course, in-game decision-making is only a part of the job description for a baseball manager. AI can’t soothe hurt feelings when a player feels he’s being benched unfairly or give a hitter a pep talk when he’s stuck in a long slump or meet with the media. It isn’t clear yet whether an AI would be able to execute some of the more subtle in-game decisions, like when a reliever should start warming up in the bullpen.
For those reasons, and many more, Ballers CEO and co-founder Paul Freedman doesn’t see AI as a threat to replace human managers. He stressed that this is a one-game experiment and that Miles — who has led the Ballers to a Pioneer League record 70 wins this season — is in no danger of losing his job to an AI.
“Where we think AI can actually have an enduring role is obviously not replacing a manager on a full-time basis but being able to highlight the decisions that were human-made and the decisions the AI would have made to see what could have been done differently,” Freedman said, adding that Miles will be charting along during the game and afterward will give fans his take on the moves he would and wouldn’t have made in the game. Miles intends to stay out of the way of the AI during the game, but noted he might have to override a decision if there’s a player safety concern.
Miles joked that the Ballers have had such a good season (70-22 through Wednesday) that the AI might just copy how he’s managed the team all season. Miles spent parts of nine seasons playing in MLB, and while he doesn’t see AI taking over the role of a manager, he does think AI has the potential to give baseball coaching staffs more tools when they are running a team.
“There’s so much information out there, and the teams do a good job of having the information they want there at their disposal. But why wouldn’t a computer be quicker and better at giving you every little nuance?” Miles said. “There’s so much luck and chance involved in baseball, and the computer is never going to get it right all the time. I mean, nobody can. But I think that sometimes there’s too much information for humans to process it in real time anyway, and maybe the AI can do that better. So I would not count it out, that’s for sure.”
Kudievskiy agrees that AI isn’t meant to replace human managers. He sees this particular model as being something that can enhance the fan experience. Next season, the Ballers intend to have the AI program operating in real time and available online so that fans can see what the AI would have chosen to do in a particular in-game situation.
“This basically is meant to spark some curiosity in the fan base,” Kudievskiy said. “We want in the future for fans to be able to basically become the manager of their own team, so they will be able to get real-time data from our game, and this will add to their entertainment during the game. For us, the future of it is going to be in how do we make fans even more involved? How do we showcase that? The innovation here is not to ruin the game experience, but to enhance it.”
Since the program was developed in just two weeks, the AI will be put to the test in live game action for the first time Saturday. There is the potential for things to completely go sideways. The Ballers are prepared for the possibility that AI hallucinations or misunderstandings about the game of baseball could create some odd in-game moments. But that will be part of the fun of the experiment. Being in an independent league gives the Ballers an opportunity to do things differently than they would be done in a Major League Baseball setting.
“Our role in the greater baseball ecosystem is that we have the freedom to try out things that you can’t do in other areas,” Freedman said.
This is the Ballers’ second year as a franchise and their first as the only professional baseball team in the city of Oakland. It’s been a year of growth for the Ballers, who welcomed fan ownership and a fan representative to their Board of Directors. The team will be heading to the playoffs for a second straight year. Attendance and fan engagement online have increased. But even with that growth, the Ballers are always looking to push the envelope to reach more fans and improve the game day experience. They see this AI experiment as a part of that overall strategy.
“Oakland has always been a place where people have innovated around the game and used different ways to try to get ahead,” Freedman said, alluding to the “Moneyball” era Oakland A’s teams. “There certainly is going to be a role for AI and artificial intelligence in baseball. There’s going to be a role for AI and digital intelligence infrastructure in every industry.
“We’re not taking a position that it is ever going to replace a human being. But it’s a fun way to kind of start the conversation about what is the right role and where it could be applied. It wouldn’t be surprising if, like past innovations in baseball, the next innovation is going to start here in Oakland.”
(Photo: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
