Get hired the Jack Zduriencik way

In the post-Moneyball era, there are lots of paths to becoming a general manager. You can work your way up through a major league organization, all the while gaining valuable experience in all facets of the job, including scouting and advanced statistical analysis.

Or you can do what Jack Zduriencik did:

“Jack portrayed himself as a scouting/stats hybrid because that’s what he needed to get the job,” Blengino said. “But Jack never has understood one iota about statistical analysis. To this day, he evaluates hitters by homers, RBI and batting average and pitchers by wins and ERA. Statistical analysis was foreign to him. But he knew he needed it to get in the door.”

Look, we all lie on our resumés. I told Rob I wrote for Sports Illustrated in the ‘60s under the name “Scoop” McAllister. When he found out the truth, he demoted me to “Hot Corner blogger.” That was three happy years ago.

Anyway, the key to getting hired in baseball these days is to constantly use buzzwords like “analytics” and “blend” during your job interview, as in the sentence: “I will seamlessly blend traditional scouting with modern analytics.” You don’t have to actually believe it, and you certainly don’t have to do it, you just have to pretend to believe it. And don’t worry if you don’t know Bill James from Bill Madlock; your prospective boss isn’t going to ask you any tough questions like “What does OBP stand for?” That’s a detail, and big-time CEOs don’t get rich enough to own baseball teams by sweating the details.