Dan Evans: The Past, Present, and Future of Major League Baseball (MLB) (Full Transcript)

Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google

Full Transcript:

Ronen Ainbinder 1:31 

Joining me today is an extraordinary and successful sports executive.

He's the Former LA Dodgers General Manager. He worked as an executive in other MLB teams such as the Chicago Cubs, the Seattle Mariners, the Toronto Blue Jays, and the White Sox.

Today he runs a baseball consulting company. He provides experienced advice in decision-making, staff, procedures, strategy, and resources of baseball organizations. 

Besides being widely known for his expertise and success in the MLB, he was one of the pioneers to use technology & video analysis.

Our guest is a baseball polymath, and I can't wait for his lessons on the intersection between sports, business, and technology.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Allow me to introduce, Dan Evans! 

Dan Evans 1:42 

That's pretty good, Ronen. You've got a future as a PA announcer if I become a basketball player,

Ronen Ainbinder 1:48 

Welcome to the Halftime Snacks. It's a pleasure to finally be able to host you and to have you here. It was great meeting you right before our call. And I can already see that you're an awesome person and inspiration for everyone. And I want to kick it off by talking about something very interesting that you might as well said was a very interesting thing. And it's to look back at your life and think about the inflection points. I wonder what are the top three inflection points in your life that led you to who you are today? And why do you think those were the most important points in your past? To leave you where exactly you are today?

Dan Evans 2:27 

First of all, Ronen, thanks for having me and Halftime Snacks. The question was made me so reflective. It was a wonderful question. Because I think too often we're looking forward. And we don't think about the people that made us the people that we are today. And I'm wrestling with the points, but I think I know what they are. I've been very lucky, Ronen. I've had awesome mentors in my career and great parents. So they are the reason I am who I am today. But I think back to when I was a 12 to 15-year-old at a local park on the north side of Chicago, and I won a trip at age 12. I was the only person on the purchase trip. I was awarded this incredible gift to go for three weeks to a baseball camp, a sports camp that changed my life. It made me a much better baseball player gave me confidence made me a far more worldly person. And then, in 15, I became a board of directors for the local Little League. And to this day, I don't know why. But he started to make me realize maybe there's something here. And a couple other points for me. I think in 2000, I walked away from the White Sox with an incredible job and no job opportunities. I just walked away because I needed a new challenge. I'm thrilled I took that risk. It made me such a better person. And Ronen, candidly the last year 13 months, I've lost 16 of my friends to COVID. And it's been devastating for me just spiritually, yeah, just the loss of important people in my life, that has changed who I am. Because I've decided, I'm going to enjoy the heck out of life, and I'm going to be me. And I'm going to reach down and not be afraid to take chances to explore. And I'm going to enjoy the life that they didn't get the chance to live. And it's been a mantra for me. And it's elevated me even further. And weirdly. COVID has ripped some important people away from me, that it's also made me better focused on who I want to be and want to my core who I am as a person.

Ronen Ainbinder 4:56 

Wow, that's very inspiring Dan, thank you so much for sharing that. Now, I want to focus on your time at the MLB, the Major League Baseball, as it's known, the most professional league in baseball in the world. And I want to know if there are any two or three specific lessons that you learn in your time in the MLB. You still carry your business life, and in your life, outside businesses were to win in everything you do today.

Dan Evans 5:30 

That's a heck of a question around. I'm very lucky, my 41st year in baseball, and I continue to learn, and I continue to enjoy and explore. I think there's a couple of things that have resonated and separated me from some of my peers, allowing me to have an incredible amount of success in various roles. Number one is chemistry. I don't mean the subject that I struggled with in high school! I mean interpersonal chemistry; it's vital to any business practice's success, especially in a sport that plays twice as many games as any other sport. MLB plays for eight straight months, with travel and just a demanding schedule; marathon chemistry is important in the community's decision-making team with the fan base. And within the team itself, I learned an ugly lesson in 1984, a player just wasn't a good teammate. And it altered the way I viewed the team element in the game. And I think the other aspect, and the other element that I've thrived on, is just being creative. There's that old phrase thinking outside the box. I don't think it's thinking outside the box. I think it's making the box bigger, and not being narrow-minded, not being myopic in scope, exploring what's out there. Why is it out there? Whether or not it fits? And if so, how does it fit in? If it doesn't fit around in understanding why. I think that's made those two elements helped me throughout my career. Regardless of my experience level, they always made me a little more interested and, therefore, a little better at what I was doing.

Ronen Ainbinder 7:24 

I wonder if the love of the game fades away? When you work so much in every game and watching every practice, and you're, you even know the players. I wonder if the love of the game fades and you start just to treat it as a business? Or if you know how to separate both. Can you share with us a few of your thoughts about that?

Dan Evans 7:48 

That's a terrific question. For many people, I think it does slowly flight away from where it becomes a job. Ronen. I have always been somebody who loves crowds. I love being in the stands for the game. There's energy regardless of the sport. It could be soccer, it could be college basketball, it could be hockey. I love being in the crowd. So what I do, it's a therapy for me, we're sitting in the stands, is a beach 12 shot for me, where I realized how lucky I am, I get to sit in a ballpark. And this is my job. I get paid for this, regardless of the setting. I've been all over the world watching baseball games. I think many of my peers have lost that I never will, Ronen. The thing I've missed the most during COVID is being in the stands in a packed ballpark with the energy level, the sound, the noise, the expectations, and excitement before games. And the thing that I liked the most about sports is the complete unknown. You do not know what's going to happen in the game. And that one moment might be a moment you never forget. So for me that that that spirit that I take in sports, it's something that elevates my passion for baseball. But in all sports, I just love the roar of the crowd in the field. And I got a lot of criticism during my career from people saying, oh no, you should sit upstairs with us, in the suite, and do everything by the book. I want to know what the fans are thinking and feel what the fans are experiencing as a result. It works well. For me to be in the crowd.

Ronen Ainbinder 9:55 

You want to be a fan. You don't want to leave; you don't want to become just part of the business and leave the defense behind. I guess that's awesome.

Dan Evans 10:05 

Ronen, they don't get to take that from me.

Ronen Ainbinder 10:08 

I love that, Dan! Is there's any structural change in baseball or how the game has shifted from how it was 20, 30, 40 years ago? What structural change in baseball has impressed you the most since you first entered the MLB. And why?

Dan Evans 10:31 

Well, I think it's a couple things, Ronen. And I think number one, they enlarge the playoff format in baseball, going from two teams when I first started to four. And now we have 16. And I don't know what we're going to do this year; I think it's going to be 10. But it's so exciting. To have more teams have more chances to get into the postseason. It's frustrating for a fan base when you don't get into the playoffs. And now baseball in the mid-90s elevated the number of teams; I thought it was great for the sport. The other great thing is a technology that allows us to watch every game live from our phone, our laptops, our Chromebook, our television. I think that's been great. Because whereas we used to have limited information, I would say awareness, except for some elite teams. There are 30 big-league teams, 12 Japanese teams, there are 10 Korean teams, and people have an awareness they've never had before. And I think that's great for the game,

Ronen Ainbinder 11:45 

I think that goes to the Mexican league is starting to gain some strength. Have you heard of it? Do you think it is going to be something in the future?

Dan Evans 11:55 

Interestingly, that league is constantly evolving. It's a very forward-thinking league and has done some great things with advertising on uniforms on helmets. It's a very fun atmosphere at the ballparks. And I think it's always great to steal ideas, from league to league, because if it's working somewhere else, it'll probably work in your venue. I think the Mexican League has a chance now. Given the changes in minor league baseball, I think the Mexican league can elevate itself further and become more of a go-to league with some fun things going on during a transitional period for the game itself.

Ronen Ainbinder 12:38 

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. That and I agree with you that leagues and teams have to steal ideas to make their leagues and teams better. See what works on the other side of the globe and tried to apply it here. And maybe it doesn't work, but you at least tried. And that's also great. Since your experience has been mostly with teams, organizations, you've seen lots of managers and worked with many administrative people in the industry. I wonder what the main differentiator is? What makes a great baseball team, and what makes just a good baseball team? What differentiates them both in management culture, as mentality around the people there? Do you have some insights about that?

Dan Evans 13:32 

I do, Ronen, and I'm very lucky; I learned from some great people. And I've tried to impart some of that into the organizations I've worked for and consulted for. I think the people at the top have to be communicative leaders. They have to be people who are you don't work for them, you work with them. They're inclusive. They take ideas from every element. The intern in the room gets invited in the intern can contribute. I was lucky I was that intern at one point. When you stifle creativity, and you stifle communication, Ronen, you stifle the people below you. And they look for opportunities to leave. People don't leave when they're in a great environment. And it doesn't have to be a championship environment: just a positive workplace, a place where values, equality, equity are all in place. I think you got to dream big. I'm a DePaul University grad. And our athletic director always says, You got to dream big. Well, I think dreaming big starts at the top that has to permeate through the organization. She doesn't feel that you'll be shut down with the idea that's a little bit out there. I think some of the greatest ideas in history. Do you have sports or ideas that a lot of people would have backed off from? And I think just like in the real world, the great leaders, I mean, the truly great leaders are great communicators. Their communication skills allow them to show their vision. Their vision leaks into the rest of the organization positively. I think that's something that I tried to instill in every group I've been in. Because if you don't do it that way, Ronen, you struggle, and you are struggling, you lose people. And when you lose people and their intellectual capabilities, you just lose a chance to win and be good.

Ronen Ainbinder 15:46 

I like what you mentioned about being a great communicator because you mentioned that you're starting to mentor and teach us people the next generation of baseball. I guess you've tried to create these leaders that you always admired in your mind. People who can leave and communicate and teach the way of values and mentoring as it may build the foundations of what's coming up next, for how a person will eventually develop in their lives? Would you agree that that's the mentality towards mentoring? Or do you have any other objective towards it? Why are you doing it? What's Can you share with us a bit about that?

Dan Evans 16:38 

I think the biggest reason I do it, I focus on it, Ronen is I had great mentors, and I'm just giving back. I'm just giving back, just like the people who mentored me and got me to the point where I am today. I just think about the great leaders in my lifetime. I think of Abraham Lincoln as an amazing leader. In today's world, Bill Gates is an extraordinary leader and doing things that most people in a capitalist society don't gravitate to. I think of Harry Truman, an extraordinary leader with a very limited background; I mean, they didn't attend college, just a very simple background. But for me, the mentoring element is opening up opportunities and guiding people at an early stage of their career. I kinda like to think of myself as the nudge at the top of a toboggan hill. I nudge them down the hill when you're a little afraid. You don't want to go down, and then the nudge becomes guardrails, where I'm there, as they slide down, and it gets a little dicey at times, but just stay in your lane; you'll be okay. I'm there behind you. And when you get to the bottom of the hill, come back up again. And we'll try it again. But we're in the most fun thing about mentoring when you get that phone call saying, hey, Dan, I got the job. And then those people evolved into decision-making roles. The first general manager, who happens to be a female in Major League history, one of my protegees, worked for me twice! And we work together, and I hired her as an intern. And now she's a ceiling breaker in Major League Baseball, so I get to enjoy that, not at the same level that they do. But while do I enjoy it, I love seeing their titles changed. I love seeing the job responsibilities change because I remember when they weren't that person, and it's exciting for me,

Ronen Ainbinder 19:02 

I'm sure that they're going to recognize it at some point. And it's going to be a lot of like satisfaction also for you that it means a lot for as I started my sports technology space career. I can see how a little bit of help from someone could mean a lot. You can't price it if that makes sense. So I guess that empathizing with all these people that you help then all these people you mentored will mean a lot for them. And I think that it's awesome that and you were also mentioning other projects related to technology. And going back to your career, you're also a pioneer of technology in the space. So I want to know your take on sports technology in general. I want to ask you about two or three sports technologies you're most excited about and why you find them exciting. If you can share with us a little bit of insight on how you realize that technology was going to be a thing, sport? And why do you decide to be a pioneer in space? Just share with us all your like thoughts around technology. And as they intersect the lovely intersection between sports and technology?

Dan Evans 20:19 

I would say there are three things that right now excite me. But I want to just before I talk about them, baseball, so subjective. We measure everything, I mean, around, and we measure something on every pitch. It's just, it's to the point where the subjectivity is even more subjective because there are more measurements. But I think I became a pioneer in that area because I wanted to eliminate some of the risks. I wanted to eliminate some of the subjectivity and understand why I have a big sign in my bedroom. The last thing I see before I leave my room every day, and it's why, and I love it because it makes me think about how come? Why do we think this way? Why am I coming to that decision? For me, sports technology has made me better at being me in the game—less subjectivity, more facts, supporting my opinions. And I think there's, there's a fine line between scouting and analytics. I think the best organizations and the best people, I like to think I'm one of them, blend both areas, as well as you can it's like having two ice cream scoops, and mixing it up, still tastes pretty great. Not that the one doesn't taste well. But two skips are always better than one. But I think there are three things.

One, I'm excited about a new venture that I'm a board member and president of baseball operations for. And that's a group called athletics Incorporated. It's a brand new grid system, a laser technology that drives answers that have never before been available. And it excites the heck out of me that we're going to be able to bring this to organizations across the world and athletes in every sport to make them better to develop them. And that's one of the real keys. I think, today Ronen is we're able to teach better. With technology, it doesn't become a pinion. So right away, that person becomes more of a filter of information and more of a partner. I think baseball savant is an unbelievable website in Major League Baseball that allowed me to explore things heck around, and I never thought I was going to have a chance to do it. I mean, it's fascinating stuff.

Deron Williams does a great job. I'm all over that site: the third thing, wearables. Wearables are fascinating, especially wearables on a 24-hour basis because you start to learn how people can excel and how people can elevate their physical presence. Just buy wearables. When we started using the Toronto Blue Jays, people looked at it as to why would you do that? Why would you do that? Well, all of a sudden, our team got better. But more importantly, I think people at first are always opposed to new. So I'm always of the opinion. If you're opposed to new, that's fine, but I'm not. And if I get an edge on you for an extended period, I'm all over that. It's fascinating to learn how sleep rest, nutrition, and various learning abilities, different types of ways of people focusing. Getting in a good headspace allows them to be better performers on the field. And I find that fascinating. And I think in the next five to 10 years, we're going to be astounded at the things we learn. And especially because today's young athlete is going to be okay with it. Because they've seen technology from the onset. They'll be okay. As a result, they will be better with the advent of wearables.

Ronen Ainbinder 24:51 

It's funny because a couple of years back, probably two years ago, I attended this spinning lesson at the gym a little while ago. Living in Israel. And the funny thing is that I wasn't even thinking about wearables at the time. The spinning coach told everyone in the class, "in five to 10 years, everyone's going to be wearing a wearable device that's going to track your performance." And that just stuck in my head. And I was I, always think back to this guy that he said. He was so right because tracking a human body's performance and capabilities is something that technology can do today. Integrating with sports and integrating with wellness and health and humans' health is an opportunity space that we're not exploring yet. But we are starting to see it more and more. So I feel like I agree with you that it's super, it's a super exciting space, it's something to look forward to. And that is probably going to change the way we live in analog 10 years, as these guys said, and I'm looking forward to it, then. And as long as you and I can be pioneers in trying and seeing positive opportunities in this space? I feel like that's, it's gonna allow us to see where the industry is going and how it's going to change. And that's awesome that and since we're Ronen out of time, I want to ask you one last question. And that's more oriented towards your spirit sports business carrier. And I'd like to ask you if, if you would start over your sports business career, if you hadn't started all over again, what would you do differently, why

Dan Evans 26:47 

I take more chances, and I would leave; I would have left the White Sox. At an earlier stage of my career, I worked my first 20 years of my career with the White Sox. And it was a fabulous place in my hometown; I had a young family. I love the city; I love the people I work with. But I would have left earlier and taken a chance. I took a chance after the 2000 season. Two of the best movies ever made my personal and professional life. But I would have left earlier because here's what I learned. And this is for anyone who's starting their career in the middle of their career.

Don't be afraid of change. Because with change comes a different outlook, different viewpoints, different influencers, mentors, a different work environment that you've never been in. Leaving the White Sox when I did make me way better at being me, Ronen. If I've left earlier, I probably would have done better things and made better decisions. at a stage in my career. I was in a comfortable place. I loved where I was. But I would have left earlier. And I would have left earlier only in a selfish manner which I wasn't at the time in a selfish manner. He would have made me better personally and professionally. And I think that it's always good to challenge yourself. I look back, and I'm thinking, boy, I wish I would have done that 567 years earlier. But that never crossed my mind. I was just trying to do my job better. But now experience hindsight, the rearview mirror, gives me the advantage of looking back and saying that guy would have taken that chance a long time earlier. Who knows what I could have accomplished.

Ronen Ainbinder 28:38 

I feel like the message is don't be afraid of change. Keep going because you're going to get somewhere. And I feel like that's a great lesson that I want to thank you so much for your time and insights. Thank you so much for coming to the halftime snacks. It's been an absolute pleasure to host your complete lesson and sports technology, baseball, sports business. I can't thank you enough for your time and for everything that you share with us. Thank you for your vulnerability and your openness with us. And I hope that the listeners get inspired by everything that you do because I was, so I hope that they do it as well. But I want to thank you once again for coming to the Halftime Snacks, Dan!