Taylor Smith is settling into a new kind of spotlight in Las Vegas, and he’s not wasting time defining how he plans to run the Athletics.
After his introductory press conference at the A’s Experience Center last week, Smith spoke with MLB.com about taking over as president of baseball operations and becoming the youngest head of baseball ops in MLB. Early on, he made it clear the first order of business is figuring out exactly what the organization already has in place.
“I would say that, right now, we’re still very much at the point in time of getting an understanding of where we are at currently. Understanding what our current strengths are and where there are opportunities to improve as far as additions in general and just bringing on people that complement both my skill set and the skill sets that we already have in the organization.”
That approach fits Smith’s background. He came up in the game as an analyst for the amateur model, and he said he sees analytics and scouting as partners, not rivals.
“I think analytics and scouting go together really, really well. My first role in baseball was as an analyst for the amateur model.
It’s really about combining all of the pieces of information that you have, the objective information and your scouting information. Leveraging the two of those things together to arrive at a process that is taking the complementary strengths of both of those sources of information.”
Smith also pointed to the Athletics’ farm system as a major part of the picture, with No. 1 prospect Leo De Vries and No. 3 prospect Jamie Arnold among the names drawing attention. He called De Vries “obviously very, very exciting as a crown jewel of the system” and said Arnold is “getting very, very close.”
From there, Smith stressed the broader mission: keep adding talent wherever possible.
“I would say, the most evergreen thing you can be doing is adding more talent to your farm system. It’s something where you find ways to be opportunistic and add little pieces of value here and there. Every deal that you make, every Draft and international signing, really investing and trying to make sure that pipeline of talent is as strong as possible.”
He also described the team’s setup as one that could become a real advantage, saying, “Yeah. I think it’s going to be an awesome setup that we have here.
It’s something where a bunch of players can probably live here year-round. I think it’ll be a pretty compelling selling point.”
For Smith, though, the relationship that may matter most is the one with manager Mark Kotsay. He said front office alignment with the dugout can shape everything from roster decisions to how games are managed.
“I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of the relationship between the front office and the manager. When you have that alignment and are on the same page, it makes everything easier.
It makes roster construction easier. It makes in-game strategy easier.
From my conversations with Mark so far, he seems like a great guy. He seems like someone who is hungry for all the information we can get him, and I think it’ll be a great partnership.”
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