1. Appel, Peter, and Michael Schwimer. “Michael Schwimer Talks Big League Advance.” https://www.justbaseball.com, 2 July 2021, https://www.justbaseball.com/mlb/interview-with-michael-schwimer-on-big-league-advance/. Accessed 23 Feb. 2022. 

Peter Appel is a baseball content creator, who co-founded justbaseball.com. He co-hosts the Just Baseball Show, which is a podcast available on all platforms. Appel worked for the Yankees prior to starting justbaseball.com.

This podcast was very interesting and informative on how BLA operates. Peter Appel creates content that I interact with frequently, and getting to know Michael Schwimmer from a distance was informative for how to prepare for my experience working with BLA.

1. Heitner, Darren. “The Story of Big League Advance, Which Hit a Grand Slam with Fernando Tatis Jr..” OutKick, 8 Mar. 2021, https://www.outkick.com/the-story-of-big-league-advance-which-hit-a-grand-slam-with-fernando-tatis-jr/. 

 

Darren Heitner is an author of many books on Sports Law, and is an extremely well regarded member in the sports law field. He is an expert on NIL law and sponsorship deals for athletes.

When Fernando Tatis, Jr. signed his mega-extension, I remember hearing about some company that made headlines by taking a percentage of his earnings — What I didn’t know was the company they were talking about was BLA. Heitner goes into depth about what BLA is and how they hit the point where they are at today. This is very relevant to me as it is a very clear way to learn more about the company I am going to intern with.

1. Lindbergh, Ben. “Effectively Wild Episode 1272: Take Money to Make Money?” FanGraphs Baseball, FanGraphs, 20 Sept. 2018, https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1272-take-money-to-make-money/. 

Ben Lindbergh is an analytically-based MLB writer for FanGraphs, MLB’s leading advanced statistics site. He also worked for Baseball Prospectus and FiveThirtyEight prior to working for FanGraphs.

FanGraphs is the kings of advanced baseball analytic analysis, and in this article, they focused further on the numbers that created the formula that BLA uses. While it’s all secret, Ben Lindbergh goes over the process of creating a predictive model like the one BLA uses. I’m eager to learn about the predictive models that BLA and other companies create. 

1. Diamond, Jared. “The Padres Owe Fernando Tatís Jr. $340 Million. He Owes an Investment Fund Millions from His Payday.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 19 Feb. 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/fernando-tatis-jr-340-million-investment-fund-padres-11613732572.

Jared Diamond has been the national baseball writer for the Wall Street Journal since 2017. He has written about baseball for decades, and writes about much of what happens on the economic side of the Major League landscape today.

This article takes more of a negative spin on BLA. Many people have seen issues with their models and feel as though it may be exploitative. Here, Diamond discusses that, but also examines how that is not the case. I would never want to work with a company that had morally incorrect roots. I am very glad this article cleared that up for me.

1. Lewis, Michael. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. W.W. Norton, 2013. 

An absolute classic, it would be a crime to exclude Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. Moneyball was a transformative text because it further brought to light Billy Beane and Bill James’s work, using math and numbers to better analyze the game. Moneyball was the springboard for advanced baseball analytics, and ultimately has lead to the work that BLA has been doing to date.