Indians hire more talent from Baseball America

How often are the Cleveland Indians in the news during the middle of November? In addition to having two players listed as finalists for the game’s biggest awards—and one of them winning—the Tribe continues to make waves. While this will not be something that fans will be able to quantify on the field, the Indians front office just added more talent from the Baseball America pipeline, the latest of which is Clint Longenecker, a long-time draft writer for one of the game’s most respected publications.

Longenecker joins Conor Glassey, Matt Forman and Mike Kanen as other former Baseball America analysts to join the team in scouting (or “operations”) capacities. Glassey, formerly a draft analyst with the publication, is now a Northwest area scout for the team. Forman last wrote for BA in 2012 and is currently the team’s assistant of baseball operations. Kanen, joining around the same time, currently works in the team’s amateur scouting area.

Recall that it was just this past February when the team added the Sabermetric skills of Max Marchi who left Baseball Prospectus to take a job with the team. At that time, Marchi joined a growing list of individuals who have gone from writer/analyst to being hired by a Major League club, including Keith Woolner who left Baseball Prospectus to become the Manager of Baseball Research and Analysis for the Indians back in 2007.

In Longenecker, it is believed that the team added yet another strong evaluator with the passion and work ethic required for the grind. In the Indians, you have a team that continues to think outside of the box when it comes to poaching talent, leaving no stone unturned—even those electronic, non-traditional ones.