Eve Rosenbaum’s not your average Orioles fan. In fact, she’s not your average anything.
Fusing her varsity softball player experience at Harvard with her education from the university’s world-renowned classrooms, Rosenbaum is one of a limited number of women in Major League Baseball with a high-ranking role in operations.
The fact that she is the Orioles’ director of baseball development for her hometown team is just icing on the cake. (More on that later) Now just a year into scoring her dream job, Rosenbaum’s fingerprints are already all over the rebuild spearheaded by Mike Elias, the O’s executive vice president and general manager.
In advance of the start of the 2021 season, Rosenbaum spoke with Jmore about her remarkable journey from childhood fan to front office executive, while also reflecting on growing up Jewish in Maryland.
Making the Metrics Happen
Jmore: How would you summarize your role with the club?
Rosenbaum: I am the conduit between the various departments that we have within baseball operations. Some of our main departments are Research & Development, Scouting, and Player Development. Our R&D team includes a lot of people who are really great in math, computer science and analytics. They are constantly coming up with cutting edge research findings and producing actionable baseball data. I work with them to make sure that the information is presented clearly on our database and then I work with our Scouting and Player Development departments to make sure that we are utilizing these findings when we scout and when we sign players.
Then, once those players are in our organization, I help ensure that we are driving their progress and coaching them, essentially making sure that we use our findings to grow players from prospects into consistent Major League players.
At the same time, we are also making sure that the theories which our scouts or our coaches have from working hands on with the players is being communicated back to R&D so that they can look into these ideas further to make sure that the numbers support these theories. So, I connect the dots among all the different areas throughout the department.
Do you find yourself at the intersection of evaluators with competing goals? Players probably have a very confident sense of who they are as a player when they are signed to play professionally. Then you have to say, “This data shows where you actually are, and here is what we need to do to try to do bridge the gap and make you into the best version of yourself that you can be.”
Well a lot of that tension is negated right off the bat for a couple of reasons. One, we are a relatively fresh front office. For example, I was hired a year ago and my boss was hired two years ago. Overall, we are a young and forward-thinking group where everyone is in agreement about the value of the analytics revolution that has swept across baseball for the past 10 to 15 years. So we get along really well and share a lot of the same philosophies from top to bottom.
Two, we have an amazing coaching staff. They work hands-on with the players and do a fantastic job translating substantial amounts of data into accessible chunks for each player. Because you’re absolutely right — a player will often say, “I feel like I’m doing this really well” or “I’ve done this well my whole career, so why should I change it now?” That’s why it’s crucial to have young, energetic and motivated coaches who relate well to our players, bonding with them on an individual level so there is a lot of trust. This cultivates opportunities for mutual learning as we rebuild this team from top to bottom. Also, the goal is not to replace scouting with analytics. The goal is to merge the two processes so that each assessment is additive to the other, making our entire player development program more effective.
Leading Off
How do you feel about being a pioneer in your field?
I can say that I have had a positive experience being a woman in a traditionally men’s field. I think that part of that comes from my personality and who I am.
I grew up in Bethesda and played on a boys’ baseball team and a boys’ soccer teams. In elementary school, I sat at the boys’ table for lunch, which was always a big deal. And I have two brothers, so it has always just been a part of my personality to be the woman on the men’s team.
Fortunately, when I was playing soccer and baseball, I was one of the better players. In Bethesda Chevy-Chase Little League my baseball skills stood out and that did most of the talking, so I never really thought of myself as being different. I just saw myself as being part of the team because I was accepted for being a good player, and they wanted me there to contribute.
Thinking back, did I ever get weird looks? Or did I ever have an opposing team say things like, “Oh, they have a girl who is playing goalie, we can definitely score on her.” Yes. Sure that happened, but I just never thought about it. Because my personality was just, this is who I am, I like to play sports, these are the teams I play on, I am good. I fit in.
And this continued through my professional career where I have worked for the NFL, the Houston Astros and now the Orioles. Like, I never consciously think, “Oh I am the only woman in the room.” I think about needing to have a good opinion on players or needing to be prepared for meetings. I just need to be the best worker that I can be.
The media attention definitely reminds me of the extra pressure on me to do well, because if I do well, then I can open the door for other women to do well. If I do not do well, someone might say that she was not good at her job, so other women would not be good at this job either. I am generally really good at ignoring it, but some days I am more consciously aware of it and that can be somewhat stressful. But I think that this just makes me human. Some days I feel the pressure and some days I don’t.
Was there a female mentor to help you along your career path?
It’s actually a funny time to ask that question because the first female GM of any baseball team was hired by the Miami Marlins for 2021. Her name is Kim NG and I interned for her when I was in college back in 2011. I only interned with her for a few months, but we stayed in touch and I would see her often at meetings or out on fields scouting players. She was a mentor for me, especially in terms of instilling things like maintaining the right attitude and how to carry yourself with an even temperament and how to prepare for meetings. I definitely look up to her for those things.
Also, when I worked at the Astros I connected with Stephanie Wilka who now works for the Padres and she is still a good friend. She is also very humble. I think that is one of the undervalued attributes to be successful in this industry—you really need to be humble.
At risk of making you brag, when did you realize you could make a profound impact on a team’s roster?
The first player who I really helped sign who made it to the Major Leagues was Cionel Perez. He is a Cuban pitcher for the Astros—a reliever who was called up in June of 2018 and I remember that feeling. I remember sitting there. It is really hard to describe but it was just like, “Whoa, I did it! I made this happen. Technically speaking, I helped make this happen in conjunction with my scouts and everyone else who evaluated and coached him. That was a really cool feeling to have a player called up!
I felt it again in waves throughout this past season. There were a fair number of young international pitchers who I had helped sign at the Astros who made the big-league team and then pitched for the big-league team and did really well. And one of them was a finalist for the American League Rookie of the Year—Cristian Javier. So this was really the first full year that I have been able to look back and say, “I am good at my job, and these are the players who I signed. They are doing well, and they are contributing. It is a great feeling and I plan to continue that here in Baltimore.
What do you view as the next step toward preparing a female player to compete against men on the field?
The first way I will answer this is to say that I was a college softball player (at Harvard) and people should not just assume that Softball is a watered-down sport. They should know that there are a lot of really good softball players, and the game is so much fun to watch in its own right. I think that is why the Women’s College World Series does really well on ESPN because it is very fast paced. Games are only seven innings, so you can get a double-header wrapped in three-four hours, which is the length of just one baseball game.
So as a starting point, I think that we should really encourage everyone from young girls and women to young boys and men to play and watch more softball, because it is a fascinating sport all on its own.
But in terms of a woman ever playing MLB, I do not know if that will happen. I know that there are certainly some women who have tried and even played in the Minors, so it’s not impossible.
If it does happen, I think it will more likely be a pitcher who is able to get really good movement on her pitches—which is what Pitch was about, right? Regardless, I am confident that the evolving mindset of leadership across baseball will at least open the door for worthy women to have a fair shot at competing.
O’s Fan Credentials
What are your favorite childhood memories from growing up with Orioles baseball?
I have so many. My parents were big Orioles fans and we had season tickets growing up. We sat down the first baseline, which was our favorite spot.
We used to only be allowed to get cotton candy on the first game of the season and the last game of the season, which itself shows you how many games we went to—I mean we were also always there for the last game of the season too, and we probably went to 60-70 games in between.
Back in elementary school on every Opening Day my parents would pull me out early. Even as far back as first grade I remember the principal buzzing my class over the intercom to say: “Please send Eve Rosenbaum to the office because her parents are here to pick her up.” And my first-grade teacher was a really big baseball fan and I remember her buzzing back to say, “Eve can only leave if I am allowed to go to the game too!”
Any other games that stand out?
I remember watching Cal Ripken’s 2,131 game, which was obviously huge for all of us. Just pure joy. Then just lots of smaller memories. Like watching Mike Bordick, B.J. Surhoff, Brady Anderson. Also, the tail end of Eddie Murray’s career. I remember Mike Mussina when the moose antlers would show up on the screens. And when Brady Anderson and Cal Ripken were playing the Men in Black. Esskay Hot Dogs and how they used to write Orioles in ketchup right on the dog. Uncle Teddy’s Pretzels and Board Walk Fries. Tons of memories because it was just such a fun era.
There’s an entire generation of kids whose hopes and dreams still smothered in Jeffrey Maier’s glove during the 1996 American League Championship Series. Does that moment still send sparks shooting in your head?
Wellthat was at Yankee Stadium, so what I remember most about that was watching it on TV with my dad. I was young and could not really lip-read or figure out what they were saying but I am sure the players were swearing up a storm at the umpires.
From Moses to Koufax
How does Judaism inform your identity?
I went on my Birthright trip fairly recently, when I was twenty-five, which was super special and fun. I think more people go when they are still in college and they have this great blow-out time. I was a little bit older than that, so I was able to appreciate it a bit more and appreciate the culture. I mean at that point, I had already traveled a fair amount as an adult for work and it was really cool to see another culture, a totally different community that I immediately belonged to in some wild way. The juxtaposition of old and new was particularly interesting. Like I had taken a class in college on Tel Aviv, from its founding to its position as an international tech hub. Being able to see it in person right on the water, it was just so gorgeous, and Israel seemed like such a great fun place to live. So the Birthright experience is still seared into my mind and really informs my connection to the broader Jewish community.
Have you been following their national team as they build on their success in the World Baseball Classic and earn a medal at the Olympics?
Well, Alex Jacobs, my former colleague from the Astros, was intimately involved with putting their team together. While he and I would talk about it, I was never formally involved in roster construction because it takes a fair amount of work and time that I didn’t have when starting out with the Astros.
But who knows? I may get more involved with the Israeli Team at some point.
Of course you are actively helping to develop Dean Kremer, which will most certainly play into Team Israel’s success. (Dean is the first Israeli ever drafted to MLB and a key piece the Israeli National Team)
This is funny because I have unfortunately not had any personal interactions with Dean because of the pandemic. But when he got called up, my parents were very excited and every time he would pitch they would text the whole family thread to announce that “Kremer is pitching! The new Jewish guy is pitching!”
It’s awesome that he’s Jewish, but I’m mainly excited because he is really good! Like here’s a guy who should be a solid part of the Orioles future and I love knowing we have a player with so much potential. We study pitchers to learn everything we can about ways to fool hitters—maximizing deception and pitch movement, and we feel great about what Dean is doing…and he’s going to get even better.
Any standout Jewish memories from growing up?
I went to Jewish nursery school at [Rockville’s] Temple Beth Ami. I also remember Hebrew school where we used to play this game — like a no vowel game — where the instructor wrote Hebrew words on the board without vowels and we’d split into two teams to guess what words sounded like. I am competitive! [Laughs]
Holidays stand out. I remember Purim. It was like Jewish Halloween and my temple would have this big party with a haunted house and carnival games. It was always so much fun. Also, Passover. As a kid I remember thinking Passover was just another silly long holiday that was just way too late at night. Then as a young adult when coming home from college and even now, it totally changed. We started going to my best friend’s house in Bethesda. At that point, being seated at the long kids table as a bunch of 22 and 23 years olds everything was suddenly so much fun.
Did you have a bat mitzvah?
Yes! I am a twin, so I had a b’nai mitzvah alongside my brother’s bar mitzvah in D.C..! I remember that the week before there was a blizzard and it canceled school for the whole week, so it was like a big party at the end of a week of fun. And my cake was a baseball!
Was your brother also into baseball or was it just you?
My brother was less into baseball. We played on the same team but I was more of a fan than he was, so I got the cake! Come to think of it, he had a separate cake and I cannot remember what it was. And that’s actually kind of funny because desserts are my main thing. Like if I was not in baseball, I would definitely be a professional ice cream taster.
So your parents’ rationing of cotton candy backfired?
[Laughs] Something like that.
Our apologies in advance for the avalanche of calls from Jewish mothers and grandmothers trying to introduce you to people after this publishes.
[Laughs] That is totally fine. And that reminds me to ask you to please send me a link when this posts because you know who saves every article I am ever mentioned in? My parents! And they will send it to my grandmother as well!
It also reminds me to share that I have a group text thread with my best friends from high school called ‘Jewthesda.’ Although we graduated high school twelve years ago we still talk on this thread every single day. Actually, most of us even still live in the Baltimore/DC area, and a huge portion of our thread is focused on bagel and babka places. As soon as things are back to normal I have lots of places that I want to go!
Ice Cream. Babka. Bagels. What were we supposed to be talking about again?
I think food covers all the important Jewish bases!
Dippin’ Dots at Camden Yards in 2021?
Sure thing.
Ira Gewanter is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.
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