General Manager at Age 13

Jake Floyd, 13, is the general manager of the Ash Fork Miners of the Desert Cactus Independent League.

And no, it is no publicity stunt. Jake Floyd is the real deal, an intelligent baseball mind.

His knowledge of stats and analysis seem to come straight out of Moneyball.

“Infield stolen hits and outfield stolen hits. It’s a new stat I invented. You see, the old ways of measuring a player’s defensive ability—fielding percentages, blah blah—are dumb. Eighty percent of the balls hit, you or I could handle: lazy fly balls, choppers to short. But ISH and OSH measure a player’s ability to make great plays, to literally steal hits away from the opposition. Over the course of a season, a guy like Irv will win you six or seven games with his defense alone. That’s, like, huge.”

Though he has read the book at least 8 times, ISH and OSH are uniquely his own.

Jake Floyd's interest in the baseball management, and statistical, side of baseball started young.

When Jake grew old enough for Little League, he found he was less interested in playing than he was in sitting on the bench analyzing the weaknesses of his team, the Tiny Scorpions. After spending a season marinating in right-field mop-up duty, Jake asked Tiny Scorpions manager Freddy Ward to install him as a permanent third-base coach and let him help select new players for the team.

“Jake was very smart, but to be honest, he was a bit much,” Ward told me one day when I dropped by his auto-supply shop. “He got on kids for having low slugging percentages and ‘warning-track power.’ This was Little League—half the kids couldn’t catch a fly ball. I had to cool him down a bit.”

Still, it's still quite the jump from Little League. How does a kid this young stumble into a general manager's position?

Halfway through their second season, the Miners were the pits of the Desert Cactus League, having never won more than two games in a row. That’s when Jake walked in. As Lou tells it, he was in the concession stand trying out new popcorn recipes when the kid wandered over, his head barely high enough to reach the counter.

“I want to be your stat man,” Jake said.

“Stat man?” Lou asked.

“You know, crunch your numbers. Tell you who’s doing well and who’s not. Advise you on what kind of players you need—and what you don’t need.”

Lou had never used a stat man before. He looked at batting average, homers, RBIs. But mostly he relied on word of mouth from other team owners and Ash Fork fans.

“So I asked the kid how old he was,” Lou recalls. “And he says to me, ‘Old enough to know you can’t bring anyone home from scoring position with two outs.’ That cracked me up. Look, I’m a businessman, and I don’t care if you’re 12 or 25 or have a purple horn growing out of your head—if you can help me, I’m interested.”

Jake started the next day, right after school, for $45 a week and free Pepsi. At first, Lou sat him on the lobby couch with his iBook, but after a week or so, he gave him a desk and a nameplate. Every day Jake would print out a three-page dossier of Miners statistics and deposit it on Lou’s desk. He taught Lou how to spot the undervalued players, the importance of team defense, middle relief, and moving runners over. When the Miners returned from a six-game West Coast swing without a victory, Lou felt frustrated enough to make a bold move. He called Jake that night. “Hey, kid,” Lou said. “You feel like running the show?”

“You mean be the general manager?” Jake asked.

“Well, I was thinking something more along the lines of my junior executive assistant,” Lou said.

“I’d like to be GM,” Jake said.

Lou thought about it for ten more seconds. “Aw, hell,” he said. “Why not?”

Since that time, Jake Floyd has transformed Miners' roster. Once a squad full of free swingers, the Miners' now play a disciplined, defense first style. The team, on the back of some key trades, finished 2 games out of the playoffs last year.

With his overall success and intelligence (I'm almost 96% sure he's smarter than Cubs' management), what are his shots for the big show?

As we sit, a tall, gray-haired man starts walking toward us.

“I know who you are,” Jake says. “Whatever you want to tell me, you can tell these guys. They’re cool.”
“Well, we’re prepared to make you an offer,” the man says. “We’d like you to come run our Staten Island team next year.”

“Single-A?” Jake rolls his eyes. “Maybe if I was, like, 11. I think I can handle a little bit more than that.”

“Tampa thought you’d say that. All right, how about the double-A club, up in Trenton?”

I’m not sure I believe what I’m hearing—a man in his seventies negotiating with a 13-year-old over running a team in the Yankees farm system.

“Is that the best you can do?” Jake says. “I’m sure I can call John Henry and Theo and they’ll be happy to make room for me up in Pawtucket. Or hell, I’ll go work for free as a summer intern up in Boston. Help get them A-Rod next summer.”

“Or Mussina,” says Tyler the Intern.

“What do you want, Jake, the Bronx?” the man says. “Steinbrenner’s not that crazy.”

Jake grins. “Oh yeah? He gave $40 million to Carl Pavano. Go tell George I’m flattered by his interest. But I got high school next year.”

The man starts to leave when he turns around and points a finger at Jake. “Be careful, son,” he warns. “You’re smart. But I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve seen trends come and go.”

“Okay, old man,” Jake says. “Give my best to Honus Wagner.”

So, maybe it will be a while (at least 4 years?) until Jake moves on from the Miners. As for his replacement?

“That’s Tyler, the intern. He’s 9. And twice as smart as me.”

Is Tyler the next great kid GM? Should their age even matter?

“It’s like what Theo Epstein’s dad said when Theo got the Red Sox job: ‘At Theo’s age, Alexander the Great was already general manager of the world.’ ”

“His dad said that?” Tyler asks. “What a dick!