Baseball has always balanced between numbers and instinct. Managers pore over statistics to decide who should bat, pitch, or be pulled from the game. Sometimes, though, leaning too heavily on the math can cross into absurdity — as one independent team in Oakland just proved.
The Oakland Ballers, affectionately nicknamed the “B’s,” recently let artificial intelligence manage one of their games. The move was billed as a playful experiment but ended up sparking heated debate among fans.
Baseball After the A’s Exit
The Ballers emerged after Oakland lost the Athletics, a painful blow to local sports culture. In just two years, the B’s managed to win the city’s first baseball title since 1989, quickly building a passionate following. With founder Paul Freedman’s background in education technology, the team embraced innovation and experimentation, often trying out ideas that Major League Baseball would never touch.
Last season, the Ballers allowed fans to make in-game calls through a partnership with Fan Controlled Sports. The crowd-pleasing stunt ended in defeat when fans voted for humorous rather than strategic decisions, even putting a pitcher in as a pinch hitter.
Enter Artificial Intelligence
This year, with a playoff spot already secured, the team partnered with Distillery, a tech company, to test whether AI could manage a baseball game in real time. The system, trained on decades of baseball statistics and the Ballers’ own performance data, was designed to mimic the decision-making of manager Aaron Miles.
Surprisingly, the AI’s calls mirrored Miles’ instincts almost exactly — from pitching rotations to lineup adjustments. The only human override came when a sick catcher had to be swapped out midgame. Miles himself leaned into the joke, greeting the opposing manager before the match by offering a handshake with the tablet running the AI instead of his own hand.
The Fan Backlash
While the experiment ran smoothly on the field, fans in Oakland were less amused. Many viewed the move as another example of Silicon Valley culture intruding where it doesn’t belong. Some compared it to the same kind of corporate decision-making that drove three professional sports franchises out of Oakland in recent years.
Comments on social media reflected that frustration, with one fan remarking that the Ballers were pandering to tech interests instead of honoring baseball traditions.
Lessons Learned
Freedman acknowledged the criticism and made clear the team doesn’t plan to repeat the experiment. Still, the controversy highlighted a broader debate: how far should technology go in a sport that has always celebrated both strategy and human error?
For now, Oakland fans seem to prefer their baseball decisions made by people, not machines.
