For the Love of the Game

From a kid obsessed with Major League Baseball to a World Series-winning executive, Amiel Sawdaye ’99 has rounded the bases for an accomplished career in baseball.

As the senior vice president and assistant general manager for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sawdaye oversees all aspects of their Major League and scouting operations. He provides input on baseball operations and saw the team to a 2023 World Series appearance. Before that, he spent 15 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, where he served as vice president of amateur and international scouting and contributed to three championship teams.

The Baltimore native pivoted to Smith after entering the University of Maryland as a neurobiology major. “My father always wanted me to go into the medical field and I was going to work in sports medicine, but quickly realized it probably wasn’t for me.” He changed his major to information systems. “I moved into business and computers and that clicked a lot better for me.”

Sawdaye realized his Smith coursework could apply to a career in sports when he took a class taught by Lawrence Bodin, who is now professor emeritus. “He incorporated baseball into our coursework.” Bodin developed a model that enabled the San Diego Padres to rank players eligible for the 1997 baseball expansion draft. So, while his students  learned about big firms’ logistical issues, they also learned statistical and computational methods involved in player, hitting and pitch modeling in baseball. “It always stuck with me. I learned about things we can apply today on a daily basis,” says Sawdaye.

He didn’t go into sports immediately after graduating but leveraged his degree to secure a corporate position at General Electric. However, Sawdaye’s baseball fandom compelled him to take a chance on his dream. After cold-calling and emailing industry professionals, he eventually scored an internship with the Red Sox and ran with it. “I believe that you have to have a deep-rooted passion for what you do, and I always wanted to get into professional team sports,” he says. “I just felt that if it didn't work, I could always circle back and do something else with my degree, but fortunately, it did.”

Sawdaye’s ascension through the MLB front office ranks can be attributed to three major factors: honesty, accountability and cultivating relationships. He describes his leadership style as being centered around making himself approachable to everyone at all levels of an organization. That includes maintaining open, candid dialogue and sometimes holding tough and vulnerable conversations.

He credits Smith with giving him the blueprint to make his career a reality.