Haley Alvarez becomes A’s first female talent evaluator

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The A’s, a leader in front-office diversity, recently welcomed back a former front-office intern as the team’s new scouting coordinator.

Haley Alvarez, 24, is the second woman to work in the A’s scouting department and is the first tasked with talent evaluation; Kate Greenthal was an analytics assistant in 2012. Pam Pitts, who has spent 37 years with the team, was the first woman to be named a director in a baseball front office when she became director of baseball administration 26 years ago. Oakland also hired Justine Seigal as the first woman to coach with a major-league team when she worked with A’s minor-leaguers for two weeks during their instructional league in Arizona in 2015.

Alvarez got her start with Oakland, interning with the A’s two years ago and impressing the team so much that it sponsored her for scout school. At scout school, Alvarez was roommates with Amanda Hopkins, the first full-time female scout in decades and the daughter of former A’s scout Ron Hopkins. Amanda Hopkins is an amateur scout with the Mariners.

Alvarez worked for the Reds this year, doing amateur scouting work as well as helping implement some sports-science technologies.

“Haley was tremendous,” said Reds assistant general manager Nick Krall, also a onetime A’s intern. “We hired her for more of an administrative position and she wound up taking on more responsibility. ... She’s a really hard worker and wants to do it. She’s very focused and conscientious. She’s awesome.”

She’ll help with the A’s draft preparations, input reports into the scouting-report database and also work with assistant general manager/pro scouting Dan Feinstein on the international scouting side. Alvarez’s scouting assignment will be short-season A-ball in Boise and Vancouver, British Columbia; she called amateur scouting her passion.

Invariably, when Alvarez is scouting games, she is the only woman there.

“It can be difficult at times, but it gives me the motivation and drive to want to do it even more,” Alvarez said. “I’ve been doing this for a while, and everyone has been great. All the teams I’ve been with have been very supportive. I’ve been working a long time to get there, so it lights a fire under me if people say I can’t do it.”

Alvarez is from Ross and grew up a Giants fan. She went to the University of Virginia, where she went through the undergraduate business program and worked with the Cavaliers’ baseball team while interning with MLB’s commissioner’s office. In 2016, she was an amateur scouting intern with the Red Sox.

She’s fully on board with her new team, of course. “Now my allegiance is to the A’s,” Alvarez said. “With all the work that goes into it, you do everything you can to help the team win. I love the A’s.”