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From an avid A’s fan as a kid to a trusted Giants executive for 25 years, Yeshayah Goldfarb has traveled full circle and accepted a dream job as the first president of the Oakland Ballers.
Goldfarb, 47, wore many hats in the Giants’ player development department and was one of the analytics sources in their World Series championship runs — yes, they did think analytically at the time but were publicly discreet about their methods.
With the independent Ballers, who won the 2025 Pioneer League championship in their second year of existence, he’ll initially focus on the business side, including ticket sales, merchandising, concessions, and sponsorships, in an effort to increase interest and revenue through any creative means possible.
“We want it to be sustainable and last forever,” said Goldfarb, who grew up close to the Ballers’ historic facility, Raimondi Park, and graduated from nearby Berkeley High School. “That’s our team’s focus right now, to move from the startup phase.”
He added, “It might be funny to call it a startup, because they won a championship last year, but we want to build it into something that’s bigger, where people around the entire Bay Area look forward to coming to games. Right now, Oakland is really behind it, but people from other areas would really enjoy the experience.”
The Ballers are the anti-A’s. Unlike the John Fisher-owned Major League Baseball outfit that gave up on community and bolted after a 57-year run, the Ballers care about their fans and city. They’re genuinely rooted in Oakland.
It’s indy ball, but it’s high-quality indy ball and the only game in town. The Ballers’ stunning 73-23 record last season resulted in a .760 winning percentage, the sixth highest in pro baseball history, right behind the 1906 Cubs (.763), according to research by Ballers vice president of communications and fan entertainment Casey Pratt.
Goldfarb has firsthand knowledge of the Ballers’ growing culture. He served as an adviser in the team’s first two seasons, even before stepping away from the Giants in January 2025, and has been a close friend of Ballers cofounder Bryan Carmel since they attended the same summer camp as preteens.
“Bryan called me on FaceTime in July 2023 and told me about the idea,” Goldfarb said. “He said, ‘We need to start a baseball team in Oakland, because the A’s are leaving.’ I said, ‘You’re crazy.’ I had a meeting to go to, but the more I thought about it, the more the wheels were turning.
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“I grew up on the border of Berkeley and Oakland and was elbow to elbow with other fans when the A’s were drawing 2.9 million to the Coliseum. You walked into the stadium from BART with everyone chanting, ‘Let’s go, A’s’ — one of those core romantic memories I have. It’s still a piece of me.”
Saddened for A’s fans who lost their beloved franchise, Goldfarb agreed to moonlight with the Ballers and share thoughts with Carmel and fellow founder Paul Freedman, neither of whom had Goldfarb’s experience in pro baseball.
“I found myself waking up in the middle of the night and writing down ideas,” he said.
Before accepting the role as president, Goldfarb engaged in deep discussions with the five board members — Carmel, Freedman, Jesse Eisenhardt, Jamie Rosenberg, and Jorge Leon of the popular fan group Oakland 68s — to see if it was a mutual fit. It was.
He started late last month and is all in on taking the Ballers to a higher level as they prepare to open their 96-game season May 19, hosting the Missoula Paddleheads.
“Bringing in a president is a huge step for the Ballers,” Carmel said. “Paul and I had been bootstrapping everything from the very beginning. It’s been an ambitious product that promised to punch above its weight class, and this is a milestone to bring in someone with the experience and capability of Yeshayah.”
It’s no tiny task for Goldfarb. The mission, said Carmel, is for the Ballers to make a profit for the first time as soon as this season, “a little above break-even.” The Ballers have 12 full-time employees and 200-plus workers during the season.
Goldfarb is an admirer of Bill Veeck, the legendary baseball owner/promoter/maverick who always took chances and whose ideas often were brilliant but sometimes bordered on ludicrous. Goldfarb long ago read his popular 1962 book “Veeck As in Wreck” and is excited to incorporate ideas of his own — even zany ones, if he thinks they’ll be embraced by fans.
“With the Giants, I traveled the country to hundreds of minor-league stadiums to evaluate players,” Goldfarb said. “When you walk in these stadiums, you notice everything: how they greet you, the pregame entertainment. I always watched that side of it. I was in Japan a few months ago and watched 14 games across six or seven facilities, and it was eye-opening and fascinating. There’s a different feel at every location.”
Now the focus is on Raimondi Park, where the Ballers invested $1.6 million for a refurbishment. The venue seats 4,100, and the Ballers averaged 2,302 fans last year, a 32% increase over the debut season and several hundred more than the Class A San Jose Giants.
As Ballers management sees it, they’re an independent team but in a major-league market and try to live up to the billing. Like in affiliated ball, they use analytics – including from tracking systems at all Pioneer League ballparks – to provide detailed reports in advance of every series.
Yeshayah Goldfarb spent the last two years advising the Ballers before joining the team in a formal capacity. Photo courtesy of the Oakland Ballers
Goldfarb is no stranger to analytics. With the Giants, along with his many other duties, he was passionate about providing data to coaches and players including on the minor-league side. He broke in with the Giants in 2000 as an intern and was in the draft room in 2002 (the so-called Moneyball draft that put the analytic generation on the map), sharing input on prospective draftees, long before analytic-heavy Farhan Zaidi took over.
“You’re trying to gain competitive advantages any way you can, and we created competitive advantages all the way through,” Goldfarb said. “It was important for Brian Sabean and Dick Tidrow to keep it all close to the vest so that we could maintain those competitive advantages as long as possible.”
With the Ballers, Goldfarb could eventually help with roster construction. So far, executive VP Don Wakamatsu, manager Aaron Miles, and assistant GM Tyler Petersen have built rosters that attract big-league scouts. Six Ballers have been signed to minor-league contracts; most recently James Colyer out of Cal State East Bay. The pitcher made the Ballers’ roster out of open tryouts and was so impressive that he landed a deal with the Nationals.
“We can still have baseball here and make it our own and make it last,” Goldfarb said. “That’s extremely attractive to me. We’re taking the next steps to make it a long-term success and make it the place to be for 50 home games every summer.”
The Ballers’ innovative moves have drawn national attention. They were the first team in pro sports to play an entire game managed by artificial intelligence. They were the first team in the Pioneer League, which dates to 1939, to start a female pitcher, Kelsie Whitmore. They were the first in the league to oppose an MLB-affiliated team, the San Jose Giants, in an exhibition; the teams will face off again in late March.
They also invited fans to invest in their team, a resounding success: 3,800 bought stakes, for a total of $3.2 million. The Ballers partnered with 70 local sponsors, mostly small Oakland businesses, and sold 24,000 caps. Pratt has learned that more than 50 fans have tattooed the Ballers logo onto their bodies.
The passion fans once had for the A’s has moved to Oakland’s new team, and it’s now on Goldfarb to continue the growth.
“I’m super excited,” he said. “It’s a lot all at once, but I’m loving it all.”