Billy Beane: Baseball's Wall Street Super Draft

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The worlds of Wall Street and baseball are coming together, according to Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, with the sport's front offices increasingly looking for the same business and leadership skills prized in the financial sector.

"Running a baseball team right now looks a lot like Wall Street," he said, during a keynote presentation that kicked off New York's Internet Week on Monday. "In 10 years I won't be able to apply for this job because the guys who run baseball teams now are the guys that 10 years ago used to come to Wall Street and work."

The worlds of baseball and Wall Street are combining, according to Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane.

Beane cited Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer of the Chicago Cubs, as well as Andrew Friedman, executive vice president of baseball operations for the Tampa Bay Rays, as examples of the new breed of baseball executives.

Epstein oversaw two World Series titles as the youthful general manager of the Boston Red Sox, and now serves as the Cubs' president of baseball operations. Hoyer is the Cubs' general manager.

"These are the guys who never played the game, these guys are fans of the game -- but this is the type of mind that's coming in," he explained. "No longer is it just guys like myself who happened to play, and therefore, by virtue of having played, inherited some of the executive positions."

Beane, whose implementation of player statistical analytics was immortalized in the book and movie Moneyball, described the modern baseball front office as more of a meritocracy than it was in the past.

"The position has been opened up significantly -- women are infiltrating," he said. "I just hired a young woman who, actually, did go to Goldman Sachs(GS) after graduating from Harvard, then went to Stanford Business School - now she's my assistant scouting director."

"The game is much more inclusive -- it's a much more intelligent game," added Beane.