Every year, baseball leaders try to outmaneuver one another as they attempt to strengthen their hands. Some try to improve their teams; others, their income statements -- and most say they're trying to strengthen both. And at the end of every July, there are lots of deals in which players and/or cash are traded between teams -- with each team claiming a great transaction.

In some markets, fans are skeptical. In all markets, fans have strong opinions. But almost always, the fans base their opinions on what the press filters for them, with perhaps a few sound bites from team executives.

What they don't get to see are the systems with which each team makes its decisions -- and in these days of Billy Ball (named for the Oakland A's Billy Beane, who has earned the reputation of starting the trend), team executives use technology liberally to determine which players are important or expendable. They use databases, computers and sophisticated ranking mechanisms to value their own players and those on other teams.

Dan Fox, director of Baseball Systems Development for the Pittsburgh Pirates, is responsible for developing and maintaining the system that team President Frank Coonelly and General Manager Neal Huntington use to evaluate and track prospects. The Pirates' system, called The MITT, a baseball pun and acronym for Managing Information, Tools & Talent, is an internally developed software program that Mr. Fox hopes will give the club the extra information that provides the edge in building a better team.

The MITT has information on about 85,000 players, data on competing teams and other information, both qualitative and statistical, to help determine whether any player will be an asset to the team, which way he is trending and what the potential costs are.

Mr. Fox showed me the system, and I noticed that the information is not just for scouts -- also for business. Looking at Andrew McCutchen, an up-and-coming young outfielder, we could have reviewed his biography, scouting report and medical history. Or, we could have looked at the annotations and notes from the front office to see their opinions. We could have looked at his salary history or viewed videos of his swing. After we determined his value in the marketplace, we could have looked at similar statistics for players on other teams, or in the minors or college.

Collecting data like this is not easy. The Pirates pull it from a number of published sources, including Elias News Service and Major League Baseball, as well as from their own entries, which they call Pirates 360. The internal entries are what differentiates the value of a player from one team to another -- why a team may trade a right-handed pitcher and an outfielder for another righty pitcher and outfielder.

The Pirates use a scouting scale in which 20 points represents a nonprospect and 80 a hall of famer. (Babe Ruth is in the system -- although I doubt the Bucs would try to trade for him.) The bottom line is that a single database can be used by 50 users, from scouts to front office people, making a seamless transition of management data -- much the way a good second baseman and shortstop make a seamless double-play team.