Transforming Baseball with Data-Driven Precision
A New Season for Data & ML at the Miami Marlins
Discover how CloudKite partnered with the Marlins to modernize their infrastructure, enabling faster insights and smarter decision-making on and off the field.
Modernizing Data Infrastructure for Smarter Baseball Operations
The Miami Marlins’ Research & Development organization plays a central role in supporting player evaluation, forecasting, and data-driven baseball operations. As the department expanded and invested in new analytical capabilities, the Marlins sought a modern engineering foundation to help their teams move faster, innovate more effectively, and support the growing demands of data and machine learning across the organization.
Together, the Marlins and CloudKite built the foundation for a modern data and ML organization – combining CloudKite’s cloud and DevOps expertise with the Marlins’ deep engineering talent to establish scalable systems and mature engineering practices.
The Challenge
Outdated Systems, Limited Scalability
Before CloudKite’s involvement, the Marlins relied heavily on legacy, on-premises systems. Engineers handled everything manually: maintenance, deployments, access management, and support. As a result:
Engineers spent as much as 40% of their week on support and maintenance
Existing infrastructure couldn’t scale with new data sources or ML initiatives
No unified cloud environment existed
The team struggled to specialize due to operational overhead
New hires took significant time to onboard into existing systems
The organization knew they needed to modernize, not just to support analysts and ML engineers, but to enable better insights, faster forecasting, and ultimately better baseball decision-making.
The Partnership
Collaborative Success with the Marlins
CloudKite worked alongside Marlins R&D staff as true thought partners. Instead of simply implementing tools, CloudKite helped define what good looks like in a modern engineering organization.
CloudKite embedded directly with the Marlins team, helping with cloud adoption, teaching engineering fundamentals, co-designing workflows, and establishing practices that scale as the organization grows.
CloudKite helped us go from zero to one. You taught us best practices, helped us design our cloud architecture, and worked with us to mature as an engineering organization.
Brian Chase
Vice President of Baseball Systems, Marlins
The Solution
A High-Level Overview
Using CloudKite’s collaborative, best-practice approach, the Marlins and CloudKite worked together to establish the foundation for their modern data and ML organization, focusing on scalable architecture, mature engineering practices, and secure, reliable workflows.
Establishing a modern cloud-first architecture
CloudKite helped redesign the Marlins’ engineering landscape, shifting from legacy on-premises systems to a scalable cloud ecosystem.
Building the ML and data foundation from scratch
At the beginning of the 2025 season, none of these systems existed. CloudKite established the standards, automation, and infrastructure needed for real ML operations.
Engineering maturity & best practices
- Infrastructure-as-Code philosophy
- Healthy DevOps patterns
- Standardized environments
- Strong observability and operational hygiene
Safe, reliable IAM and GitHub permissioning
A major win: onboarding and access management became predictable, secure, and fast.
Technologies Used
“CloudKite has been essential on our cloud journey. You helped us scale, taught us best practices, and made it possible for our team to operate like a true engineering organization.”
Results and Impact
Redefining What's Possible
By modernizing their data and engineering foundation, the Marlins transformed how their R&D team operates. Routine maintenance dropped from nearly half of each engineer’s week to less than ten percent, freeing time for meaningful innovation. With standardized workflows, cloud-first architecture, and 50+ machine-learning models in production, the organization now moves faster, forecasts smarter, and builds with confidence.
%
Reduction in Maintenance Time
Engineers reclaimed almost an entire workday each week to focus on what matters: baseball analysis, forecasting, and internal tools.
“If we’re spending 40% of our time on maintenance, we’re not being as impactful to putting the best team on the field. CloudKite changed that.”
Minutes or Less to Onboard
With standardized roles and permissions across the organization, new hires onboard in minutes and are productive on day one.
“Adding a new employee took me less than 30 minutes. CloudKite’s IAM structure made onboarding easy and safe.”
50+ ML Models Deployed in 2025
And that was only possible because the entire ML pipeline was built and operationalized during the season.
Greater Focus and Specialization
With operational overhead significantly reduced, analysts and engineers can concentrate on the work that matters most.
Specialists now have the space to specialize
Engineers spend far less time on routine support
More capacity for new insights, improvements, and innovation
Better Insights, Faster Forecasting
CloudKite’s modernization enabled faster experimentation, more reliable forecasting, and a smoother path from idea to insight.
“The impact is simple: we can move faster, build more, and generate better insights.”
Cultural Evolution
A New Era of Collaboration
As the R&D organization grew, the Marlins and CloudKite worked together to establish the practices, workflows, and systems of a modern engineering team—creating clarity, consistency, and a strong foundation for continued growth.
Mature engineering practices
Clear ownership across teams
Strong cloud and DevOps foundations
Infrastructure designed to scale with the organization
Looking Ahead
The Marlins are continuing to expand their R&D capabilities and drive innovation across data-driven baseball operations. The foundation built with CloudKite supports the next generation of their work, enabling:
- Faster experimentation
- Stronger forecasting and projection capabilities
- More robust internal tools and applications
- A scalable ML and data ecosystem that grows with the team
This groundwork helps the Marlins continue their mission to improve performance, strengthen decision-making, and shape the future of baseball within the organization.
CloudKite is proud to be part of the Marlins’ journey, building the data foundation for their next big season of innovation.