Vieira Taking a Swing for the Fence
ETOBICOKE – The arrival of "Moneyball" in 2003 set in motion the most significant changes in baseball since Jackie Robinson integrated the game in 1947. Major League Baseball's analytics revolution has brought sweeping changes to the game on the field, from the proliferation of launch-angle data to the implementation of defensive shifts against batters; it has fundamentally altered how teams approach roster construction.
Enter Humber softball alumna and current assistant coach Jaime Vieira who will be starting with the Toronto Blue Jays as a Baseball Operations Intern later this month. She will be specifically focused on the Amateur and Pro Scouting Departments, assisting with the preparation for the Rule 4 draft.
Jaime's passion for conducting research and proficiency in biomechanics has helped fast-track her to this point, entering a field that has, for the most part, been dominated by men.
Thriving at the University of Guelph-Humber in sports science, she went on to earn her Master of Science from York University, focusing on the connection between the human body and a baseball swing. Utilizing the kinetic chain to transfer energy from the lower body to the upper body to the bat, in hopes to impart the maximum amount of energy into the ball, is the small part of analytics Jaime is hoping to bring to the Blue Jays organization. She wants to use biomechanics to help progress the department, exploiting her knowledge to help prospects and big leaguers reach their full potential.
Her dreams began to bear fruit in 2019 when she attended the MLB Take the Field conference in San Diego. It was there she began to realize that working in baseball operations was not beyond her grasp. Jaime then parlayed an opportunity with the Minnesota Twins into a spot with the Jays, opening the door to further her career in professional baseball.
No one knows what the future holds, but trailer blazers like Kim Ng, Alyssa Nakken, and Rachel Balkovec have carved a path to the show that Vieira intends on exploring.
