The Phillies settled a lawsuit against a data firm that shows how much the team relies on analytics

Days before opening day on March 27, the Phillies filed a lawsuit accusing a data analytics firm of breaching its contract.

The team argued in court filings that by shopping parts of its platform that assists in decision making to divisional rivals, Zelus Analytics was risking the Phillies’ World Series aspirations. The club asked a judge to prevent any such sale.

But the Phillies struck out, and the judge denied their request in April, saying the team did not prove imminent harm. The Phillies and Zelus settled the case earlier this month.

» READ MORE: The Phillies sued Zelus Analytics to stop the company from selling their ‘competitive advantage’

The details of the settlement are confidential, according to the attorney representing the Phillies, who declined to comment further, but it concludes a short and contentious legal saga that gives a glimpse into how reliant teams are on analytical tools in the post-Moneyball era of baseball defined by big data.

The Phillies paid Zelus, which is owned by Teamworks Innovations, $2.4 million to use the Titan Intelligence Platform starting in 2022. The team had exclusive rights to the use of Titan in its division, according to the lawsuit, which was first filed in federal court but later moved to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Zelus had agreed to sell Titan to only six MLB teams, one from each division.

Titan has been helping the Phillies evaluate trade and draft prospects and make in-game decisions including player positioning, pinch hitting, and pitch selection.

But in November, the Phillies said in court filings, the team learned from Zelus that the firm was planning to spin off parts of the platform as stand-alone products, thus bypassing the exclusivity agreement.

The insight that the Phillies glean from Titan is only useful in that it is exclusive, the team argued. If other teams can see the same forecast, they can pursue the same free agent or change their game plans based on what they expect the Phillies would do.

And the stakes couldn’t be higher.

“The Phillies [have] invested millions of dollars in the Titan Intelligence Platform for one reason — to win more baseball games,” the team said in court filings. Allowing Zelus to shop parts of the platform to rivals, “will directly impact the Philadelphia Phillies’ ability to win games, qualify for the postseason, and potentially win the World Series championship in 2025 and beyond.”

The Phillies pointed out that a single loss can derail a season, even with 162 games. Case in point: the Arizona Diamondbacks finished last year with the same record as the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves but missed the postseason.

Zelus said in its own court filings that the contract the Phillies signed allows the company to spin off products because the exclusivity was for Titan’s entire suite. It accused the Phillies of knowing of the plan to shop platform parts for more than a year and doing nothing about it, only to file the lawsuit days before the 2025 season began.

The Phillies had attempted to negotiate a better price to account for some of the lost exclusivity, Zelus said in court filings. The effort to seek an injunction was nothing more than a negotiating tactic, Zelus said.

As of March, only one National League East rival of the Phillies had signed a contract with Zelus for one of the unbundled products that assists in “game intelligence,” according to court filings. The team isn’t named.

In its filing opposing an injunction, the company walked a tightrope between hyping its product and arguing that it is only part of a decision-making process that comes down to human decisions.

Titan is “best-in-class” and “market-leading,” Zelus said in court filings, but it doesn’t make decisions for teams.

“Players, coaches, managers, and executives are human, and are subject to innumerable influences that impact every decision,” Zelus said.

Attorneys for Zelus did not respond to a request for comment.

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Philly sports fans have expressed frustration in the past over teams’ reliance on data tools.

For instance, Daryl Morey, the Sixers’ president of basketball operations, proclaimed at a conference in March that he “absolutely” uses artificial intelligence models “as a vote in any decision.”

The comment, after a losing season, did not sit well with fans. Morey, who was part of a Moneyball-esque revolution in the NBA, said in the same appearance that the Sixers would treat the input of an AI model “almost like one scout.”

The Phillies’ approach is similar, according to Zelus court filings.

While the team argued that if rivals had access to the tools it would be akin to tipping pitches, Zelus said the Phillies have made in-game decisions against Titan’s recommendations, undercutting the idea. The court filings do not include specific examples from games, trades, or free-agent signings.