Orioles' proprietary formula on how to evaluate third basemen, Ritterpusch searched the entire Major League Baseball roster for candidates. ScoutAdvisor spit out 81 names ranked in order of preference, and the team signed No. 3 on the list, Chris Gomez.

While ten of the 30 major league clubs use IBM's PROS software and another ten use homegrown solutions, E Solutions has quietly captured the remaining third of the league. In December the Anaheim Angels became the latest team to sign up, following three playoff teams from last season: the Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Later this year E Solutions will roll out a version of the software for NFL teams, and a basketball product will follow sometime in 2006.

CEO Richard Nicholas, 42, foundedE Solutions in 1998 after two decades as an independent IT contractor. Nicholas hired current partner and E Solutions president Michael Morizio, 48, away from IBM after they had worked together on various tech jobs. The two soon landed contracts to build intranets for the Tampa outposts of clients such as Exxon Mobil. In late 1999, E Solutions, two blocks from the Yankees' Florida offices, got a phone call from the team. Owner George Steinbrenner was looking for someone nearby to make minor upgrades to his archaic scouting system.

"We were so cocky," says Nicholas. "The Yankees were still doing manual data entry; their scouts were still faxing reports back. We saw a chance to build something huge for them." But Yankees management, happy with a few small tweaks,