I still remember where I was the first time Playoff Kershaw became a thing. It was 2013, and the Dodgers were a juggernaut. They’d steamrolled through the second half of the regular season behind an exuberant Yasiel Puig and a dominant Clayton Kershaw, and they manhandled the Braves in the NLDS behind two triumphant starts from their ace; 13 innings, a solitary earned run, and 18 strikeouts.

He pitched well against the Cardinals in his first start of the NLCS, a 1-0 loss, which brings us to my memory. Game 6, an elimination game for Los Angeles, wasn’t going to be easy for me to watch. My girlfriend and I were in a remote town in Argentinian Patagonia, and the satellite signal came in intermittently between cloudbursts. On a grainy, 18-inch TV, we sat down to watch the broadcast in Spanish.

Kershaw imploded. Michael Wacha dominated. The announcers screamed with joy at every run, exulted in rich and varied pronunciations of “Kershaw” and “Wacha,” and generally had a great time. I drank it in right along with them, marveling at the good fortune that led the Cardinals past such a formidable opponent with a rookie starter on the mound. I couldn’t have known it was the start of something bigger. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note this posting contains multiple positions.

Position: Quantitative Analyst

Department: Baseball Research & Development
Status: Full-Time
Reports to: Director, Quantitative Analysis
Deadline: November 8, 2019

Description:
The Baseball Analytics team of the Los Angeles Dodgers is responsible for developing novel statistical methodology to support decision-making throughout Dodgers baseball operations. They are seeking to hire a Quantitative Analyst to join the team. As a member of the team, you will collaborate with experts (from statistics, computer science, biomechanics and other disciplines) who will challenge you to bring scientific rigor to your research. This position offers the opportunity to solve challenging problems in data science and ultimately see the impact of your work on the field.

Job Functions:

• Develop and implement novel mathematical models to answer research questions in player evaluation, player development and in-game strategy
• Productionize and maintain data science projects relied upon by the rest of the organization to support their decision-making processes
• Collaborate with team members to provide technical advice, learn from their expertise and integrate data science projects with each other
• Perform ad hoc data analyses to answer urgent questions from front office leadership and other groups within baseball operations
• Prepare presentations and reports to disseminate model results to the front office, as well as staff from coaching, scouting and player development
• Assist with and manage personnel-related manners, such as reviewing resumes, interviewing candidates and overseeing intern projects

Basic Requirements/Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in statistics, computer science, mathematics or any other STEM field related to data science
• Proficiency in R or Python
• Understanding of Git version control for code development
• Ability to communicative effectively in speech and in writing on a technical and nontechnical level
• Experience applying one or more of the following modeling techniques (or similarly specialized techniques) to real-world data preferred:
• Advanced statistical models such as generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs), spatial or time series models, or Bayesian hierarchical models
• Topics in machine learning (e.g. ensemble methods), artificial intelligence (e.g. reinforcement learning) or computer vision (e.g. pose estimation)
• Techniques from operations research such as optimization or simulation
• Experience with advanced data visualization libraries such as D3 or plotly preferred
• Experience maintaining a well-organized, well-documented code repository for productionizing a data science project preferred

To Apply:
To apply, visit https://www.mlb.com/dodgers/team/jobs.

Position: Quantitative Analysis Intern

Department: Baseball Research & Development
Status: Part-Time
Reports to: Director, Quantitative Analysis
Deadline: November 8, 2019

Description:
The Baseball Analytics team of the Los Angeles Dodgers is responsible for developing novel statistical methodology to support decision-making throughout Dodgers baseball operations. They are seeking to hire a summer intern to join the team. The primary goal of our internship program is to identify and develop talented individuals who may be interested in joining the team full-time in the future.

Job Functions:

• Collaborate with the team to select one quantitative research project, and take that project from start to finish during the 12 weeks of the internship
• Meet front office staff, coaches, and scouts; and get exposure to various aspects of baseball operations

Basic Requirements/Qualifications:

• Pursing a degree in statistics, computer science, mathematics or any other STEM field related to data science
• Experience with R or Python
• Ability to communicative effectively in speech and in writing on a technical and nontechnical level
• Experience with advanced statistical models such as generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs), spatial or time series models, or Bayesian hierarchical models preferred
• Experience with machine learning (e.g. ensemble methods), artificial intelligence (e.g. reinforcement learning) or computer vision (e.g. pose estimation) preferred
• Experience with operations research topics such as optimization or simulation preferred
• Experience with advanced data visualization libraries such as D3 or plotly preferred
• Experience maintaining a well-organized, well-documented code repository for productionizing a data science project preferred

To Apply:
To apply, visit https://www.mlb.com/dodgers/team/jobs.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

For a moment, it looked like Will Smith would be the hero. In the bottom of the ninth, sandwiched between the two cataclysmic half-innings that abruptly ended the 106-win Dodgers’ season, they had a brief flicker of hope when with one out and one on, Smith hit a drive off Daniel Hudson that looked as though it might — might — make him the hero, with a walk-off home run that sent the Dodgers to the NLCS. It was hardly implausible given that the 24-year-old rookie had hit two of the Dodgers’ major leauge-leading seven walk-off home runs this year, or that nearly half the drives hit to the specifications of which he struck Hudson’s hanging slider — 100.3 mph, at a 26 degree launch angle — have left the yard over the past five seasons.

It wasn’t to be.

Smith’s drive fell short as, ultimately and in more gruesome fashion, did the Dodgers. There will be plenty of time to dissect the larger situation but for the moment, consider the batted ball, which had a 69% of becoming a hit and a 46.1% chance of going out based on similarly struck spheroids. When it didn’t, it was just the latest in the genre of hold-your-breath moments that wound up producing mutterings that maybe the baseball has been de-juiced this October — that is, that the postseason ball is different from what’s been used in the regular season.

It’s not hard to understand why this notion has taken hold. So far this month, we’ve seen home runs hit at a lower frequency than during a regular season that set all kinds of records for long balls, and scoring rates have fallen as well. In the blur of Division Series games, many a hard-hit ball appeared bound to go out — at least based upon the way our brains have become calibrated to this year’s nearly-numbing frequency — only to die at the warning track. Yet it’s harder to make the case that something is different given a closer look at the numbers, both traditional and Statcast, at least if you’re not Baseball Prospectus’ Rob Arthur, whose model to calculate the drag on the baseball by measuring a pitch’s loss of speed does suggest something is afoot. More on his latest findings below, after I present my own analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

The ball left Justin Turner’s bat at 70.3 mph, with a launch angle of 34 degrees. Per Statcast, batted balls with that exit velocity, hit on that plane, have an expected batting average of .550. A little better than a coin flip. There were two out, and nobody on base, and Sean Doolittle on the mound; there were thousands still left at Dodger Stadium willing the ball to fall, thousands more in the empty stadium in Washington praying for it to find a glove. The Washington Nationals had a 99.9% chance of winning the game. And also, Michael A. Taylor, out in centerfield, sprinting toward it — at the last moment, stretching out his glove — the ball, barely missing the ground, centimeters from escaping his glove.

Had the ball fallen, it barely would have made a difference. The Dodgers’ win expectancy would have improved to something like 0.5%. But that’s not what it felt like. Not for the Dodgers fans who had remained through the preceding disaster, looking for a sliver of hope, the slightest graze of cowhide against grass. Not for the Nationals fans, hoping for something they hadn’t yet seen — a glove closed around a ball for a series-clinching out, an end to the years of futility, the beginning of something completely new. This is where the postseason takes you: Years of your life, untold amounts of time and emotional energy spent, seeming to rest in the inches between a ball and a glove and a few blades of grass.

Taylor rose up and took the ball in his glove, a confused expression on his face. Turner, on the basepath 200 feet away, motioned to the dugout. But even as the game hung, for a few moments, in the purgatory of umpire review, the fans knew, and Sean Doolittle knew, jumping off the mound and into the stratosphere, and Adam Eaton knew, leaping in from right field. It was over. The Washington Nationals had won Game 5. They were advancing to the NLCS. And the Dodgers’ historic, 106-win season had ended. They were nine games too short, nine innings too short. A few runs, a few pitches, maybe. A few inches. Sometimes cliches are cliches because they’re true. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Jay Jaffe noted that starting pitching has been carrying a greater load in the playoffs this year than in the regular season and recent postseasons. One really good reason for that is the sheer number of very good starters in the playoffs this October. Take today’s games as an example. Jack Flaherty and Mike Foltynewicz will go head to head this afternoon, followed by Walker Buehler and Stephen Strasburg tonight.

Below, find a table with the NL pitching WAR leaders this season:

Three of this season’s top seven National League pitchers by WAR are set to start, and try to get their teams a series away from the NL pennant. It’s possible we see a few more of those pitchers throw in relief in tonight’s games, as well. Now, look at this table showing the NL pitching WAR leaders since August 6 when Mike Foltynewicz made his first start since returning from the minors:

We could very well see an offensive explosion today, but the scheduled starting pitchers are some of the best in the game this year, with Mike Foltynewicz joining the group over the last two months of the season. Elimination games are almost always exciting, and these ones are likely to feature great pitching to boot.

The postseason lends itself to all sorts of narratives. There are team triumphs and individual stories, but this postseason features something special you might not have noticed: a few teammates who have been playing together for nine seasons or more. When Adam Wainwright took the mound for his Game 3 start against the Braves and threw a first pitch sinker to battery mate Yadier Molina (Ronald Acuna Jr. would foul that first pitch off, but ultimately strike out swinging), it was hard to forget that this may well be Wainwright’s final season, marking the end of a career during which so many of the right-handers best moments have come with Molina behind the plate. That first pitch got me thinking: which playoff teammates have been together the longest?

To answer that question, I turned to the game logs here at FanGraphs to find the first day both teammates appeared in a game together at the major league level. I also looked at how many total games each pair has appeared in together, which includes pinch-hit appearances, pitching in relief, and defensive substitutions. This does not include any time spent on the Injured List and only includes games in which both teammates made an appearance. I excluded the postseason for parity; the data is updated through the end of the 2019 season. So, before the Dodgers and the Nationals and the Cardinals and the Braves play their Game 5’s, let’s take a look at the longest-tenured teammates we can watch this October.

No. 5: Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran

Debut as Teammates: May 7, 2011

Kicking off our list is the pitcher/first baseman duo for the Braves. These two have been staples in Atlanta for several years now; this year Julio Teheran became the only pitcher in Braves’ franchise history to start six consecutive Opening Days. Freddie Freeman has been at first base for all of them.

Teheran was initially left off the Braves’ Division Series roster but when Chris Martin suffered an oblique injury, Teheran took his place. Now both he and Freeman are trying to push Atlanta into the Championship Series for the first time since 2001, though they’re likely both hoping for better individual performances in Game 5; Freeman, perhaps still hampered by an elbow injury, is slashing just .125/.222/.313 with a 38 wRC+ in 18 postseason plate appearances, while Teheran took the loss in Game 4 after giving up a walk-off sacrifice fly to Yadier Molina that scored Kolten Wong.

Total regular season games together: 200 Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Zimmerman gave the best of himself to Washington Nationals teams that were not yet ready to produce moments big enough for him. By the time the talent surrounding him began to live up to his own, he had crossed over into a more treacherous, injury-marred phase of his career. Over the course of 15 years, Zimmerman’s fortunes and those of the Nationals have rarely been in harmony. But on Monday night, staring down elimination on its home field, Washington pulled back the curtains once more, and its first-ever star stole the show.

Zimmerman walked to the plate with a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning, watched Los Angeles right-hander Pedro Báez hurl a high fastball toward him, and crushed the pitch over the center field wall for a three-run homer that powered a 6-1 victory over the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS. Nationals ace Max Scherzer was brilliant in seven innings of one-run baseball, striking out seven and allowing four hits and three walks, before turning the ball over to Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson for the final six outs.

With their help, the Nationals preserved themselves for another game against the Dodgers, this time in a decisive Game 5 slated for Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium. Washington will likely send Stephen Strasburg to the bump, while Los Angeles is expected to counter with Walker Buehler. Both starters were dominant in their first games of the series, with Buehler tossing six shutout frames in Game 1 and Strasburg dealing seven shutout innings in Game 2. It will be the fourth time in eight years the Nationals will play Game 5 of the NLDS. They have lost all three of their previous tries.

Monday’s bottom of the fifth inning began with a small-ball sequence from yesteryear. With the game tied 1-1, Washington shortstop Trea Turner lined a single to left field against new Dodgers reliever Julio Urías, and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Adam Eaton. Anthony Rendon then smacked a single to center that scored Turner, and two batters later, advanced to third base on a single by Howie Kendrick. With two on and two out, Los Angeles summoned Báez — a right-hander with a 3.10 ERA and 3.52 FIP in the regular season — to try and keep the game where it was. Báez got ahead with a strike. Ahead 0-1, he elevated a fastball where he thought Zimmerman couldn’t reach it. He was wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Martinez didn’t exactly shower Aníbal Sánchez with praise when he penciled the 35-year-old into the starter’s spot and his postseason series early Sunday morning in Washington (35 doesn’t seem that old until you realize that 2001, the year in which Martinez made his last major-league plate appearance, was the same year in which Sánchez signed as an international free agent with the Red Sox). When pressed on the choice — between Sánchez, who hadn’t pitched in 10 days, and Wild Card starter Max Scherzer on two days rest (he threw in relief in Game 2 Friday) — Martinez was brief. “I’ve asked a lot of guys to hold off on their bullpens,” he said.

But Sánchez, the part of this game that wasn’t supposed to go well for the Nationals, acquitted himself admirably over five innings and 87 pitches of work. The first inning was dicey, with two walks and a single sandwiched around a foulout to right by Max Muncy and a swinging strikeout by Cody Bellinger. But Sánchez found control of his soft changeup late in the Bellinger sequence, and used it to great effect against Pollock with the bases loaded. 71 mph up and in with the bases juiced, just like they drew it up. Pollock struck out, and so did the next four Dodgers hitters.

In the meantime Juan Soto, in his first at-bat in the nation’s capital since that liner to right last Tuesday that will sit uneasily in the memories of Wisconsinites, took a Hyun-Jin Ryu fastball that caught altogether too much of the plate out of the ballpark to center. That put the Nats up 2-0, and caused me to contemplate for the first time what it might mean to a generation of fans to have the Nationals advance beyond the Division Series for the first time in their history.

Read the rest of this entry »

In what was nearly a must-win game for the Washington Nationals Friday night, Stephen Strasburg threw six strong innings to even the series against the Dodgers to 1-1. The Game 2 win ensures that the Nationals don’t have to win three games in a row to advance against Los Angeles; the Dodgers only lost three consecutive games on three different occasions in 2019.

The Nationals have developed a certain sort of notoriety, similar to that of the Oakland A’s, for their relative incompetence when it comes to postseason baseball. While it’s unlikely to be predictive for a franchise in any meaningful sense, and their 8-13 historical playoff record entering Game 2 isn’t really that historically awful, reputations in sports are rarely assigned in a fair manner. But one National you can’t blame for this playoff history is Strasburg, who has now allowed just two runs in 28 career October innings and struck out 38 against while walking just four. Strasburg’s sterling start wasn’t a blue-light BABIP special as he struck out batters in double-digits for the third time in his still-young playoff career.

In a season in which the Dodgers won 106 games and led the National League in runs scored, Strasburg has been one of the few pitchers to have continued success against the Boys in Blue. Adding in Friday night’s performance, Strasburg’s season line against the Dodgers (so far!) amounts to a 1.89 ERA in three starts with 26 strikeouts in 19 innings.

Perhaps the most interesting difference in last night’s game compared to his previous starts against the Dodgers was that Strasburg was far more reliant on curveballs and changeups. 61% of Strasburg’s pitches were his curve or his change, a number only beaten this year by an August 20 start against the Pirates. Strasburg’s 15 swinging strikes in Game 2 on curves or changeups almost matched the 16 he totaled in his other two starts against the Dodgers. While he still pounded the Dodgers high on fastballs as in previous starts, there was a lot less hard painting of the outside edge for righties and inside edge for lefties. Strasburg was more content to send the Dodgers fishing, which they did quite happily and ineffectually.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers got their 2019 postseason off to a convincing start, blanking the Nationals 6-0 in a game that remained close longer than it should have. Walker Buehler earned his first postseason win, throwing six mostly strong innings marred only by a dicey fourth.

Hyun-Jin Ryu has been getting more attention where the Cy Young race is concerned by virtue of his league-leading 2.32 ERA, but with both Ryu and Clayton Kershaw now in their 30s, Buehler has more clearly become the team’s build-around pitcher. For the first time in his career, Buehler was given the Game 1 nod and responded by allowing just a single hit in six innings, while striking out eight. The scoreless outing brings Beuhler’s consecutive postseason scoreless innings streak to 16.2 innings; his last run allowed was a solo homer given up to Christian Yelich in the 2018 NLCS. The next time Buehler fails to strike out seven batters in a postseason game, it will be the first time.

The fourth inning was a very near thing for Buehler and the Dodgers. Only up 2-0 at that point in the game, Buehler threw 11 of his 13 fastballs outside of the strike zone, allowing all three of Washington’s walks in the game. The pitches weren’t a function of failing to get borderline strikes on the edge of the zone, either; five of the fastballs weren’t anywhere close to the strike zone, including two to Adam Eaton that would have been high balls to Manute Bol.

Buehler’s fourth inning a close call continued when facing Juan Soto with Adam Eaton and Anthony Rendon on-base. Soto put up a 1.000 OPS against right-handed pitchers in 2019, but he’s struggled against sliders with a .161 batting average and a .274 slugging against sliders from righties. Buehler left a tempting one right in Soto’s wheelhouse and Soto was just an eyelash away from fully crushing it. But after a Howie Kendrick walk, an easy groundout from Asdrúbal Cabrera left the bases loaded and the Nats scoreless.

Read the rest of this entry »