Data Scientist

Department: Baseball Research & Development

Primary Purpose
The Cleveland Guardians Baseball Research & Development (R&D) group is seeking data scientists at a variety of experience levels, including senior, entry-level, and interns/fellows. Prior experience with sports is not necessary if you have some curiosity or interest in learning about data science applications in baseball.

If you enjoy tackling challenging problems, using interesting real data, collaborating with smart people, and having a direct impact on what happens on the baseball field and in our business, this may be the opportunity for you!

People in this role will use statistical and machine learning techniques to better understand and quantify the game of baseball. You will analyze video, player tracking, and biomechanics data as well as traditional baseball data sources like box scores to help us acquire and develop baseball players into a championship-caliber team. You will work alongside the rest of the R&D, data engineering, and IT groups, and interact with coaches, scouts, and executives from across the organization.

The Cleveland Guardians prefer our employees (or teammates) reside in Cleveland, Ohio, but we will consider and discuss the possibility of remote work.

If you meet some of the qualifications below, we encourage you to apply or reach out for more information. We know that historically marginalized groups – including people of color, women, people from working class backgrounds, and people who identify as LGBTQ – are less likely to apply unless and until they meet every requirement for a job. We encourage you to reach out if you have questions about the role or your qualifications. We are happy to help you feel ready to apply!

Responsibilities

• Design, build, test, and deploy statistical and/or machine learning models to support all facets of baseball operations, including scouting, player development, and the major league team.
• Explain methods, results and corresponding actionable insights to key stakeholders across the organization.

Basic Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in a quantitative field such as Statistics, Computer Science, Economics, Machine Learning, or Operations Research.
• Demonstrated understanding of statistics and associated quantitative methods, including the tradeoffs between different techniques.
• Demonstrated experience completing statistics and/or machine learning projects from beginning to end.

• Demonstrated experience working with large data sets in a programming language such as R or Python.
• Desire to learn about data science applications in baseball. Prior experience with baseball data is a plus but not necessary.

Preferred Experience

• Advanced degree or equivalent experience in a quantitative field such as Statistics, Computer Science, Economics, Machine Learning, or Operations Research.
• Demonstrated research experience in a sports context (baseball is a plus).
• Demonstrated experience with a database language such as SQL.
• Demonstrated experience with deep learning frameworks such as Tensorflow or PyTorch.
• Demonstrated experience with computer vision.
• Demonstrated experience working with high-dimensional spatiotemporal data.
• Demonstrated experience with Bayesian statistics.

Standard Requirements

• Represent the Cleveland Guardians in a positive fashion to all business partners and the general public.
• Ability to develop and maintain successful working relationships with members of the Front Office.
• Ability to act according to organizational values and service excellence at all times.
• Ability to work with multicultural populations and have a commitment to fairness and equality.
• Ability to work in a diverse and changing environment.

About Us
Our teammates are at the core of what we believe in: People, Collaboration, Learning, and Excellence (PeopleCLE). We look to hire individuals who are committed to our purpose of uniting and inspiring our city with the power of team. Our mission is to win the World Series while creating a compelling fan experience.

We believe that we will achieve our goals by making evidence and model-based decisions and creating environments that support our people and empower them to continuously learn. This role might be for you if you are looking to join a team that works together to learn new ways to make model-based decisions that lead to excellent outcomes.

We also pride ourselves on creating an attractive work environment highlighted by a healthy work-life balance, exceptional benefits such as health, vision, and dental coverage, and competitive 401k plan with employer contribution and match.

Our Hiring Process

1. A short, three question questionnaire to help us get to know you better than we do from just your application. No coding involved.
2. Two approximately 30-minute phone calls.
3. A longer take-home questionnaire to help us learn how you think through problems. No coding or project involved.
4. A final round of interviews with our R&D department as well as teammates across Baseball Operations.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Software Engineer

Department: Baseball Systems
Employment Type: Full-Time, Exempt

Primary Purpose
The Cleveland Guardians are seeking a Software Engineer to join their Baseball Systems Engineering team. In this position, you will have the opportunity to gain exposure to a variety of tasks – including, but not limited to, software engineering, data warehousing, and UX/UI design & development – that directly impact the organization’s ability to acquire, develop, and deploy players. Depending on your preferences, we will work with you to craft a role that either specializes in one of these areas or allows you to contribute across multiple areas. The software and data products you help build will facilitate operations and enhance decision-making across all areas of the organization, helping to answer questions such as “which trades should we execute,” “who should we select with our next pick in the draft,” and “how can we show players their data from yesterday’s game?” The position offers the opportunity to collaborate and help craft innovative solutions to challenging problems, grow from both an engineering and leadership standpoint, and work with teammates side by side in pursuit of the organization’s ultimate mission – winning the World Series.

As a Software Engineer with the Cleveland Guardians, you will have the opportunity to:
From a front-end engineering perspective…

• Learn from experienced engineers and work within a modern web stack, using Vue, Node, Nest, D3, etc.
• Work closely with your product team to discover competitive advantages in player acquisition and player development, and build interactive software and web pages to realize those advantages

• Identify inefficiencies in our users’ processes that can only be solved with user-friendly software

• Rapidly prototype new/innovative solutions and demonstrate them to your product team, end-users, and Baseball Operations leadership
• Contribute to the holistic design process and help shape how we work in the future
• Have regular opportunities to engage with, and learn from, our Baseball Operations leadership group

From a back-end engineering perspective…

• Build robust data systems that improve the backbone of our data-first applications
• Transform both internal and external data sources into our central data warehouse
• Work closely with your product team and other software engineers to determine technical requirements and turn them into accessible and secure data endpoints (e.g., direct SQL, BI tools, REST)

• Collaborate with our R&D team to help move statistical/machine learning models into production

• Collaborate with our Infrastructure team to troubleshoot/enhance performance and query costs across both cloud and on-premises environments
• Be an active participant in identifying, evolving, and evangelizing data engineering best practices, constantly challenging the status quo and improving our data engineering standards

Base Requirements Needed, you should have:

• Demonstrated experience or degree in a field such as Computer Science or another STEM program
• Demonstrated experience writing user-facing application code
• A proven ability to work within tight timelines and iterate quickly
• Effective communication skills and the ability to collaborate within a cross-functional team
• A desire to learn and grow not only as a programmer, but also as a person
• A passion for baseball/sports, or a willingness to learn more about the game

Standard Requirements

• Represents the Cleveland Guardians in a positive fashion to all business partners and the general public
• Ability to develop and maintain successful working relationships with members of the Front Office
• Ability to act accordingly to organizational values and service excellence at all times
• Ability to work with multicultural populations and have a commitment to fairness and equality
• Ability to work in a diverse and changing environment

About Us
In Baseball Operations and Baseball Systems, our shared goal is to identify and develop diverse players and front office teammates who contribute to our mission. By working together effectively and collaboratively, we create a family atmosphere that supports learning as we strive for excellence in everything we do. We believe that we will achieve our goals by making evidence-based decisions and creating environments that support our people and empower them to learn.

We know that people from historically marginalized groups and those who have not yet had direct experience in the sports industry are less likely to apply for a job unless they meet every requirement. That being said, we encourage anyone who meets some of the qualifications above to apply or reach out for more information.

The Cleveland Guardians are an Equal Opportunity Employer.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Cleveland Guardians.

Oh, did that title get your attention? I thought it might. Bad news, though! It was just a trap to get you to read this. I’m here to talk about the same thing we talk about around this time every year: projections offending people. I don’t like it any more than you do, but that’s just the name of the game when October comes around. We post playoff odds before the season, which means we’re always missing on some team or other. That’s right: as best as I can tell, Cleveland fans are upset that we gave their team a 93.3% chance of making the playoffs in 2019, only to have them miss out on the postseason.

Okay, fine. I’m actually talking about the Guardians making the playoffs this year after starting the season with a 7.5% chance of winning their division, as the league helpfully noted on Twitter earlier this week:

That's why they play the games. ? pic.twitter.com/X0KkQwgPr1

— MLB (@MLB) September 26, 2022

I brought up the 2019 example to make a point: our odds miss in both directions. They’re not biased for or against the Guardians specifically. I thought it might be useful to look into a few things our model doesn’t handle particularly well that might have understated the Guardians’ chances, a few things the team did well to improve its odds, and a few breaks along the way that Cleveland deftly took advantage of. Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, on your way to your local coffee shop or the train station, you probably passed two guys writhing around on the sidewalk, one screaming “Aaron Judge!” while trying to wrap up his counterpart in a figure-four leg lock; the other, attempting valiantly to squirm out of his predicament and refusing to tap out, shouting “Shohei Ohtani!”

Such is the nature of this year’s AL MVP discourse, the most spirited awards debate since the halcyon days of Mike Trout vs. Miguel Cabrera a decade ago. And that’s appropriate — these are two of the most recognizable names in the sport, both accomplishing things we only see once every few decades, and both doing it in major markets. (I’m framing it this way on purpose in order to provoke a second argument: Is Anaheim really part of the Greater Los Angeles area, or is it something else?)

But they name three MVP finalists, not two, which leaves us a little less than two months from a hilarious television moment: Judge and Ohtani, on MLB Network, awaiting the results of this contentious election while the host runs down the credentials of some joker with no shot at all of taking home the hardware.

So who should that joker be? Read the rest of this entry »

Back in the 1950s, Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner famously said that “singles hitters drive Fords and home run hitters drive Cadillacs.” Michael Massey’s grandmother may or may not have been familiar with the quote, but she did her best to send the 24-year-old Kansas City Royals rookie down the right road. I learned as much when I asked Massey about his first big-league blast, which came on August 18 against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.

“What I thought of when I hit it was my nana,” said Massey, who grew up in the Chicago area and went on to play his college ball at the University of Illinois. “She passed away toward the end of last season — she was 93 — and growing up she’d always give me a hundred bucks for every home run I hit. She loved it when I hit home runs, and did that for every league I played in.”

Massey has never tallied up his earnings from over the years, although he does acknowledge that the benevolence was bountiful. Along with his homers in youth leagues, high school, and college, he left the yard 21 times in High-A last year.

His grandmother — his mother’s mother — escaped Illinois winters by vacationing in Florida, and eventually became a snowbird. That the Sunshine State became her “favorite place in the world” made Massey’s first MLB home run even more special. And the memories include much more than money. The family matriarch regularly played whiffle ball with him when he was growing up, and she wasn’t just a fan of her grandson. She loved baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

What does it mean that a team is 55% likely to make the playoffs, or 45% likely? It sounds like it means it’ll be right on the cusp of the playoffs at year’s end — the kind of team that spends the last week of the year either sighing in relief at a narrow escape or ruing a few one-run losses that did it in.

Sure, that’s definitely true sometimes. Often, though, the numbers don’t work out quite so suspensefully. Sometimes, your 50% chance decays to zero or climbs to a near certainty far before any dramatic ending. For proof of this, look no further than the race for the AL Central, which went from toss-up to fait accompli over the first half of September.

On September 4, the Guardians had just finished getting their clocks cleaned by fellow AL playoff hopefuls. Over a ten-game span — seven against Seattle, three against Baltimore — they went 2–8, dropping their record to 68–64. In that same span, the Twins had gone 6–3, raising their record to an identical 68–64. Our playoff odds gave the Guardians the better chance at winning the AL Central, but it was close: 43% for Cleveland, 39% for Minnesota. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, the things you find when perusing the leaderboards. While collecting data to discuss the decline in Jeremy Peña’s plate discipline, I went down a rabbit hole of player performances since May. As tends to happen, one thing led to another, and I ended up running my Cy Young predictor using only data since the start of May. Near the top of each league were pitchers whose presence surprised me even though I already knew both to be excellent. Each of them is on a borderline contender that is now very likely to make the playoffs, and each survives in the majors by relying on command rather than throwing 100-mph smoke. That’s right, I’m talking about Aaron Nola and Shane Bieber. Let’s examine each, starting with Nola, the top National League pitcher in my Cy Young predictor since May.

The Phillies look nearly certain to play postseason baseball. With a probability that is now over 90% by both FanGraphs’ and ZiPS’ reckoning, the Phils are on target to make the playoffs for the first time since 2011. While there have been runs that teased contention in past years, the Phillies have always seemed to end up floating somewhere around .500. But despite Zack Wheeler and Bryce Harper missing parts of the season, Nick Castellanos disappointing, and a defense that just begs for a Yackety Sax soundtrack, the team stands at 79-61. And while he’s obviously not the only player to have contributed to the club’s record, Nola’s impressive run makes him one of the key figures of the 2022 campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

We should know better by now than to doubt the Guardians. Every year it seems like they shed at least one important player, and every year (not literally every year, but most years) they scheme, finesse, and otherwise inveigle their way back to the playoffs. This year, Cleveland’s position players are playing great defense and striking out less than any lineup in the league. On the other side of the ball, Cleveland — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — has managed to cultivate depth by developing talented starters internally.

You know these pitchers: Cy Young winner Shane Bieber, All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, Triston McKenzie, James Karinchak (who’s so dangerous umps check his hair for weapons like he’s Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers). And Cal Quantrill.

During the month of August, when Cleveland asserted control over the AL Central for the first time, Quantrill made six starts, pitched at least six innings each time, and posted a total ERA of 2.13. Bieber and McKenzie get most of the credit for the Guardians’ run prevention success, and deservedly so. But in this age of inch-perfect 98-mph two-seamers and strikeout rates in the 30% range, Quantrill is a throwback: an effective pitch-to-contact innings-eater. That he belongs to a little-celebrated archetype of player does not diminish his value to a team that’s operated all year with little room for error. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday night, umpire Ted Barrett got up close and personal with James Karinchak:

No, Barrett wasn’t looking for hair care tips, or acting out an Herbal Essences commercial. He was checking for foreign substances at the behest of Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. Though he ruffled around to the best of his ability, Barrett didn’t find anything definitive. Karinchak made it back to the dugout with a narrow lead and his pitching eligibility intact, though his dignity may have been affected.

Baldelli’s accusation wasn’t some off-the-cuff act of pettiness. Karinchak has been at the sticky center of controversy ever since the league cracked down on pine tar, Spider Tack, sunscreen/rosin blends, and whatever other tacky options players were using to increase spin. Stricter enforcement of existing rules started at the beginning of June last year; take a look at Karinchak’s spin-velocity ratio and raw fastball spin rate and you can clearly see when things changed:

Not coincidentally, Karinchak’s results slipped at the same time. He’d been an unhittable, fire-breathing, back-of-the-bullpen monster since reaching the majors. From June 1, 2021 onwards, however, he posted a 5.40 ERA and a 5.41 FIP, and got demoted to the minors at the end of August. The fall from grace was swift, and seemed obviously related to the change in foreign substance enforcement. Read the rest of this entry »

The English Premier League postponed this weekend’s slate of games following the death of Queen Elizabeth on Friday. Some of you may not have known that — soccer isn’t everyone’s cup of tea — but at the same time, a lot of you did. For many FanGraphs readers, pouring a cup of coffee and watching a Saturday or Sunday-morning match is part of your routine. More often than not, it’s as a supporter of a particular Premier League team.

Brad Miller does exactly that. An ardent Manchester City fan, the Texas Rangers infielder “dove into European soccer” head-first while on the injured list a handful of years ago. What started as a diversion has turned into a passion. Miller not only keeps a keen eye on Premier League and Champions League matches, he assesses strategies and follows transfer rumors.

Style of play is a big reason he adopted Man City.

“They’re obviously really good, and I feel kind of bad admitting that,” Miller said of his initial attraction. “But they’re also a well-oiled machine. There was a documentary on Amazon, ‘All or Nothing,’ where they followed the team. That definitely had me intrigued, just watching the way they play.

“I kind of compare them a little bit to the Dodgers,” continued Miller. “They have a great market, great financial backing, and also a great infrastructure — their player-development system, scouting, medical staffs, and all that. The haven’t poured money into just purchasing players, they’ve poured it into a sustainable model.” Read the rest of this entry »

Most people who change employers and job titles go through an interview process, and Chris Valaika was no exception. A former big league infielder who’d been serving as the assistant hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs, and before that as their minor league hitting coordinator, he was carefully vetted before being hired as the hitting coach of the Cleveland Guardians last winter. What was that process like? He explained in an interview that was conducted earlier this summer.

———

David Laurila: You were hired by the Guardians last November. How did that come about?

Chris Valaika: “The interview process started a week or so after the season ended. I talked to [President of Baseball Operations] Chris Antonetti and then to [General Manager] Mike Chernoff. The one that really facilitated the process was Alex Eckelman, our director of hitting. We did phone to start and then Zoom with a couple of different groups. Tito [Terry Francona] was on one of them. There were some of our advance guys. There were Chris and Cherny. I also did an in-person interview with a couple of different groups. I talked to the player development department. I also worked with a hitter. I went through the whole gamut.”

Laurila: Can you elaborate on “worked with a hitter?”

Valiaka: “It was a mock. We went through the whole process of… basically, it was a workup of what I saw in the swing, and how I would address swing changes and approach.”

Laurila: This was from video?

Valaika: “Yes. And we did a mock of an in-person, as well — how I would interact in the cage to address certain things — which was to see my coaching voice, how I delivered information. We also went through advance reports and did a mock hitters meeting.

“With the hitter breakdown, it was basically me giving my 10,000-foot view of him approach-wise, bio-mechanically, things that I saw in the swing, and again, how I would address them.”

Laurila: Who was the hitter, and what did you see? Read the rest of this entry »