Please note, this posting contains three positions.

Position Title: Biomechanics Analyst, Baseball Research & Development

All applicants are encouraged to apply online through the Guardians website for consideration. Please click here to apply directly.

Primary Purpose
The Cleveland Guardians are seeking a biomechanics analyst to join the team’s Baseball Research and Development group. The position will use the team’s proprietary in-game motion capture data to build tools and resources to acquire and develop players. The ideal candidate will possess a foundation in statistics and/or data science, experience working with biomechanics data, and a thorough understanding of pitching and/or hitting movement patterns. Strong applicants will demonstrate curiosity, creativity, and a drive to learn new concepts. We are open to a remote role for the right candidate, but relocation to Cleveland, OH is preferred. We can also be flexible on start dates. Read the rest of this entry »

In what might be the most-thrilling play we’ll see all October, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena successfully executed a straight steal of home in Game One of the ALDS. Moments later, I shared the following on Twitter:

“Instead of calmly throwing a ball right down the middle for strike three to end the inning, Taylor panicked.”

Journalist friend Bruce Schoenfeld responded as follows:

“That is exactly right. I kept waiting for the announcers to say it. I wrote a [Sports Illustrated] piece on straight steals of home & talked to every active player who’d done it. They agreed that nobody should ever try with two out and two strikes, All the pitcher has to do is throw a strike.”

In other words, Arozarena’s theft could have been nullified.

I checked with a rules expert to make sure Bruce and I weren’t mistaken. According to Chris Welsh — a former big-league pitcher and current Cincinnati Reds radio and TV analyst who runs the website Baseball Rules Academy — we had it right. Had Red Sox reliever Josh Taylor simply remained on the rubber and thrown a pitch that landed in strike zone, the batter would have been out and the inning would have been over. Instead, he made the mistake of stepping off, thereby making himself a fielder and not a pitcher. His hurried heave toward home plate wasn’t nearly in time.

Again, there were two outs and two strikes on the batter. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Bradley is both a power hitter and a work-in-progress. Swinging from the left side, the 25-year-old Cleveland first baseman swatted 16 home runs this year in 279 plate appearances, but he also fanned 99 times. At 35.5%, his K-rate was fourth-highest among major league batters with at least 250 PAs. But again, Bradley hits for power. Despite an uninspiring .208/.294/.445 slash line, his 99 wRC+ was a mere tick below average. With further maturation and improved contact skills, Bradley could very well emerge as a force in the middle of the soon-to-be-Guardians lineup.

Bradley talked hitting when Cleveland visited Fenway Park in early September.

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David Laurila: Do you view hitting as more of a science, or as more of an art?

Bobby Bradley: “More of an art. Personally, I don’t look at it from the scientific side; I don’t get into all the data and all that. It’s more something that I take pride in, and I try to take care of my swing. So I’d say that it’s a work of art to me. I obviously haven’t perfected it, but at the same time, it’s like my masterpiece.”

Laurila: Do you have the same swing now that you did as a younger player?

Bradley: “It’s pretty close. For instance, it’s not entirely different from when I got drafted [in 2014]. There are maybe a couple of things, like where I put my hands. I also have a little bit bigger leg-kick now. But overall, it’s pretty close to where I was in high school.”

Laurila: When did the bigger leg-kick come about? Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned this summer after being on hiatus last year due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features J.P. Feyereisen, Zach Plesac, and Nick Wittgren on their changeups.

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J.P. Feyereisen, Tampa Bay Rays

“I started throwing a changeup in 2019, using your basic four-seam grip. It was okay. Then I went to the Brewers and got in their lab. They kind of switched my grip around, and now I have kind of a weird two-seam grip. The thought behind it is to get gravity to affect it and bring it down, so it’s nothing like the Devin Williams changeup where he spins it at 3,100 [rpm].

“Basically, I’m thinking about almost side-spinning it. The way I grip it, the top of the ball is facing up, and it spins [counterclockwise]. It comes off my middle finger. I think ‘ring finger,’ but my middle finger is the main anchor of it, for sure. When I spin it like that, I get depth and also a little bit of arm-side movement. The spin is 1,400-1,500 — nothing crazy — but the good ones I throw will act kind of like a lefty slider. I throw it upper-80s, so it’s kind of a different pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

Xzavion Curry is a prospect-on-the-rise in the Cleveland organization. A seventh-round pick in 2019 out of Georgia Tech, the 23-year-old right-hander is 8-1 with a 2.23 ERA in 18 starts between Low-A Lynchburg and High-A Lake County. With the lion’s share at the latter, Curry has allowed just 65 hits in 93 innings. Moreover, he’s fanned 118 batters and issued just 16 free passes.

Command is Curry’s forte, but it’s not his only attribute. As our own Eric Longenhagen wrote in early June, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound hurler’s “vertical arm slot creates angle and carry on a fastball that plays well at the letters.” Augmenting Curry’s 91-94 mph four-seamer are a curveball, a slider, and a changeup.

He’s only been a full-time pitcher for a handful of years. Curry came to Georgia Tech as a two-way player, having excelled both on the mound and at short as an Atlanta-area prep. That his college coaches made him a full-time pitcher is a testament to changing times. Curry is African-American, and Black players have historically been channeled into position-player roles. Black pitchers have been at a premium.

“That does enter my mind,” said Curry, who had a 17-inning scoreless streak come to an end earlier this week. “As I go around to different places, and play different teams, I don’t really see a lot of Black pitchers. So that is something I’ve noticed, but as the younger generation goes forward, those guys just keep getting better and better. We have a couple in our organization, and I’m pretty sure we’ll start to see more and more Black pitchers.”

Curry cited a different sport when addressing his plus command. Read the rest of this entry »

Eli Morgan has “a bugs-bunny changeup.” That’s how the 25-year-old rookie right-hander’s signature offering was described when it was suggested that I interview him for the Learning and Developing a Pitch series. Delivered at an average velocity of 75.1 mph, Morgan’s changeup is the slowest among pitchers who have worked at least 40 innings (not including Seattle’s Paul Sewald, who per StatCast has thrown just one changeup all season).

Cleveland’s eighth-round pick in the 2017 draft, Morgan has made 14 starts and has a 5.48 ERA and a 5.01 FIP to go with 68 strikeouts in 67.1 innings. He’s thrown his changeup — a pitch he described in detail this past Sunday — 22.4% of the time.

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Eli Morgan: “I started out mainly fastball/breaking ball, and then my senior year of high school I began developing my changeup. I’d thrown a splitter — that was my changeup for my first couple years of high school — but I figured that probably wasn’t great for my arm going forward. At the time, there was talk of Masahiro Tanaka having issues with his elbow because of the splitter, and that kind of turned me off of that pitch. I decided to go to a regular circle change.

“When I got to [Gonzaga University] they told me that if I wanted to pitch, let alone be a starter, I needed to have a good changeup. That was a big thing up there, so I started throwing it a lot more and got comfortable with it.

“Because I throw a four-seam fastball, I throw a four-seam changeup. That’s something one of my pitching coaches mentioned: ‘Make sure it comes out with the same seams as your fastball.’ That’s what I went with, and I had pretty good command of it right from the start. Over time, I began getting more movement on it, getting more fade. Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned this summer after being on a year-long hiatus due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features a pair of right-handers, Joe Barlow and Bailey Ober, and a southpaw, Alex Young, on one of their breaking balls.

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Joe Barlow, Texas Rangers

“I was a fastball-curveball guy until last year. The pandemic happened, then I went to Driveline to see if there was an opening for a better pitch… not even a better pitch, just any pitch in general to add to the repertoire. That way, if my curveball wasn’t on, I wouldn’t just be throwing fastballs.

“I played with changeups, two-seamers, sliders, and cutters. The pitch that I could seemingly best repeat was the slider. Even though it wasn’t good, it seemed like there was an opportunity to grow on that and get it to be a pitch that I could use. So, I went into the offseason and started throwing it. It was meant to be a third pitch — behind the curveball, behind the fastball — but I ended up getting a good feel for it and now it’s almost 50-50 with the fastball. Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned last month after being on hiatus due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features Peyton Battenfield, Demarcus Evans, and Josh Fleming on their cutters.

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Peyton Battenfield, Cleveland prospect

“Slider, cutter… that pitch is kind of loosely defined. I call it a cutter. The horizontal movement isn’t super high, and I throw it anywhere from 87–90 [mph]. I’d tried throwing a slider in college, but I could never really get it to move. When I got drafted by the Astros, I had the same grip and still couldn’t get it to move. For whatever reason, I didn’t understand the right type of spin that I was supposed to be getting out of it, but then I got showed a cutter grip. This was in October 2020, in instructs, and that’s when it started moving.

“I actually tried learning one back in 2019, when I was with the Astros, but like with any pitch, when you’re first starting to learn it takes time and patience. You’re learning a new grip, so you’ve got to figure out the right release point, what feels right coming out of the hand in order to get the movement profile you’re looking for.

“I came into spring training this year able to throw it for a strike more consistently. I was also getting more consistent movement, the way I wanted it to move, and the velo was higher on it as well. As much as anything, I simplified the pitch. Trusting the grip and throwing it like my fastball was probably the biggest thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Peyton Battenfield has been one of the best pitchers in the minors this season. The 24-year-old right-hander is 6–0 with a 2.15 ERA, and those aren’t even the shiniest numbers on his stat sheet. In 88 innings — 57 at the Double-A level, 31 more in High-A — Battenfield has 116 strikeouts to go with just 14 walks and 52 hits allowed.

The Oklahoma State University product has logged those numbers with a pair of organizations, the first of which was his second in pro ball. Houston’s ninth-round pick in the 2019 draft, Battenfield was dealt to Tampa Bay the following January in exchange for Austin Pruitt; last month he went from the Rays to Cleveland in exchange for Jordan Luplow and DJ Johnson at the trade deadline. He hasn’t skipped a beat since his most recent change of uniforms. In four starts with the Akron RubberDucks, the former college closer has punched out 21 batters against two free passes and 10 hits over 20.2 frames.

Battenfield discussed his breakout campaign a few days before being traded to Cleveland.

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David Laurila: You’re having a great year. What has been behind that success?

Peyton Battenfield: “For me, it’s just attacking the strike zone with all my pitches. It’s getting ahead and not being afraid to give up hard contact. I’m going to throw my best stuff in there, and whatever happens, happens. The outcome will be the outcome.”

Laurila: Was not aggressively attacking the strike zone ever an issue in the past? Read the rest of this entry »

Cleveland’s willingness to trade Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco was the result of two related factors: ownership would not pay anything close to market value for one of the best players in baseball; and the club believed it could maintain competitiveness on the cheap with its core of cost-controlled pitching still receiving pre-arbitration checks. Shane Bieber is the headliner, but breakout seasons from previously unheralded prospects Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac gave the soon-to-be Guardians confidence that they could suppress runs at an above-average clip and hand the game off to a good bullpen.

That plan has not come to pass; Cleveland’s pitching staff ranks just 19th in WAR as of the writing of this piece. But while the bullpen has held up its end of the bargain, sitting ninth in WAR among relief units, the rotation has accumulated just 4 WAR total through the beginning of August.

Much of that can be attributed to the three starters who were supposed to lead the way. Bieber and Civale have been on ice for most season due to a shoulder strain for the former and a finger injury for the latter; both were recently moved to the 60-day IL with the hope of returning in September. Plesac has also missed time, but he hasn’t helped much when he has been on the field. Through his most recent start, he has posted a 4.84 ERA and 5.08 FIP and a strikeout rate of only 15.6%, fifth lowest among starters with at least 80 innings pitched.

Read the rest of this entry »