Please note, this posting contains multiple positions.

Position: Baseball Systems Associate

Location: Flushing, NY

Description:
The Mets are seeking an individual with a background in database management and software development to work with the club’s Baseball Systems team. The position will be responsible for assisting in the management and development of processes collecting, cleaning, and organizing large baseball data sets. One should have demonstrated experience building web applications in Python, Java, PHP, Javascript, etc. Applicants should be available to start in January, although the Mets may be flexible.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct research in the field of baseball analytics and communicate insights with others in Baseball Operations department.
• Research, develop, and test predictive models to support Baseball Operations decision-making (i.e., player evaluation, roster construction, player development, in-game strategy).
• Create data visualizations that integrate into Baseball Operations’ web application for use by office, coaches, and players.
• Collect and manage large data sets. This may involve writing scripts for automation as well as manual data entry.
• Stay current on publicly available baseball research.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Information Systems, Statistics, Data Science, or equivalent.
• Experience with ETL processes and database management.
• Familiarity with baseball specific datasets (i.e., Trackman, Statcast, PITCHf/x) and knowledge of current baseball research.
• Demonstrated experience building web applications in Python, Java, PHP, Javascript, etc. Please provide a link to the application and/or codebase (Github) if possible.
• Detail oriented and organized with ability to balance multiple projects.
• Strong verbal communication and collaborative skills.
• Ability to work evenings, weekends, or holiday hours.

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.

Position: Baseball Research and Development Associate

Location: Flushing, NY

Description:
The Mets are seeking an individual with a background in data analysis to work with the club’s Research and Development team. This is an entry-level, seasonal 8-12 month position in which he/she will analyze baseball data and use their findings to provide insight within the different areas of Baseball Operations. These may include player development, amateur and international scouting, major league advance scouting and more. Applicants should be available to start in January, although the Mets may be flexible.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct research in the field of baseball analytics and communicate insights with others in Baseball Operations department.
• Research, develop, and test predictive models to support Baseball Operations decision-making (i.e., player evaluation, roster construction, player development, in-game strategy).
• Create data visualizations that integrate into Baseball Operations’ web application.
• Collect and manage large data sets. This may involve writing scripts for automation as well as manual data entry.
• Stay current on publicly available baseball research.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, or similar quantitative field.
• Experience querying and managing data with SQL.
• Demonstrated experience using statistical tools and packages in R or Python.
• Familiarity with baseball specific datasets (i.e., Trackman, Statcast, PITCHf/x) and knowledge of current baseball research.
• Preference for candidates who have demonstrated experience building web applications in Python, Java, PHP, Javascript, etc. Please provide a link to the application and/or codebase (Github) if possible.
• Detail oriented and organized with ability to balance multiple projects.
• Strong verbal communication and collaborative skills.
• Prior original baseball research.
• Ability to work evenings, weekends, or holiday hours.

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.

Over in the American League, there’s a pretty clear top tier of Cy Young contenders in Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, followed by a solid group of candidates likely to garner down-ballot support. In the National League, there looks to be a top tier of Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom followed by a cascading set of secondary candidates, but that first look doesn’t quite tell the entire story.

To provide some idea of the statistical disparities voters must contend with when making their decision, I looked at our FIP-based WAR as well as the RA9-WAR also available here at FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference’s WAR, and Baseball Prospectus’ WARP. I included for consideration any player in the top five of any of those lists. That search returned nine pitchers for the potential five slots on a Cy Young ballot. Those players are listed below, with a mix of traditional and advanced statistics:

We have Scherzer and deGrom in first and second by about a win over the next-best candidate, with deGrom pitching tonight. After those two, we have a lot of innings from Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin, and fewer innings, but better peripherals, from Walker Buehler. After those three, we have four candidates who haven’t thrown a ton of innings, but all have much lower ERA’s than FIPs. As for how these candidates came to be considered, here are their WAR totals:

Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of August, the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested that Mets rookie sensation Pete Alonso and Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins could be the next generation’s greatest player rivalry in the NL East. At that point, Alonso was slugging a hundred points higher than Hoskins and had almost 20 more home runs on the season. Unlike Alonso, Hoskins regularly slips away from the Phillies lineup, disappearing for weeks at a time: There’s streaky, there’s bad luck, and then there’s hitting under .230 in the clean-up spot for three months.

Meanwhile, Alonso broke the Mets’ single-season home run record on the first pitch he saw against Yu Darvish on August 27. If all Alonso had done was break the record, the only history we’d have to mention is from the recent past: Carlos Beltran and Todd Hundley held the previous Mets record, 41, having set it in 2006 and 1996, respectively. But because of Alonso’s rookie status, his accomplishment is made even more distinct.

You only get one season to set rookie records — or set records as a rookie — and through that slim window, Alonso has slipped his 6-foot-3, 245-pound frame. This is due in part to his classification by baseball scientists as a “pure hitter.” Determining what is meant by this term usually leads to a loudly shouted or frantically typed mention of historic figures like Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio. The eyes of baseball puritans light up when talk begins of Alonso “pure-hitting” like sluggers did back in the good old days, when pure-hitting was America’s pastime, along with losing everything on the stock market and the rampant abuse of benzedrine.

Anyone who has swung a bat can tell you what a pure hit feels like: when timing, mechanics, and strength align to allow the barrel of the bat to connect with the sweet spot of the ball. But being a pure hitter means doing all that more than once. To make the impression of a Pete Alonso, you’ve got to keep doing it within the span of one season — your first season facing big-league pitching. Alonso is doing just that, and you have to go back pretty far to the find the last guy who did: Johnny Rizzo, in 1938 for the Pirates — a man who gives us a historical post to which we can tie Alonso’s accomplishments, while also viewing them through the filter of… well, being on the Mets. Read the rest of this entry »

On August 3, Wilson Ramos put the New York Mets on his back. They were facing the Pittsburgh Pirates one day after the Bucs snapped New York’s seven-game win streak, and they were on a mission to begin a new streak with a series-knotting victory. Ramos got the Mets off to a hot start with an RBI single in the first, but the Pirates answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning to take the lead. Pittsburgh maintained a one-run lead into the top of the eighth, until Ramos unleashed a two-run homer to put the Mets back in front. He got another big opportunity with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, and again, he came up huge, sending a double to deep right field that scored all three runs. He finished the day 4-for-5 with a career-high six RBIs, and the Mets needed just about all of them, narrowly holding on to beat Pittsburgh, 7-5.

Indeed, that victory kicked off another long run of winning for the Mets, who won each of their next seven games after that performance, giving them 15 victories in 16 games overall. It also, however, began an even longer streak for Ramos. After that game, he hit safely in 26 straight games. That’s the longest hit streak since Whit Merrifield hit safely in 31 straight games from September 10, 2018, to April 10 of this year. In terms of single-season hit streaks, it’s the longest since Freddie Freeman’s 30-game streak near the end of the 2016 season. No one else who has begun a hitting streak in 2019 has maintained one for more than 19 games.

That hit streak came to an end on Wednesday, with Ramos going 0-for-4 against his former club, the Washington Nationals. He did draw a walk in his first plate appearance, which keeps his streak of reaching base alive at 27 games. That designation is less unique — including Ramos, there have been 17 instances in 2019 in which a player has reached base in at least 27 straight games. Jorge Polanco owns the longest such streak, reaching base in 37 straight games from May 13 to June 25. Mike Trout has two such streaks this season; one of 29 games, the other of 28. On-base streaks, however, are definitively easier to pull off than hit streaks. After all, reaching base can involve any of a hit, a walk, or a hit-by-pitch, while a hit streak specifically requires one of those to stay alive. Since 2009, there have been a total of 21 hit streaks of at least 25 games. There have been 21 on-base streaks of at least 25 games in 2019 alone. Read the rest of this entry »

September call-ups, both high-profile and totally innocuous, have been trickling in over the transaction wire for the last several days. As always, there are some that will have real impact on the playoff race, some that are interesting for the purposes of player evaluation, such your usual spare lefty reliever and catcher (by far the most common types of September additions), and some teams with no new names at all. Below I’ve compiled notes on every player brought up by National League teams since the start of the month, no matter how inconsequential, and I slip some rehabbers and August 31st acquisitions in here, too. It’s a primer for you to get (re)acquainted with players who might impact the playoff race or seasons to come.

Contenders’ Reinforcements

Atlanta Braves — INF Johan Camargo, RHP Chad Sobotka, RHP Jeremy Walker, LHP A.J. Minter, RHP Bryse Wilson

Camargo didn’t hit with the big club at all this year, not even in late July or all of August when he was handed pretty regular at-bats filling in for an injured Dansby Swanson. But he hit .483 over the few weeks he was down in Gwinnett after Swanson returned and Camargo was optioned. He’ll be a versatile, switch-hitting bench piece for the stretch run, and he projects as that sort of premium bench player long-term.

Sobotka and Walker were optioned to make room for the multiple relievers Atlanta acquired at the deadline. Sobotka, who sits 94-98 with life and has a plus, 2900-rpm slider, posted a 16-to-2 strikeout to walk ratio at Triple-A since being sent down. You may see him pitching big innings this month. Walker has been throwing 25-pitch, 2-inning outings with three days of rest in between. He may be on mop-up or long relief duty. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2019 Arizona Fall League rosters were (mostly) announced today, and we’ve created a tab on THE BOARD where you can see all the prospects headed for extra reps in the desert. These are not comprehensive Fall League rosters — you can find those on the AFL team pages — but a compilation of names of players who are already on team pages on THE BOARD. The default view of the page has players hard-ranked through the 40+ FV tier. The 40s and below are then ordered by position, with pitchers in each tier listed from most likely to least likely to start. In the 40 FV tier, everyone south of Alex Lange is already a reliever.

Many participating players, especially pitchers, have yet to be announced. As applicable prospects are added to rosters in the coming weeks, I’ll add them to the Fall League tab and tweet an update from the FanGraphs Prospects Twitter account. Additionally, this tab will be live throughout the Fall League and subject to changes (new tool grades, updated scouting reports, new video, etc.) that will be relevant for this offseason’s team prospect lists. We plan on shutting down player/list updates around the time minor league playoffs are complete (which is very soon) until we begin to publish 2020 team-by-team prospect lists, but the Fall League tab will be an exception. If a player currently on the list looks appreciably different to me in the AFL, I’ll update their scouting record on that tab, and I may add players I think we’re light on as I see them. Again, updates will be posted on the FanGraphs Prospects Twitter account, and I’ll also compile those changes in a weekly rundown similar to those we ran on Fridays during the summer.

Anything you’d want to know about individual players in this year’s crop of Fall Leaguers can probably be found over on THE BOARD right now. Below are some roster highlights as well as my thoughts on who might fill out the roster ranks.

Glendale Desert Dogs
The White Sox have an unannounced outfield spot on the roster that I think may eventually be used on OF Micker Adolfo, who played rehab games in Arizona late in the summer. He’s on his way back from multiple elbow surgeries. Rehabbing double Achilles rupturee Jake Burger is age-appropriate for the Fall League, but GM Rick Hahn mentioned in July that Burger might go to instructs instead. Sox instructs runs from September 21 to October 5, so perhaps he’ll be a mid-AFL add if that goes well and they want to get him more at-bats, even just as a DH. Non-BOARD prospects to watch on this roster include Reds righties Diomar Lopez (potential reliever, up to 95) and Jordan Johnson, who briefly looked like a No. 4 or 5 starter type during his tenure with San Francisco, but has been hurt a lot since, as have Brewers lefties Nathan Kirby (Thoracic Outlet Syndrome) and Quintin Torres-Costa (Tommy John). Dodgers righty Marshall Kasowski has long posted strong strikeout rates, but the eyeball scouts think he’s on the 40-man fringe. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — They own the majors’ best record since the All-Star break, but the 2019 Mets remain a work in progress. Winners of 27 out of 40 games in the second half, they’ve played themselves back into contention for a postseason berth, and energized Citi Field, but after winning 10 out of their previous 12 series, they spent this past weekend making mistakes, missing opportunities, and ultimately dropping their second series in as many weeks to the Braves — this time via a three-game sweep at home.

In Friday night’s 2-1 loss, the Mets squandered a seven-inning, 13-strikeout gem by Jacob deGrom, who provided the team’s only run of the night on a solo homer, his second of the year. For as well as the reigning NL Cy Young winner pitched, opposite number Mike Foltynewicz — who entered the evening with a 6.09 ERA and a 5.82 FIP, numbers more than double those deGrom — yielded just one other hit besides the homer over his seven innings. The 1-1 tie carried into extra innings, and after the scuffling Edwin Díaz stranded pinch-runner deluxe Billy Hamilton at third base by striking out both Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies in the top of the 10th, the Mets got the winning run to third in the bottom of both the 10th and 11th themselves, but failed to convert; the team went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position on the night. Ultimately, a 14th-inning single by Hamilton (who entered hitting .211/.275/.269) off Jeurys Familia brought home the deciding run.

In Saturday night’s 9-5 loss, Zack Wheeler was knocked around for his third straight start, putting the Mets into a 4-0 hole by the middle of the third inning. They clawed their way back, and took a 5-4 lead when Pete Alonso walloped a 451-foot three-run homer into the black batters’ eye, tying the franchise’s single-season home run record — 41, previously reached by Todd Hundley (1996) and Carlos Beltran (2006) — and reaching 100 RBI in one fell swoop. Two significant defensive mistakes, an error by third baseman Todd Frazier on a grounder down the line by Francisco Cervelli in the sixth inning, and a lackadaisical relay play by left fielder J.D. Davis in the eighth, both led to runs, while a baserunning out at third base by Jeff McNeil, that after a pair of bunt attempts by hot-hitting Amed Rosario, snuffed a potential sixth-inning rally.

In Sunday’s 2-1 loss, the Mets could do little against Braves starter Dallas Keuchel, who shut them out for seven innings while allowing just four hits, all singles. Steven Matz answered with six innings of two-hit ball, but one of those hits was a Josh Donaldson homer, and the Braves’ third baseman greeted reliever Paul Sewald with another one in the seventh inning. The Mets broke through in the ninth inning against Mark Melancon, albeit on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Frazier that nearly became the team’s fourth double play of the afternoon. Ultimately, the tying run was stranded at second base, the last failure in a 1-for-8 day with runners in scoring position. So it goes. Read the rest of this entry »

We have a sizable collection of players to talk about this week because the two of us have been busy wrapping up our summer looks at the 2020 Draft class over the last couple weeks. This equates to every prospect added to or moved on THE BOARD since the Trade Deadline.

Top 100 Changes
We had two players enter the 50 FV tier in Diamondbacks SS Geraldo Perdomo and Padres C Luis Campusano. Perdomo is in the “Advanced Baseball Skills” player bucket with players like Vidal Brujan, Brayan Rocchio and Xavier Edwards. He’s added visible power since first arriving in the States and had as many walks as strikeouts at Low-A before he was promoted to the Cal League, which has been Campusano’s stomping ground all summer. He’s still not a great catcher but he does have an impact arm, big power, and he’s a good enough athlete that we’re optimistic he’ll both catch and make the necessary adjustments to get to his power in games down the line.

We also moved a D-back and a Padre down in RHP Taylor Widener and 1B Tirso Ornelas. Widener has been very homer prone at Triple-A a year after leading the minors in K’s. His fastball has natural cut rather than ride and while we still like him as a rotation piece, there’s a chance he continues to be very susceptible to the long ball. Ornelas has dealt with injury and swing issues.

On Aristides Aquino
Aristides Aquino was a 50 FV on the 2017 Reds list; at the time, he was a traditional right field profile with big power undermined by the strikeout issues that would eventually cause his performance to tank so badly that he became a minor league free agent. A swing change visually similar to the one Justin Turner made before his breakout (Reds hitting coach Turner Ward comes from the Dodgers) is evident here, so we’re cautiously optimistic Aquino will be a productive role player, but we don’t think he’ll keep up a star’s pace. Read the rest of this entry »

As Ben Clemens succinctly put it on Tuesday, “Here come the Mets.” If you have read Ben’s piece, I’m not going to bore you with the same details. If you haven’t, you should go do so.

In short, the Mets were bad, and now they’re good. But even with this current stretch of newfound dominance, their seemingly high-octane offseason remains a mixed bag. Edwin Díaz and Robinson Canó still haven’t lived up to their high expectations after being brought in from Seattle, Jed Lowrie hasn’t played a single game due to a calf injury, and Jeurys Familia won’t stop walking hitters. For all the talk about how good the Mets’ offseason was, it’s still not those players who are leading the charge. That is, save for this one obvious exception:

In a sense, J.D. Davis has been the Mets’ savior. As they’ve heated up, he has not only been one of their best offensive players but also one of the best bats in baseball. In the 30-day period between July 8 and August 6 — as the Mets’ playoff odds have increased by 35 points — Davis has slashed .385/.468/.615 in 77 plate appearances. His 187 wRC+ during this time is the seventh-highest in baseball. His defense has limited his overall value a touch, but even still, his 0.9 WAR in this time period ranks 32nd out of 181 qualified position players. Read the rest of this entry »

Making fun of the Mets’ peripatetic approach to roster construction has become a cottage industry. This offseason was a bonanza. Look! A wild Edwin Díaz has appeared, and he brought Robinson Canó with him. Look! Dominic Smith is somehow playing the outfield in the major leagues on a team with Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo on the roster. Look! The team added Jed Lowrie to fully bury Jeff McNeil on the depth chart.

Over the last week before the trade deadline, it felt like more of the same. The Mets were going to ship out Noah Syndergaard, one of the most electric pitchers in baseball. They were trading Díaz, only half a season after paying a king’s ransom for him. They were buyers! They acquired Marcus Stroman, after all. Maybe that was just a tactic, though — Syndergaard rumors continued to pop up, and there was enough smoke around Díaz to the Red Sox that it was easy to assume there was a fire somewhere.

When the dust settled on the trading deadline, the unthinkable had happened. The Mets held on to their most obvious trade chip, Zack Wheeler. Only two months from free agency, Wheeler won’t be helping the Mets in 2020 without a new contract. He’s also in fine form this year, and might bring back some prospects to replenish a farm system depleted by trades and graduations. When the deadline buzzer sounded and Wheeler was still wearing blue and orange, the take mills started up. What was Brodie Van Wagenen doing, and how could it best be played for comedy?

It might be time to put away your LOLMets kazoos and pom-poms. The Mets are surging, winners of 15 of their last 20 games, and they’ve run their playoff odds up from 3.9% to 32.7%. A team that earlier this summer felt like a punchline now has better odds of making the playoffs than offseason darlings like the Brewers and Phillies. Read the rest of this entry »