LOS ANGELES — In an honor that was decades overdue, the Dodgers finally retired Fernando Valenzuela’s number 34 on Friday night at Dodger Stadium. The festivities kicked off Fernandomania Weekend, a three-day celebration of the transcendent superstar’s impact on the franchise, first as a pitcher during his initial 11-season run (1980–90) and then as an analyst on the team’s Spanish-language broadcasts (2003–present). Beyond starring on the field by winning NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young honors and helping the Dodgers capture a world championship in 1981, Valenzuela emerged as an international cultural icon. He brought generations of Mexican-American and Latino fans to baseball and helped to heal the wounds caused by the building of the very ballpark in which he starred.

Valenzuela’s rise is something of a fairy tale. The youngest of 12 children in a family in Etchohuaquila, Mexico (pop. 150), he was discovered by Dodgers superscout Mike Brito at age 17 and signed the next year (1979). Taught to throw a screwball by Dodgers reliever Bobby Castillo during the 1979 Arizona Instructional League, he went on a dominant run at Double-A San Antonio the following year and was called up to the Dodgers in mid-September. The pudgy and mysterious 19-year-old southpaw spun 17.2 innings of brilliant relief work without allowing an earned run during the heat of a pennant race. He made the team as a starter the following spring, and his career took off when he tossed an Opening Day shutout against the Astros in an emergency start, filling in for an injured Jerry Reuss. He kept putting up zeroes, going 8–0 with seven complete games, five shutouts, and a 0.50 ERA in 72 innings over his first eight starts, drawing outsized crowds in every city where he pitched. Despite speaking barely a word of English, he became an instant celebrity on the strength of a bashful smile, preternatural poise, and impeccable command of his signature pitch, delivered with a distinctive motion that included a skyward gaze at the peak of his windup.

To borrow a metaphor from Erik Sherman, author of the new biography Daybreak at Chavez Ravine, Valenzuela was baseball’s version of the Beatles, a composite of the Fab Four with a universal appeal. He landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated less than two months into his rookie season, an unprecedented event in the magazine’s history. Fernandomania took hold of baseball and survived that summer’s seven-week player strike. In October, the rookie displayed incredible guile, winning two elimination games and preventing the Yankees from taking a 3–0 series lead in the World Series. His Herculean 149-pitch effort in Game 3 turned the tide, helping the Dodgers capture their first championship since 1965. He would play a vital part on two more NL West-winning Dodgers teams and make six All-Star teams before leaving the fold and making stops with half a dozen other major league teams, though he never matched his success in L.A.

On Friday night, a crowd of 49,315 fans, many of them wearing replicas of Valenzuela’s Dodgers and Team Mexico jerseys, showed up early to pay tribute to the beloved pitcher. U.S. senator Alex Padilla, the first Hispanic senator from California; team president and CEO Stan Kasten; retired Dodgers broadcaster Jaime Jarrín, who served as his interpreter during Fernandomania; and former battery-mate Mike Scioscia spoke about Valenzuela’s impact upon the team, the city, and a fan base that expanded radically as it supported him. Sandy Koufax, Julio Urías, and broadcaster Pepe Yñiguez joined them onstage, with broadcaster Charley Steiner serving as master of ceremonies. A mariachi band accompanied a beaming Valenzuela’s walk to the stage. Afterwards, former teammates Orel Hershiser and Manny Mota unveiled the number 34 on the Dodgers Ring of Honor. Read the rest of this entry »

Kenley Jansen was a 19-year-old catching prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization when he played for the 2007 Great Lakes Loons. Sixteen years and 417 saves later, he looks back at his time in Midland, Michigan fondly. The All-Star closer didn’t hit much — his conversion to the mound in 2009 came for a reason — but the overall experience shaped who he is today.

“I loved everything about that city, man,” said Jansen, a native of Curaçao who also called Midland home in 2008. “It was cold, but probably also my favorite city from my time in the minor leagues. We played at Dow Diamond and that place was packed every night. The fans were great. I lived with Rob Wright and Lori Wright — Danny Wright, too — and I don’t even consider them my host family anymore; they’re part of my family now. I didn’t play very well, but a lot of good things came out of that whole experience. Great Lakes helped transition me from being a kid to being a man.”

The 2007 season was also notable because of his manager and a pair of teammates. Longtime Detroit Tigers backstop Lance Parrish was at the helm of the Midwest League affiliate, the club’s primary catcher was Carlos Santana, and a teenage left-hander was the most-prominent member of the pitching staff. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Turner has faced a lot of fastballs over the years. Now in his 15th season, and his first with the Boston Red Sox, the 38-year-old infielder has logged 5,597 plate appearances, a good number of them against pitchers with elite heaters. Moreover, he’s had his fair share of success. One of the game’s most-respected hitters, he has a 128 wRC+ to go with a .289/.365/.467 slash line for his career.

Four years after interviewing him for one of the early installments of my Talks Hitting series, I caught up to Turner to focus on one specific aspect of his craft: the art of hitting a fastball.

———

David Laurila: How different is it to prepare for high-velocity fastballs when not all high-velocity fastballs are the same? Does that make sense?

Justin Turner: “It does. There are guys in the game that throw hard and put up big [velocity] numbers, but for whatever reason it doesn’t feel that hard when you’re in the box. There are also guys that don’t throw as hard. but in the box it feels like they’re throwing harder than what the number says. When you get a guy who throws hard and it feels hard, that’s a pretty good combination for their side of it.”

Laurila: Who are some of the pitchers who stand out in those respects?

Turner: “I don’t have a specific example in mind, but there are just some pitchers where you get in the box and… I mean, guys will talk about it. It’s like, ‘Man, that actually feels a little light, it doesn’t feel like 100 [mph].’ I don’t want to call anyone out, trash their fastballs or anything like that.”

Laurila: What about guys where it does feel hard?

Turner: “Spencer Strider is a guy that throws hard and it feels hard. Jacob deGrom throws hard and it feels hard. There are guys where the fastball comes out of their hand and it looks like an aspirin. The ball looks smaller because they’re throwing so hard.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Blue Jays have devoted huge resources to their rotation, spending a first-round pick on Alek Manoah, doling out huge free agent contracts to Chris Bassitt and Kevin Gausman, and trading the farm for José Berríos. (And then giving Berríos a huge contract extension as well.)

But Toronto’s best starting pitcher over the past month — and in a three-way tie for the best pitcher in all of baseball, by WAR — has been Yusei Kikuchi, the guy who couldn’t stay in the rotation a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you remember the springtime? We were so young and carefree, so full of hope. We hadn’t even breathed in our first lungfuls of Canadian wildfire smoke. Pitchers were full of hope, too. They’d spent the whole offseason in a lab, or playing winter ball, or maybe just in a nice condo, trying to figure how to get better.

Amazingly, a lot of them settled on the exact same recipe for success: start throwing a cutter. You couldn’t open up a soon-to-be-shuttered sports section without reading an article about some pitcher whose plan for world domination hinged on whipping up a delicious new cut fastball. Now that we’re in the dog days of summer, it’s time to check and see how those cutters are coming along. Are they browning nicely and just starting to set? Or have they filled the house with smoke, bubbling over the sides of the pan and burning down to a carbonized blob that needs to be scraped off the bottom of the oven with steel wool?

I pulled data on every pitcher who has thrown at least 400 pitches in both 2022 and ’23, focusing on the ones who are throwing a cutter at least 10% of the time this year after throwing it either infrequently or not at all last season. These cutoffs did mean that we missed some interesting players like Brayan Bello and Danny Coulombe, but we’re left with a list of 25 pitchers.

So did their new toys turn them into peak Pedro? The short answer is no. Taken as a whole, they’ve performed roughly as well as they did last season. As you’d expect from any sample, roughly half our pitchers got better, and half got worse. Of the pitchers who improved from last year to this year, I don’t think I can definitively say that any of them reached new heights specifically because of the cutter. Read the rest of this entry »

How in the world can you explain a team like the Rays? There are a lot of strange and seemingly magical things going on there, but let’s focus on just their starters. They churn out top-of-the-line dudes like no one’s business. Shane McClanahan is nasty. Tyler Glasnow looks unhittable at times. Jeffrey Springs went from zero to hero and stayed there. Zach Eflin is suddenly dominant. They can’t seem to take a step without tripping over a great starter.

They’re also always hungry for more. Whether it’s bad luck, adverse selection, or something about their performance training methods, the Rays stack up pitching injuries like few teams in baseball history. Of that group I named up above, only Eflin hasn’t missed significant time in 2023, and both McClanahan and Springs are out for the rest of the year. The Rays not only have all these starters, but they also traded for Aaron Civale at the deadline, and they’re still short on arms.

They did what anyone would do: point at a random reliever in the bullpen and tell him he’s now an excellent starter. Wait, that’s not what anyone else would do? Only the Rays do that? You’re right, at least a little bit; surely you recall the Drew Rasmussen experiment from 2021. That one was a big hit until Rasmussen tore his UCL this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Red Sox hitters will be facing an enigmatic fastball when they host the Royals at Fenway Park tonight. When Eric Longenhagen put together our Kansas City Royals Top Prospect list last month, he wrote that Alec Marsh’s fastball “doesn’t hop even though it has the approach angle and spin axis of a fastball that typically does; it has below-average vertical break and might be surprisingly hittable against big league bats.” Calling the pitch “weird,” our lead prospect analyst further described it as a “flat-angled, high-spin sinker,” adding that the 25-year-old right-hander, whom he assigned a 45 FV and a no. 3 ranking in the system, is no longer touching triple digits as he did in his initial seasons of pro ball.

Intrigued, I showed the 2019 second-round pick out of Arizona State University what my colleague had written, and asked him a simple question: How accurate is this?

Here is Marsh’s response to that, as well as a smattering of other questions. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago Cubs are white hot. Shortly after the All-Star break, the Cubbies were as many as 8 1/2 games out of first place in the NL Central and six games under .500. About three weeks later, they’re a little better than an even-money bet to grab a playoff spot.

So let’s talk about Ian Happ, who has been a key offensive player for the Cubs over that span, and the odd season he’s having. If you make a habit of checking the major league walk rate leaderboards regularly, as I’m sure we all do, you will no doubt have noticed that Happ is in the top five with a 16.1% walk rate. (All stats current through Tuesday’s action.)

Now, Happ has always been capable of drawing a walk; his career walk rate heading into this season was 11.2%, which is pretty high. But you wouldn’t think of him as one of the most discerning hitters in baseball — Juan Soto, Kyle Schwarber, Max Muncy, and so on. Until this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Senior Performance Analyst, Foundational Research

Reports to: Assistant Director, Foundational Research
Additional reporting responsibilities to: Director, Integrative Baseball Performance
Location: Philadelphia, PA or Remote

Position Overview:
Analysts with the Phillies are tasked with maximizing organizational impact, in pursuit of building a consistent World Series contender. As a Performance Analyst in the Foundational Research department, you tackle baseball’s most difficult problems in biomechanics, strength and conditioning, and athletic training, leveraging proprietary data sources to systematically improve player evaluation, development, performance, and health at scale.

You work closely with technical staff and performance specialists in Baseball Operations to outline a strategic vision for the future of performance research at the Phillies. You internalize cutting-edge insights from the Phillies’ Research & Development department in player evaluation and development, leveraging those insights in performance research that is effortlessly additive to our existing player acquisition and development paradigms.

Success in this role would involve improving our existing player evaluation tools, identifying novel and high-value avenues of high performance research, building systems to improve the efficiency and value of player assessment data collection, and seeing an integrative, best-in-class baseball performance process incorporated in organizational decision-making, spanning player acquisition and player development.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct and oversee performance research projects and manage the integration of their outputs into our proprietary tools and applications, in direct support of player evaluation, acquisition, development, and performance maximization
• Ensure projects conform to best practices for implementing, maintaining, and improving predictive models throughout their life cycles
• Communicate with front office executives, scouts, coaches, and medical staff to design and interpret statistical studies
• Assist the rest of the Foundational Research and Integrative Baseball Performance teams with their projects by providing guidance and feedback on your areas of expertise
• Continually enhance your and your colleagues’ knowledge of baseball and data science through reading, research, and discussion with your teammates and the rest of the front office
• Provide input in architecting the storage, ingestion, display, and analysis of baseball assessment data
• Rigorously identify and vet novel data sources, collection methodologies, or technologies that could be additive to our processes, supporting the organization in implementing them in a scientifically and statistically robust manner

Required Qualifications

• Deep understanding of statistics, including supervised and unsupervised learning, regularization, model assessment and selection, model inference and averaging, ensemble methods, etc.
• Demonstrated experience in handling, analyzing, and interpreting high-performance data in sports
• Proficiency with scripting languages such as Python, statistical software (R, S-Plus, SAS, or similar), and databases (SQL)
• Demonstrated experience designing, constructing, implementing, and leading technical research projects for use by non-technical stakeholders
• Proven willingness to both teach others and learn new techniques
• Willingness to work as part of a team on complex projects
• Proven leadership and self-direction 

Preferred Qualifications

• BS, MS or PhD in a related quantitative (Math, Statistics, Operations Research, etc.) or scientific field (Biology, Physics, Bioengineering, etc.), or equivalent practical experience
• Familiarity with best practices in machine learning operations (Git, Docker, MLFlow or the equivalent)
• Experience designing and running experiments
• Experience managing or overseeing the work of other data scientists or analysts
• 0-5+ years of relevant work experience

Interested applicants should submit both their resume and an answer to the following question:
Our R&D Department informs us that a recently drafted pitcher would have a big league arsenal if they gained 2mph in the off-season. What models would you build or metrics would you look at to determine whether the player can achieve the proposed gain in velocity? (250 word limit)

Tip: There’s no defined right or wrong answer. Responses are used to get some insight into how you approach problem solving and baseball in general.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Wednesday night in Philadelphia didn’t start off as a celebration of Michael Lorenzen. Making his first home start after joining the team at the trade deadline, he struggled to get comfortable on the mound. The first batter of the game, CJ Abrams, smashed a pitch to the warning track in the deepest part of the field. The next three batters worked full counts, with one walking. Keibert Ruiz worked another walk to lead off the second inning. Lorenzen threw 53 pitches in the first three frames. Through four, he had three strikeouts and three walks.

Luckily, he didn’t need to be the focus, because a celebration in Philly was happening one way or another. Weston Wilson smashed a home run in his first major league at-bat. Nick Castellanos popped a two-run shot in the first and followed up with a solo shot in the third. The Phillies were romping over the Nationals on a glorious summer evening. And that’s leaving the best part for last: Ryan Howard was in the booth to celebrate opening a new chicken and waffles stand in the stadium.

I won’t lie to you; those waffles looked good. John Kruk was nearly rapturous as he contemplated them. At one point, he openly begged Alex Call to finish an at-bat quickly so the booth could go to commercial and he could eat. Howard seemed happy, too, and the Phillies continued to pile up runs while he recapped the genesis of his foodie vision. After four innings, the Phillies led 6-0, and the celebration was in full swing.

Obviously, though, you aren’t here to read about Howard’s chicken and waffles, or to learn, as I did, that Kruk avoids spicy food. You’re here because a funny thing happened in the back half of this game. Lorenzen, staked to an enormous lead, started attacking the strike zone. He dared the Nationals to swing – four-seamers middle-middle and belt-high sinkers, calling out to be swung at. When he fell behind in the count, he fired one down the pipe and said “hit it.”

This being the Nationals, they mostly didn’t hit it. Calling their offense punchless might be going too far, but they’re towards the bottom of the league in every offensive category, and that doesn’t account for the fact that they traded their best hitter at the deadline. Abrams is coming on, and Lane Thomas has been good all year, but we’re not quite talking about Murderers’ Row here.

Suddenly it was the seventh inning, and the Nationals were still hitless. Lorenzen pulled his secondary pitches back out; he buried Jake Alu under a pile of changeups for his fourth strikeout and then mixed four-seamers high with changeups low to coax a groundout (smashed, great play by Rodolfo Castro) out of Ildemaro Vargas. Seven innings, 100 pitches, no hits – was this happening?

That last out of the seventh inning awoke the Philadelphia crowd from its post-homer lethargy. They’d been enjoying a casual demolishing of the little brothers of the NL East. Now, they might be witnessing history. A roar broke out, and the crowd rose to its feet to collectively cheer Lorenzen as he strode off the field. Six outs, six measly outs – surely he could do it.

Lorenzen came out sharp in the eighth – by which I mean, he threw some good pitches when the count made that possible and otherwise made the Nationals beat him by putting the ball in play. It was a brilliant plan all night; the Phillies recorded 15 outs in the air, few of them threatening to be anything more than cans of corn. Most importantly for Lorenzen, that eighth inning took only 11 pitches, which gave him enough runway to come back out for the ninth.

I’ve spent a lot of this writeup talking about Lorenzen’s ability to adapt his pitching to the situation, and that was on display in his last inning of work. The strike zone widens when no-hitters near the finish line. Hitters’ pulses rise – you don’t want to be on that highlight reel, you know? Lorenzen aimed for the corners to get ahead, then snapped off ridiculous breaking balls whenever he had the chance, hoping for a miserable flail from a desperate opponent.

That plan dealt with Thomas and Joey Meneses, the latter a victim of a called strike three that was both clearly outside and clearly a pitch you have to swing at in the ninth inning of a no-hitter. That left only Dominic Smith, but he wasn’t going down easily. After falling behind 1-2, he took and fouled his way back to a 3-2 count. Lorenzen looked gassed. “One more pitch,” Kruk breathed on the broadcast, almost a mantra. And Lorenzen left it up to the gods of contact one more time. He threw a slider right down main street at 85 and dared Smith to do his worst:

After the momentous end to the seventh inning, Citizen’s Bank Park had turned raucous. That energy carried right through to the end of the game. The place positively shook when Meneses struck out, and erupted even more when Johan Rojas squeezed Smith’s fly ball for the final out. Sorry Weston, and sorry Ryan; it was Lorenzen’s night now, and the crowd bathed him in applause as he exulted in his achievement.

If you didn’t know he hadn’t allowed any hits, Lorenzen’s line wouldn’t turn any heads. Five strikeouts, four walks; it’s not exactly the stuff of aces. But Lorenzen has never been an ace, and he wouldn’t tell you otherwise. He’s never been a high octane strikeout pitcher, and now that he’s transitioned from the bullpen to the rotation, he’s leaning more than ever on his savvy. Tonight was the crowning achievement of that style.

As the stadium roared and Lorenzen’s mom beamed from the crowd, the team mobbed him. What a glorious feeling it must be to combine the pinnacle of individual achievement with your first real taste at team success. Lorenzen has played for a winning team exactly twice in his major league career – the 2020 Reds went 31-29 and the 2021 edition finished 83-79.

This year’s Phillies are a cut above that – the defending National League champions, near-locks to make the playoffs and another run at the title. And he’s one of them now, indelibly linked with this team, this city. You won’t be able to tell the story of the 2023 Phillies without mentioning this night, which means you won’t be able to tell it without mentioning Lorenzen. How wonderful that must feel after nearly a decade in the wilderness, hoping to start, then getting your wish only to toil in obscurity.

Baseball is about a lot of things. It’s about the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd, the beauty of close plays and the shocking speed and strength of grown men wearing ridiculous pajamas. Increasingly, it’s about numbers too – teams are getting smarter and smarter about separating what seems important from what is important. But regardless of the numbers, tonight was important. Baseball isn’t just about who wins the trophy at the end of the year. It’s about nights like these, and players like these. What a glorious night for Lorenzen, and what a wonderful celebration of baseball.