As I’ve done for the past few years, I’m going to be grading each eliminated postseason manager on their decision-making. We spend the year mostly ignoring managers’ on-field contributions, because to be honest, they’re pretty small. Using the wrong reliever in the eighth inning just doesn’t feel that bad on June 22; there are so many more games still coming, and the regular season is more about managing the grind than getting every possible edge every day. The playoffs aren’t like that; with so few games to separate wheat from chaff, every last ounce of win probability matters, and managers make personnel decisions accordingly. What better time to grade them?

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies and unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Josh Jung and Geraldo Perdomo have been important, too. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Nathan Eovaldi is valuable because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s been one constant for the Diamondbacks during their run to the World Series, it hasn’t been dominant starting pitching or shutdown relief work, though they’ve gotten their shares of both. It’s been Ketel Marte, who has not only hit safely in all 14 of Arizona’s playoff games but also set a new postseason record on Saturday night with an 18-game hitting streak, dating back to 2017. He claimed the record by slapping a two-run eighth-inning single off Martín Pérez in Game 2.

Marte’s streak began with the 2017 NL Wild Card game, when his 3-for-5 showing against the Rockies (including starter and current Ranger Jon Gray) helped the Diamondbacks to an 11–8 win. He hit in all three games of the Division Series against the Dodgers, even homering off Clayton Kershaw, but the Diamondbacks were swept nonetheless. Six years later, the 30-year-old switch-hitter picked up where he left off, with a game-tying homer off Corbin Burnes in the NL Wild Card Series opener against the Brewers — one pitch after Corbin Carroll had homered off Burnes as well. His two-run single off Freddy Peralta in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series turned a 2–1 deficit into a 3–2 lead, sending the Diamondbacks on their merry way to their first upset of the postseason. Read the rest of this entry »

Shintaro Fujinami has a good understanding of how NPB compares to MLB. Prior to signing with the Oakland Athletics in January (and subsequently being traded to the Baltimore Orioles in July), the 29-year-old right-hander spent 10 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers. Along the way he faced many of Japan’s top hitters, with Central League stalwarts such as Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto among the standouts. The latter was the first name Fujinami mentioned when I asked which of his former position-player opponents would best perform stateside.

“I think that Okamoto, the third baseman for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, would be pretty good here,” replied Fujinama, who went 7-8 with a 7.18 ERA over 79 relief innings in his first MLB season. “He’s a power hitter in Japan, although a power hitter there isn’t the same as here. Power hitters in Japan won’t hit 40 home runs over here like Shohei Ohtani does. But he would do well.”

A 27-year-old right-handed hitter, Okamoto slugged an NPB-best 41 home runs this year while slashing .278/.374/.585. He’s gone deep at least 30 times in each of the last six seasons, a span that includes a .274 batting average and 108 strikeouts annually. Despite the not-low K totals, Fujinami believes that Okamoto possesses the bat-to-ball skills to handle MLB pitching. Moreover, he doesn’t feel that high heaters would bedevil the Yomiuri slugger.

“He has good contact-ability, and he’s also good at hitting fastballs,” Fujinami told me during our September conversation. “The fastball velocity here is higher than it is in Japan, but I feel that Okamoto could make an adjustment to that if he came here. I think that Okamoto can hit a fastball at the top of the zone better than Murakami. If I had to pick one to bring here to the states, I would pick Okamoto.” Read the rest of this entry »

One sleepless night after Game 1 was ripped from them in heartbreaking fashion, the Diamondbacks arose from the canvas in Arlington and swung back at the Rangers en route to a dominant 9–1 victory, evening the World Series at a game apiece as the series heads to Phoenix. Arizona’s effort was led by a masterful performance from Scottsdale Desert Mountain High School and Arizona State alum Merrill Kelly, who struck out nine across seven surgical innings en route to the win. The Diamondbacks maintained a modest lead until the final three frames, when the bottom third of their order, which combined to reach base eight times on the night, piled up six runs.

Kelly is a prodigal son of sorts, a former Rays draft pick who left affiliated ball in the U.S. for four seasons in Korea before returning to MLB and his hometown Diamondbacks in 2019. Ironically, the particulars of the postseason schedule and of Arizona’s run to the Fall Classic have prevented Kelly from making a (literal) home start during this postseason, but he looked right at home in Texas on Saturday evening as he carved up one of the season’s most potent offenses. Read the rest of this entry »

For 25 outs, the Diamondbacks’ plan had worked to perfection. Zac Gallen had worked through five gritty innings, Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte had given Arizona a lead to hand to the bullpen, and the relief corps had weathered a relentless Rangers lineup. As Paul Sewald entered in the ninth inning with a two-run lead, it looked like the Diamondbacks were on the verge of stealing a victory in Game 1 of the World Series. Corey Seager had other plans. On the first pitch he saw from Sewald, Seager launched a one-out, two-run bomb into the right field stands to tie the game at five.

With the game sent to extra innings, the momentum suddenly swung toward the Rangers, whose potent lineup could end the game quickly, even without the benefit of the Manfred Man on second base to start each inning. After a minor threat was quelled in the 10th, who else but Adolis García had the final word, blasting an opposite field, walk-off home run in the 11th to send Globe Life Field into a state of jubilation. Read the rest of this entry »

In the cat and mouse game that is the postseason, every decision matters, regardless of how big or small. If a marginal competitive advantage can be exploited, odds are a team will take their chance. Last year, I investigated what I thought was a key reason for the Astros’ postseason success over the last decade. The piece explored swing path diversity and how Houston had more of it than any other team from 2021 to 2022. Constructing a balanced, dynamic lineup is one of the tools teams can use to keep pitchers and opposing managers honest. There are multiple ways to define balance in a lineup, including swing aggression, whiff tendencies, speed and athleticism, and handedness. But that piece focused on variance in Vertical Bat Angle (VBA) within lineups.

If you aren’t familiar with VBA, it’s the vertical orientation of the bat at contact, where 45 degrees is a diagonal bat. It is pitch height dependent – the number goes down as height increases (flatter bat) and goes up as height decreases (steeper bat), making it vary within a player’s own swing profile. There is also variance player to player. On average, Aaron Judge and Freddie Freeman have much steeper barrels at impact than flatter-swinging hitters like Juan Soto and Randy Arozarena. VBA is one of multiple important bat tracking metrics — horizontal bat angle, point of contact, bat speed, acceleration, and time to contact are a few others — but VBA is the most easily accessible due to the computer vision work done at SwingGraphs. Read the rest of this entry »

No team gets to the World Series without leaning on some of their depth, and part of what gets a team to the finish line is how this supporting cast performs. Name a championship squad, and it’s a safe bet it got some significant contributions from a handful or third and fourth starters, long relievers, hitters further down the lineup, etc.

I’m not a betting man, but I wouldn’t have picked Brandon Pfaadt to be one of those players for one of this year’s World Series teams. Pfaadt, who just turned 25 last week, had a bit of a rocky rookie season, posting a 5.72 ERA, 5.18 FIP, and 4.46 xFIP in 96 innings over 18 starts split by a pair of demotions to Triple-A Reno. He got hit for hard contact, and the strikeout numbers that mitigated the damage in the minors faded when he got to the majors in May. He did get stronger as the year went on, posting a 4.14 ERA, 3.89 FIP, and 3.89 xFIP in August and September — more on that later — but I wouldn’t have expected him to be on the mound for some of the biggest starts of the season — and for the Diamondbacks to win all of them. Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Pivetta had an intriguing and largely successful season. A starter to begin the year, the veteran right-hander was shifted to Boston’s bullpen in mid-May, only to return to the rotation a few months later and finish strong. Save for a smattering of rocky outings — mostly in the early going — he was actually solid throughout. All told, the 30-year-old Victoria, British Columbia native logged a 4.04 ERA and a 3.98 FIP over 142-and-two-thirds innings, the second-highest innings mark on the club.

He was often overpowering. Opposing hitters had a .207 BA and a .221 xBA versus his array of offerings, while his 31.2% strikeout rate ranked in the 93rd percentile among big league hurlers per Baseball Savant. An in-season addition to the Red Sox righty’s repertoire was especially effective: Pivetta posted a 44.4% whiff rate and allowed just a .114 BA and a .127 xBA on his sweeper.

Pivetta, who ended up making 16 starts and 22 relief appearances on the season, discussed his 2023 performance on the final week of September.

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David Laurila: How would you assess your season as a whole?

Nick Pivetta: “I’d say it was good. I mean, I think I’ve handled the situation well. I’ve gone out and given my best effort — I’ve competed and put everything on the line for the organization — and that’s all I really focus on. I’m always making sure that I’m doing the best I can for the team.” Read the rest of this entry »

Watching playoff baseball is like cramming for a test. Most people watching are either casual fans of the sport or diehard fans of one team only, so it’s incumbent on national writers and broadcasters to get their audiences up to speed quickly. Sometimes that takes the form of an information dump; other times, a team gets distilled down to a couple of talking points. And for a team that was not expected to make the World Series, has a lot of young players, and doesn’t play in a particularly fashionable media market — like, say, the Arizona Diamondbacks — the talking points can be a little crude.

In this case, the Diamondbacks are like a preschooler on a sugar high: Young, small, and always running.

For the first five games of the NLCS, this bullet point looked a little silly, as Arizona attempted just a single stolen base against a Phillies team that holds runners well. But in Games 6 and 7, the Diamondbacks opened up the taps and reaped the rewards: eight stolen bases in eight attempts, leading directly to two runs. Which in turn led to, as you know, winning the pennant.

Can they repeat the trick against the Rangers in the World Series? Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Operations- Entry Level Opportunities

The Toronto Blue Jays are seeking highly motivated and creative entry level employees to assist with day-to-day tasks within various areas of their Baseball Operations department, including but not limited to Scouting, Player Development, High Performance, and Research and Development/Analytics. The start and end dates are flexible depending on candidate availability and both full-season and partial-season candidates will be considered. These positions will be based in Toronto, ON; Dunedin, FL; or one of our affiliate locations throughout Canada, the United States, and Dominican Republic. All positions are paid.

There are several roles with different primary focuses, with more detail on each broad type of position provided below. To the extent that you’re interested in a specific focus you may reflect that in your application, but you only need to submit one application to the program and all applications will be considered for possible fits. These job categories are intentionally broad, and a successful candidate may be considered for a role that involves a blend of these responsibilities, or in an entirely different area that is more suited to their unique experiences and skills. Many baseball careers are non-linear and an entry level role in any of these areas could ultimately lead to a career in a different area.

Across all roles, the Blue Jays are seeking:

• Demonstrated passion for baseball and excellent reasoning, problem-solving, creative thinking, and communication skills. 
• Strong interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with a wide range of individuals. 
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and self-direct work. 
• Excellent attention to detail and time management skills. 
• The ability to work evenings, weekends, and holidays as required by the baseball calendar. 

The Blue Jays see diversity and employment equity as foundational to creating a successful culture.
Applicants who may not traditionally feel empowered to apply for a job in this field are strongly
encouraged to apply.

You may receive an email asking you to complete a more detailed follow-up application regarding your interests and employment goals. Please ensure that baseballresumes@bluejays.com is allowed in your email system.

Player Development Technology
In this role, candidates passionate about working directly with coaches and players will be embedded with teams at the Blue Jays’ development complexes (Dunedin, FL and Boca Chica, D.R.) and affiliate teams (Dunedin, FL; Vancouver, BC; Manchester, NH; Buffalo, NY). On a daily basis, you will be with your team as the point person for video, technology, and data resources. This may include helping to deploy and operate technology both in practice and game settings, organizing/cataloguing/reviewing video and data, helping to define and track player goals, and supporting longer-term R&D and Player Development projects. You will also assist with the logistical needs of the team (including Minor League Operations, Nutrition, and High Performance departments), and potentially on-field activities (BP, fungos, catching pens). Fluency with Microsoft Office is required; experience with a range of baseball-related data capture systems (BATS, Portable Trackman, Rapsodo, Diamond Kinetics, etc.) would be helpful, as would experience with video editing and review software. Spanish proficiency is also helpful, and may be required in some cases. If you’re interested in learning about the rhythms of a pro baseball season and passionate about a career in using data and technology to help players get better, this could be a good fit for you.

Operations (Scouting, Baseball Operations, Player Development)
Candidates will use their excellent organizational skills and high attention to detail to support the logistical and administrative functioning of the scouting, player development, or baseball operations departments. This could include data entry and cleaning, assisting with the coordination and execution of player evaluation projects, maintaining and organizing video and data resources, and helping to stay on top of departmental administrative functions (expense reports, compiling statistics and rosters, meeting logistics, etc.). If supporting our Player Development department, you may be asked to help integrate technology into on-field work, administer player plans, translate documents to/from English and Spanish, and help with scheduling for players and staff. Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, is important for this role; familiarity with baseball rules and regulations may be beneficial, and Spanish proficiency may also be helpful (or required in some cases).

Advance Scouting
In this role, candidates will use their strong knowledge of the game of baseball to support our Major League team in game-by-game and series-by-series preparation. This could include a wide range of activities, such as collecting and organizing statistics for reports, conducting ad-hoc research and analysis on players or the game of baseball generally, watching video to provide written evaluations and insights, and supporting on-field data and video collection. Strong time management and organizational skills are important, and skills with things like R, Shiny, and similar tools would be helpful plusses.

Research & Development
Candidates will use their analytical and programming skills to help identify and research baseball questions. Proficiency in self-directed research work using tools such as R, Python, and SQL in at least one, and ideally multiple, of the following areas is important: data acquisition, organization, and cleaning; modelling/machine learning; data visualization and/or automated reporting; and statistical summary techniques. Experience with advanced modelling techniques or other specialized skills (Computer Vision, Neural Networks, Bayesian Modeling, Anomaly Detection, Time Series etc.) would be beneficial, but not necessary. You may present work to a variety of audiences (fellow researchers, front office members, coaches, or players), and may use the results of research to contribute to player evaluations at key junctures. Additional duties may include providing logistical support to major events on the baseball calendar (Draft, Trade Deadline, etc.) and other general departmental support.

Baseball Systems Development
Candidates for this role will help to create, update, and support web applications and databases that are used throughout baseball operations; a moderate to high level of experience in computer science, web and/or database development, software engineering, or a related field is quite important. A portfolio of work showing your past experiences in these areas is also helpful. Duties may include working with end users to gather requirements, engineering systems to acquire and store new datasets, or doing front-end web design work on baseball information systems. You will have the opportunity to experience and provide logistical support to key points on the baseball calendar.

Biomechanics/Sports Science
Candidates for this role have a strong academic background in Biomechanics, Physics, Sports Science, or a related field and are passionate about applying their expertise to baseball. This could be in a research/data analysis focused capacity (ie. using data to create research/analysis that is used to drive decisions and help players improve), a role that is more hands-on with players and other development and performance staff (ie. working with players and staff in a real-time data capture setting to provide live movement feedback), or somewhere in the middle. In all cases, you would work closely with player development, R+D, and high performance staff to collaborate on research, contribute to player development goals, and support data capture and organization. You would be expected to individually stay on top of the latest research and resources in the field of biomechanics and sports science. Experience with statistical programming, modelling, and visualization tools is very helpful, but not required.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Toronto Blue Jays.