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 »

Injuries are always unwelcome, but the pumpkin spice season is perhaps the most unfortunate time of year to lose a player to one. A surprise malady at this point in the season can shut a player out of some, if not all, of the postseason, and with no ability to make trades and playoff eligibility freezing at the beginning of September, it’s especially challenging to fill holes on the big league roster. This weekend featured some particularly bad injury news for playoff teams, as a number of players who can’t be easily replaced saw their postseason outlook take a turn for the worse.

Let’s take stock of what these injuries might mean come October, beginning with the Tampa Bay Rays, who got the worst bit of news. Shane Baz needs Tommy John surgery, and since we’re so late in the season, 2023 is off the table for his return as well. Until this setback, Baz’s recovery from his most recent elbow problem seemed to be going well, and the team had held out hope that they’d be able to get him up to speed enough to at least pitch in relief. With Baz out, the Rays will have to rely more on Tyler Glasnow, who is expected to be activated on Wednesday in his return from a Tommy John surgery of his own.

The bad news in Tampa didn’t stop with Baz. Brandon Lowe’s back problems have ended his 2022 season early. While (hopefully) not as significant as Baz’s injury, Lowe has struggled with back pain for most of the season and recently had a cortisone injection. As with Baz, the hope had been to get him back on the roster in time for the playoffs. Even with his struggles this year, which were due in large part to the aforementioned injury, ZiPS still thinks Lowe’s bat has the most upside of nearly anyone on the team, and the Rays will take a small but significant hit in the postseason projections in his absence. Without Baz and Lowe, ZiPS thinks of the Rays as a .547 team rather than a .553 one, with their solid depth keeping things from being far worse. The full version of ZiPS projects Lowe’s primary replacement, Jonathan Aranda, at a 105 wRC+ for the rest of the season, a significant bump from his 90 wRC+ projection before the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody can accuse the Mariners of skimping on frontline pitching in an effort to end their epic playoff drought. After signing Robbie Ray to a five-year, $115 million deal last winter, they traded a quartet of prospects for Luis Castillo on July 30. Already this was no mere rental, as the 29-year-old righty still has another season under control before free agency. Or rather had another season under control, because on Saturday, the Mariners announced they had agreed to terms with Castillo on a five-year, $108 million extension.

With the ink on the new deal barely dry, Castillo threw five solid innings against the Royals on Sunday, but faltered in the sixth and was charged with the first three runs of what turned out to be a gruesome 11-run rally that three other relievers tried in vain to contain. The Mariners, who led 11-2 before the onslaught, lost 13-12, dropping them to 3-7 on a 10-game road trip from hell, during which they lost series to the Angels, A’s, and Royals, and sent both Eugenio Suárez and Julio Rodríguez — their two most valuable players by WAR — to the injured list, the former with a fractured right middle finger, the latter with a lower back strain. Sunday’s loss dropped the Mariners to 83-69 overall, but fortunately for them, both the Rays (84-69) and Orioles (79-73) lost on Sunday as well, leaving Seattle four games ahead of Baltimore for the final American League Wild Card slot, and half a game behind Tampa Bay for the second slot.

The outing was the third rough one out of the last four for Castillo, who gave up six runs (three earned) to the White Sox on September 7, and four runs in 4.2 innings to the A’s on September 20. Even so, he’s pitched to a 3.34 ERA and 3.12 FIP in 59.1 innings over 10 starts since the trade, and a 3.06 ERA and 3.17 FIP in 144.1 innings overall. He didn’t make his season debut until May 9 due to a bout of shoulder soreness that sidelined him in the abbreviated spring, but among all pitchers with at least 140 innings, his 76 ERA- is 21st in the majors and his 78 FIP- is 12th; regardless of innings, his 3.4 WAR is in a virtual tie for 23rd among all starters. Read the rest of this entry »

Blake Snell had to have seen 2022 as an opportunity for a bounce-back. After infamously being pulled by Rays manager Kevin Cash with a one-run lead in the sixth inning of a decisive Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, the lefty was dealt to the Padres in a blockbuster that December. He struggled to find his groove in San Diego in 2021, battling through an inconsistent season for a disappointing Padres team and finishing with a 4.20 ERA, a 3.82 FIP, and a 3.74 xFIP. He must have been eager to put his middling Padres debut behind him when he prepared for his first start of 2022 on April 10, but he was scratched during his pregame bullpen session, hitting the injured list and making way for then-Padres prospect (and current Washington National) MacKenzie Gore to make his major league debut.

No, the comeback would have to wait. Snell would have to endure rehab starts in Fort Wayne, Indiana, then Lake Elsinore, California, and then El Paso, Texas before rejoining the team on May 18 in Philadelphia. He would have to suffer eight team losses in his first eight starts, during which he posted a 5.13 ERA, 3.71 FIP, and 4.04 xFIP and finished the sixth inning just twice. And in his final start before the All-Star Break on July 14 in Colorado, Snell walked six and allowed five runs over 3.2 innings. He walked his final three batters of the first half, forcing in two runs.

But you wouldn’t have known any of that last Wednesday night, when Snell took a no-hitter into the seventh inning at Petco Park against the Cardinals, one of the league’s most potent offenses, finishing the night with a career-high-tying 13 strikeouts over 7.0 scoreless innings. The performance was the crown jewel of a second half during which Snell has pitched himself back into the conversation as one of the league’s most dominant lefties – and one of San Diego’s October X factors. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in June, Ben Clemens noticed that Braves reliever A.J. Minter had taken a big developmental step, specifically by cutting his walk rate basically in half from 2021. Through some statistical trial-and-error, Ben discovered that Minter had revamped his approach after falling behind in the count, pitching in and around the zone almost exclusively in two- and three-ball counts:

“All he did was make one adjustment — before he ever got to a 3–0 or 3–1 count, he’d dial in and throw something competitive — and presto, walks were gone overnight.”

Three and a half months later, Minter’s walk rate has bumped up a little, but only to 5.2%. That’s still a fraction of his previous career low, 8.5%, and even more impressive given his 34.9% strikeout rate. There are other pieces to what makes a good reliever, like preventing home runs (Minter has allowed only four in 65 innings this year) and limiting hard contact, but based just on those strikeout and walk rates, one would assume that Minter has been one of the best relievers in baseball this season. 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 »

Baseball teams are like most entities operating with finite resources: If you want to know what they value, look where those resources get spent. The Toronto Blue Jays clearly value starting pitching. They spent $80 million over four years on Hyun Jin Ryu, two top prospects plus a seven-year, $131 million extension on José Berríos, $110 million over five years on Kevin Gausman, and $36 million over three years on Yusei Kikuchi.

Gausman has been as good as advertised this year, but behind him, the Blue Jays’ most important pitcher hasn’t been one of their big-money acquisitions, but Alek Manoah, a 24-year-old on a pre-arbitration contract. And he’s not even the 6-foot-6 Floridian most people expected to become Toronto’s homegrown frontline starter. In 2017, the Blue Jays spent a first-round pick on Nate Pearson, he of the 102 mph fastball and slider that touched 95. Pearson tickled the top 10 of the global prospect rankings in 2020, while Manoah — despite being a first-rounder himself — worked in relative obscurity.

Pearson’s career has stalled, thanks to an array of setbacks that would be at home in the Book of Job, ranging from a sports hernia to mononucleosis. And into that niche has stepped Manoah, who possesses less eye-popping stuff but the finesse and durability of which frontline starters are made.

Manoah is in the top 15 among qualified starters in innings, ERA, strikeouts, and WAR, but his pitching approach belies his youth. He throws reasonably hard — though an average fastball velocity of 93.9 mph is nothing to write home about in this day and age — but this year his ERA has gone down by eight tenths of a run while his strikeout rate has fallen by five percentage points. That’s because he’s allowing less hard contact than any other qualified starter in the game.

The key to Manoah’s success is the combination of his four-seamer and his sinker, two pitches that resemble each other closely in velocity and flight path until diverging wildly in late break. That combination doesn’t always result in a swing and miss, but it’s exceptionally hard for a hitter to square up, making it the baseball equivalent of putting your palm on your little brother’s forehead and straightening your arm so he can’t hit you back.

“I think the biggest thing I like to do is watch hitters’ approaches, watch their swing path, watch the way they swing, the way they take pitches, and see certain pitches they’re looking for,” Manoah said. “For me that will dictate whether I’m going sinker or four-seam or how I want to set it up.”

Of course, Manoah didn’t invent this strategy; numerous pitchers have used it to great effect, even during the height of the four-seamer-heavy, swing-and-miss tulip fever that gripped baseball at the end of the past decade. In fact, several of those pitchers have worked for Toronto in recent years, specifically Ryu and Berríos, whom Baseball Savant lists as one of the most similar pitchers in the league to Manoah in terms of velocity and movement.

Manoah’s taken the opportunity to learn as much as he can from his older teammates.

“[Ryu’s] pitch design might not be the same, but the way he gets into his legs and his mechanics and his rhythm are very similar to mine,” Manoah said. “For Berríos, it’s really the way he sets up his sinker and his changeup. For me, I wasn’t really much of a changeup guy, but I’ve been able to watch him, and he’s not worried about certain movements — as long as he’s tunneling it off the sinker, he can use them together.” He also mentioned Ray, Gausman, and David Phelps as players he’d picked up lessons from during his time in the majors.

Manoah has had to be a quick learner, because as much as it seems like he just burst onto the scene as a rookie last year, his rise is even more meteoric than you’d think. Despite his physical gifts, he was undrafted out of high school, and in three years at West Virginia, he spent only one as a full-time starter. After being drafted 11th overall in 2019, he spent all of 2020 pitching at Toronto’s alternate site.

“I feel like we had a pretty good simulated season,” he said of the alternate site camp. “Still training, still long tossing, still facing live hitters. There was a sense of motivation because it was that time when people were going to know who was working and who wasn’t. I didn’t have to focus on the results because there were no results. Being able to work on my changeup, my body, my work ethic, and routine without having to worry about results — I think it allowed me to enjoy that process and be ready for spring training.”

So Manoah went into the big league rotation in May of 2021 after just nine minor league appearances ever, at any level, and just two seasons of more than 80 total innings. And he was immediately one of Toronto’s best pitchers, striking out more than a batter an inning and posting a 3.22 ERA in 111 2/3 innings over 20 starts.

“I think every step of my journey has been preparing me for this,” Manoah said.

Now, despite his youth, Manoah is one of the most essential players on a team that’s a near-lock to make the postseason. He made his first All-Star team in July, and his inning while mic’d up made him one of the game’s breakout stars. When a Montreal radio host made insensitive comments about Alejandro Kirk last week, it was Manoah who jumped to defend his catcher. He’s a veteran, in every respect but age.

And now, one of the big questions facing Toronto interim manager John Schneider is how hard to ride Manoah down the stretch. On the one hand, home-field advantage in the first round could be huge for Toronto, but on the other, the young righty is now some 54 innings past his previous career high with two weeks, plus the postseason, left on the calendar. Manoah is currently 16 1/3 innings from 200, a milestone he views as important because reaching it is evidence of a good work ethic, but he’s happy to pitch or sit if asked.

“I literally told them I don’t want to be the one to make that decision,” he said with a chuckle. He’s simply pleased to be pitching so well that the Blue Jays are scheduling their playoff rotation with him in mind.

“Last year, I got moved because we wanted to set up Robbie Ray and our horses,” he said. “I remember telling myself I want to be one of the guys they’re setting up for big games. Now that we’re there, it’s pretty cool.”

This is Davy’s first piece as a FanGraphs contributor. Davy is a writer and musician who lives in Brooklyn. He has previously written for Baseball Prospectus, where he contributed to the Too Far From Town series about the contraction of the minors. He bakes fancy cakes and plays guitar for The Subway Ghosts, a punk rock band whose other members are also baseball writers. Davy grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and his earliest ballpark memory is of boos raining down on Glenn Davis at Memorial Stadium.

Carlos Correa picked a great time to turn things around. The 28-year-old is widely expected to opt out of his three-year contract with the Twins this winter, and he’s primed to hit the free agent market on an absolute tear. Correa is slashing .377/.438/.663 in September, good for a 216 wRC+. That’s the sixth-best mark in all of baseball and second among shortstops, behind only the red hot Bo Bichette.

Like Bichette, Correa faced a rough time earlier in the season. Where did things go wrong for the future former Twin? It’s time for some fun with 15-day rolling averages! Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball Operations Analyst

Department: Baseball Operations
Location: San Francisco, CA; Scottsdale, AZ
Status: Full-Time; Exempt

Position Summary:
The San Francisco Giants are seeking Analysts to join the Baseball Operations department. These individuals will be part of the R&D team with primary focuses to create decision-making tools and to provide research and analysis to support the Baseball Operations department. The ideal candidate will possess strong analytical skills, the ability to communicate effectively to non-technical people, and both passion and intellectual curiosity for the game of baseball.

Position Responsibilities:

• Research, design, and test predictive and statistical models using data and technology to support all aspects of Baseball Operations
• Collaborate with software engineering team to design and integrate decision-support systems and tools into baseball systems
• Perform statistical analysis and quantitative research to support various areas of Baseball Ops.
• Communicate analysis to Baseball Operations staff effectively.
• Maintain understanding of new public baseball research and emerging statistical tools, as well as all potential vendor data/technology options

Skills and Qualifications:

• Degree in a quantitative field, such as statistics, economics, engineering, computer science or applied math.
• Demonstrated work (professional or personal) using any of R, SQL, Python
• Experience in any of the following areas is a plus:
  • Machine learning
  • Computer vision
  • Spatiotemporal data
  • Statistical inference
• 1-2 years of sports experience and/or background in baseball or softball is a plus.
• Passion and curiosity for baseball analytics and problem-solving.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong work ethic with initiative and attention to detail.
• Contribute to team culture with a positive attitude.

To apply, please submit your cover letter and resume here

Deadline to apply is Tuesday, November 1, 2022
All employment applications are reviewed upon receipt.

Baseball Operations Associate Analyst

Department: Baseball Operations
Location: Minor League Affiliates (Sacramento, Richmond, Eugene, San Jose)
Status: Part-Time; Non-Exempt
Duration: January 2023 – October 2023

Position Summary:
This individual will travel with a minor league team and provide on-site analytics and technology support serving staff and players
while helping to implement key organizational initiatives. The ideal candidate will possess technical skills, the ability to communicate effectively to non-technical people, and both passion and intellectual curiosity for the game of baseball.

Position Responsibilities:

• Provide statistical analysis and quantitative research to support the affiliate coaching staff
• Execute advance preparation and game reporting
• Conduct research for ad-hoc requests from coaches & staff
• Utilize technology and information to assess player strengths and areas of development
• Educate coaches and players on relevant baseball analytics topics
• Support on-field needs, including but not limited to operating technologies like Trackman Portable, Blast, Rapsodo, Trackman

Skills and Qualifications:

• Understanding of current baseball analytics topics
• Experience with Excel and SQL, R, or Python
• Experience with current player development technology such as TrackMan, Rapsodo, Blast Motion bat sensors, or K-Vest
• Ability to work evenings, weekends, and holidays
• Ability to speak Spanish is a plus

To apply, please submit your cover letter and resume here

Deadline to apply is Tuesday, November 1, 2022
All employment applications are reviewed upon receipt.

Video Technology Associate (Affiliate)

Department: Player Development
Reports to: Minor League Video Technology Coordinator
Duration: February 2023 – September 2023
Status: Part-time seasonal position (requirement to travel and work non-traditional hours)

Position Summary:
Provide comprehensive on- and off-field video and technological support for coaches, players, and non-uniformed staff during Spring Training and during the minor league season at an assigned affiliate. Spring Training will be utilized as a month-long training period to grasp the Giants’ video and technological collection and organizational processes, as well as build relationships with the staff and players you will be working with. The minor league season will consist of working closely with a set of staff and players and providing as much support as necessary to help the players continue their development and the team perform.

Position Responsibilities:

• Set up, capture, post-process, and distribute quality video footage for all home and road games during the season
• Utilize BATS Video Software to chart, process, and store all collected video
• Prepare, display, and organize video footage for advance purposes of each upcoming opponent
• Operate Edgertronic (high-speed) camera technology manually and through a browser to collect targeted footage during game- and non-game activity
• Operate and troubleshoot other baseball-related technology such as TrackMan V3, Portable TrackMan, Hawkeye, Blast, and Oculus headsets throughout the season
• Heavy utilization of multiple baseball-adjacent applications (Dropbox, Google Drive, remote desktop softwares, video editing softwares, etc…) to edit, move, and store video and data for short-term and long-term usage
• Manage and properly care for the various video and technology equipment you will be responsible for using throughout the season (computers, iPads, VR headsets, cameras, etc..)
• Assist with various ad-hoc projects assigned by the coaching staffs and front office

Skills and Qualifications:

• Ability and desire to relocate and work non-traditional hours (nights, weekends, and holidays) throughout the season
• Extremely detail-oriented focus and mindset on all daily tasks
• Ability to comfortably communicate and work with all members of the organization (players, coaches, staff, and various affiliate front office/staff members)
• Aptitude and comfortability with basic networking and IT processes
• Previous baseball or softball playing and/or video and technology related experience is a plus
• Possession of a strong and obvious passion and curiosity for the game of baseball

To apply, please submit your cover letter and resume here

Deadline to apply is Tuesday, November 1, 2022
All employment applications are reviewed upon receipt.

Associate, Baseball Video Systems (San Francisco)

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports to: Manager, Baseball Video Systems
Duration: January 2023 – December 2023
Status: Internship

Position Summary:
This associate-level position will perform routine tasks around the video office, clubhouse, and playing field, while also providing support with basic administrative and system maintenance responsibilities. This role will be embedded in the major league clubhouse during home games and work alongside coaching staff, analysts, and video coordinators throughout the 2023 season, including spring training in Arizona. The ideal candidate will also possess demonstrated creative and storytelling abilities, and leverage these skills to regularly produce short-form video content.

In-Season Responsibilities:

• Systems checks and maintenance of organizational baseball video systems
• Staging and operation of video and tracking technologies for pre-game use
• Posting of daily channel listings and schedules for MLB, affiliate, and amateur game broadcasts
• Supporting management of MLB Dugout iPads
• Producing after-action video melts from previous games for consumption on mobile devices
• Producing lineup and roster information for clubhouse use
• Moving, packing, and unpacking of equipment to support team travel
• Other tasks as assigned by the video staff

Offseason responsibilities:

• Cataloging broadcast footage of winter league and other offseason baseball games
• Posting of daily channel listings and schedules for Winter League games
• Daily cutting up of winter league video for Giants organizational players and free agent follows
• Assisting with field level camera maintenance and installations
• Work with coaching staff on video content ideas

Skills and Qualifications:

• In-season availability to work non-traditional hours, including weekends and holidays
• Ability to communicate effectively to all members of Baseball Operations
• Experience using production-level video editing software (Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve) including knowledge

and use of 2D/3D animation and effects a plus

• Familiarity with networking and basic IT concepts a plus
• Basic experience working with programming a plus
• Passion for baseball, intellectual curiosity, baseball or softball playing experience and understanding of team dynamics is a plus
• Candidate must be available, in-person, for all San Francisco Giants home games

To apply, please submit your cover letter and resume here

Deadline to apply is Tuesday, November 1, 2022
All employment applications are reviewed upon receipt.

At the Giants, we believe we put our best work forward when our employees bring together ideas that are diverse in thought. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, medical condition or disability, genetic condition, marital status, domestic partnership status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status and any other protected class under federal, state or local law. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. In addition, we will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you have a disability or special need, we would like to know how we can better accommodate you.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the San Francisco Giants.

I regret to inform you that there won’t be many more of these articles about Aaron Judge’s chase for 60, 61, and 62 home runs. It’s not because they aren’t fun to write (they are), or because they aren’t well-received (I think they are). Judge is just hitting home runs too dang fast. What game should you go to if you want to see his 60th home run? It was Tuesday. You missed it. The way he’s hitting, 61 and 62 don’t seem far behind.

Here, for example, are the game-by-game probabilities of Judge hitting his 61st homer:

If you’re a Yankees fan, the next four games in the Bronx are a double dip of fun. If you attend all four, you have a 75% chance of seeing him tie Roger Maris for the franchise (and American League) home run record. It would be against the arch-rival Red Sox, who have been eliminated from postseason contention. And of course, the first day is the best day to see number 61, because there’s no chance he will have hit it before then. Read the rest of this entry »