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 »

On Tuesday night, Aaron Judge did nothing less than tie Babe Ruth’s long-insurmountable total of 60 home runs, but Giancarlo Stanton hit a homer that nearly upstaged him. Just minutes after Judge’s ninth-inning blast off the Pirates’ Wil Crowe trimmed Pittsburgh’s lead to 8-5, Stanton hit a walk-off grand slam. The shot offered some hope that he’s emerging from a prolonged slump, but until he sustains something close to his normal level of production, there’s plenty of reason for concern.

After Judge’s homer off Crowe, Anthony Rizzo doubled, Gleyber Torres walked, and Josh Donaldson singled to load the bases, still with nobody out. Crowe ran the count to 2-2 and then went down and in on a changeup. Stanton turned on it and hit a laser to left field:

First off, the home run was extreme. At 118 mph off the bat, it tied Shohei Ohtani’s June 25 homer off Logan Gilbert for the second-fastest of the year; Stanton also hit the fastest, a 119.8-mph blast off the Cubs’ Matt Swarmer. The home run’s 16-degree launch angle was just one degree off Stanton’s lowest homer of the season on April 8 off Nathan Eovaldi, though Xander Bogaerts had a 14-degree clothesline on August 31, and both Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Kevin Kiermaier had 15-degree ropes this year as well. Read the rest of this entry »

“Even in the minors I’ve just always had good extension,” said Jordan Romano. “I think that’s just the way my delivery worked out, but never something I pursued.”

This was in response to the first question I asked him before Wednesday night’s game. He’d always been among the league leaders in extension — how far in front of the rubber a pitcher releases the ball.

Here’s what happened right before I asked the question: Romano stood up. Some ballplayers will take questions seated, but in my experience most prefer to stand when being interviewed, usually at a sort of parade rest posture. I don’t know if they teach this stance, but it seems like the physical process of leaving the aimlessly-scrolling-through-Instagram headspace for the taking-questions-on-the-record headspace.

And when I say Romano “stood up,” he unfurled himself from the chair in front of his locker like a folded air mattress being inflated. It brought to mind a story a teacher of mine once told about seeing Manute Bol get out of his car at a gas station. Romano stands a slender but imperious 6-foot-5, all limbs. Of course extension has always come naturally to him. Read the rest of this entry »

This is Leo’s first piece as a FanGraphs contributor. Leo is a Philadelphia sports fan, but he lives in Toronto, meaning he is subjected to the agony of watching Joe Carter’s 1993 World Series-winning walk-off home run replayed on a loop every single time he attends a Phillies game. Nevertheless, his love of the game has persevered. He has written for sites across the web, including Baseball Prospectus, Inside the Phillies, PitcherList, and The Good Phight. He is also a comedy writer and occasionally tries his hand at mixing baseball and humor. Sometimes it goes well; sometimes his work is called “bad satire” and “a waste of time.”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Framber Valdez is having a historic season.

Earlier this year, Justin Choi wrote about Valdez and his historic groundball-to-fly ball ratio through the first six weeks of the season. Valdez has always been good at inducing groundballs and limiting fly balls, but his 10.00 GB/FB ratio over his first seven starts was on another level.

Unsurprisingly, Valdez himself was on another level, too. Through May 18, he posted a 2.93 ERA and 3.33 FIP in 40 innings pitched. His journey from middle-relief prospect to top-of-the-rotation starter was complete. Groundballs were always his super power, and fly balls had long been his kryptonite, so it made perfect sense he was thriving after increasing his GB/FB ratio. Since mid-May, however, his GB/FB ratio has slowly been coming back to Earth. It now sits at 4.20, which is still excellent to be sure, but not exactly sky-scraping. Yet Valdez is still having a historic season – just in a different way. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Manzardo was one of the best hitters in the minors this year. Among players with at least 300 plate appearances, only San Francisco Giants prospect Vaun Brown logged a higher wRC+ (175 compared to 173) or wOBA (.464 compared to .450). A 22-year-old first baseman in the Tampa Bay Rays system, Manzardo put up his numbers over 397 PA, a hamstring injury having kept him out of action from mid-April until mid-May. Playing with High-A Bowling Green and Double-A Montgomery, he slashed a combined .327/.426/.617 with 22 home runs.

Manzardo began honing his hitting skills in a state that has produced just 32 major leaguers. Born and raised in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the 6-foot-1, 205-pound left-handed hitter went on to play college ball at Washington State University, where he did what he does best: square up baseballs. In three years with the Cougars, Manzardo batted .330 with an OPS north of 1.000. That he lasted until the back end of the second round of last year’s draft was both positionally predictable and unexpected.

“I was a little surprised that it was the Rays,” admitted Manzardo, who went 63rd overall. “I hadn’t had a ton of contact with them, although I did do a Zoom meeting right before the draft. I was kind of expecting to go towards the end of the third round. That’s kind of what I’d been hearing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Instead of accepting a long-term extension with the Yankees before the season, Aaron Judge made a gigantic bet on himself. A seven-year, $213.5 million deal that starts at age 31 is no small bid for any player, and it was more than the projections — at least ZiPS — predicted at the time. But Judge clearly felt that his chances of doing significantly better outweighed the risks involved in playing out his final year of team control. Well, short of discovering he can throw 102 mph and pair it with a wicked slider, it’s hard to imagine a better season in terms of increasing the value of his next contract than Judge’s 2022. To my mind, he will almost certainly win the American League MVP — not because what Shohei Ohtani has done isn’t magical, but because the Yankees outfielder has put up one of the rare offensive seasons in MLB history that can match such an extreme level of two-way excellence. So just how high might Judge’s contract realistically go this offseason?

First off, let me stress that some appear to be underrating Judge’s season. In some quarters of the tired AL MVP debates on social media, you’ll see it described as just an ordinarily great offensive season rather than one that belongs in the history books besides those of Barry Bonds. By our reckoning, there have only been 55 position players seasons in history that notched double-digit WAR, and not all of those were driven primarily by hitting, but rather fielding (Cal Ripken Jr.), a healthy dose of transcendent baserunning (Rickey Henderson), or an incredibly weak league (Fred Dunlap). The vast majority of years like this are put up by Hall of Famers, so Judge is in rarefied air. There’s no question that he is having a special season.

The problem is that Judge isn’t likely to be paid directly for his special 2022 season, only the increased expectations resulting from such a high-level performance. Even if the Yankees were inclined to give a franchise player a bonus for an MVP season that was played in their uniform but was cost-controlled, no other team is likely to be as generous in rewarding a performance from which they didn’t benefit. When trying to gauge what Judge is likely to get, a few factors work against him, factors over which he has very little control. The biggest is that, again, the first year of his new contract will fall in his age-31 season, which means that no matter how high you think Judge’s baseline expectation is, he’s going to be expected to decline quite significantly throughout the course of the contract and relatively quickly. It’s not a coincidence that, with the nearly sole exception of Joey Votto, the mega-contracts that work out from the perspective of teams are those that start off at a very young age. Read the rest of this entry »

The Brewers are in a bad way; three games under .500 since the start of August, they’ve fallen out of playoff position despite their primary competition — the Padres and Phillies — not exactly lighting the world on fire themselves. It might, therefore, seem an odd time to praise Willy Adames, only there’s never really a bad time to praise Willy Adames, and hardly anybody ever seems to do it.

Adames is red-hot at the moment, with a 148 wRC+ in September, and has been pretty good at the plate this year overall. He ranks second among shortstops in home runs with 30, and is tied for third in slugging percentage behind Trea Turner and Bo Bichette. When the Rays went to the World Series two years ago, Adames was an afterthought. He didn’t hit much that postseason, and all the attention (deservedly) went to Randy Arozarena and the Rays’ bullpen arm clock.

But the thing the Rays did better that year than anyone else was play the matchups. It seemed like a player for each position at each matchup, and sometimes they’d pull an NHL-style line change mid-game if the circumstances dictated it. Adames was the one exception. He was the shortstop when the Rays were leading or trailing, early and late, against left-handed and right-handed batters. Apart from the last three innings of Game 1 of the World Series, Adames played every minute of that Tampa Bay postseason run. (Only Arozarena, who was lifted for defense for a half-inning in four distinct games, played more.) Read the rest of this entry »

Clarke Schmidt has added an important weapon to his arsenal since he was first featured here at FanGraphs in January 2021. Given the organization he plays for, it isn’t much of a surprise that that addition is a sweeping slider — or, in New York Yankees vernacular, a “whirly.” The 26-year-old right-hander is throwing his version of the pitch 37.2% of the time this season, and with great success: Opposing hitters are batting just .148 against the offering, with a .164 SLG and a .186 wOBA.

His overall numbers are likewise impressive. The 2017 first-round pick has made 23 appearances this year — all but three out the bullpen — and boasts a 2.82 ERA and a 3.17 FIP. He’s allowed 41 hits and fanned 51 batters in the same number of innings.

Schmidt discussed his “baby whirly” when the Yankees visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

——

David Laurila: We talked pitching prior to last season. What’s changed since that time?

Clarke Schmidt: “When we spoke, I wouldn’t have been throwing a slider. That’s the main thing I’ve added, and it’s probably been my biggest pitch this year. My usage has been high, and I’ve had some really good results with it. Beyond that, I’ve cleaned up some things — some arm path stuff — and there has probably been more maturity in my pitch selection. But I’d say that the slider has been the number one change.”

Laurila: I recall you saying in January 2021 that some people considered your curveball more of a slider.

Schmidt: “For sure. I’ve always had a big breaking ball, but it’s hard — it’s 84-85 [mph] — so even though people are throwing harder curveballs now, it does get considered a slider sometimes. But now that I’m throwing both, there are distinct differences. I have two different shapes. Read the rest of this entry »