Position: Player Development, Data Apprentice

The Texas Rangers are seeking multiple apprentices in Player Development. Each Apprentice will work full-time with one of the Rangers’ minor league affiliates and report to the Systems Integration Coordinator. Apprentices will operate as an extension of the coaching staff and be a resource for both players and coaches. Apprentices are expected to manage the collection and application of data and technology at their respective affiliate and will gain experience across multiple areas of Baseball Operations. Read the rest of this entry »

In his own words, Ivan Johnson is “just a normal 23-year-old guy with some tools… who is going to take it as far as I can go.” It’s a humble self-assessment. Currently the No. 14 prospect in the Cincinnati Reds system, the switch-hitting middle infielder is coming off a strong season split between Low-A Daytona and High-A Dayton. A fourth-round pick in the 2019 draft out of Chipola College, Johnson put up an identical 125 wRC+ at both levels.

The Atlanta native’s initial collegiate experience after matriculating from Kennesaw Mountain High School was brief. Originally at the University of Georgia, Johnson transferred to Chipola for his sophomore year. Talent-level wasn’t a major factor.

“It was circumstantial more than anything,” explained Johnson, who is playing with the Arizona Fall League’s Surprise Saguaros. “Our shortstop [Cam Shepherd] was coming off a Freshman All-America year, so I would have had to move over to second where we had an older guy [LJ Talley] who was more used to what the SEC was all about. So I wouldn’t say I wasn’t ready. I think I kind of showed that in my JUCO year.”

Johnson put up a 1.078 OPS at Chipola, impressing scouts not only with his production and plus athleticism, but also with the fact that he swings from both sides. That he does so is product of advice he received at young age. Told by “some older baseball minds” that it would advantageous once he began facing more-mature pitchers, the natural right-handed hitter decided “to just run with it.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another edition of postseason managerial grades. If this article series has taught me anything, it’s that in-game management is both hard and largely inconsequential. There are a million variables to consider in nearly every at-bat, but at the end of the day, the players on the field win or lose the game. Dusty Baker, the subject of today’s article, is proof of that: the Astros are an excellent team, and Baker managed well, and the Braves just beat them. The team didn’t choke, and neither did he. They simply ran into someone playing better, which is almost always more important than who moves the chess pieces around more efficiently.

One piece of feedback that I’ve gotten in previous installments of this series is that giving managers all the credit or blame for their decisions understates the role that team front offices have in preparing for the playoffs. Managers aren’t making it up as they go along, at least not always; they come into each game with a plan for many contingencies. In most cases, that’s a plan they’ve constructed in collaboration with front office personnel who do the drudge work of coming up with 50 (or 100 or 200) scenarios that mostly won’t take place, then coming up with plans for each.

So if you’d like, consider these as joint manager and front office grades. The two are operating in concert, with the front office doing research that the manager applies during games. So this is a Dusty Baker report card, but it’s also a referendum on everyone in the Astros’ front office for getting the right information in front of him. And spoiler: they all passed with flying colors.
Read the rest of this entry »

When Freddie Freeman clutched the throw from Dansby Swanson to secure the final out of this year’s World Series, the 2021 Braves instantly matched the total number of championships won by the franchise from 1991-99, a span during which a core laden with future Hall of Famers won five pennants but lost four World Series. That this year’s Cinderella team stands with that dynasty — yes, I’m using that word to describe even a non-contiguous run — in total championships is a reminder of one of current third base coach Ron Washington’s famous catchphrases: “That’s the way baseball go.”

Indeed, the game does not always distribute its rewards evenly or justly, and sometimes the player or team that’s streaking or simply lucky is the one that wins, particularly in a short series, where injuries and hot hands can have a disproportionate effect. Suffice it to say that if NLCS MVP Eddie Rosario were a true-talent .383/.456/.617 hitter, he would not have been available at the trade deadline in exchange for a sack of Pablo Sandoval’s laundry.

This is not intended to slight the Braves, who were clearly a better team than their full-season .547 winning percentage — lower among World Series winners than all but the 2014 Giants (.543), 2000 Yankees (.540), 1987 Twins (.525), and 2006 Cardinals (.516) — indicated. From the point of the trade deadline, when they were 51-54 (.486) but had reassembled their outfield on the fly with Rosario, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson, and future World Series MVP Jorge Soler, they went 37-19 (.661), outplaying every team in the majors but the white-hot Dodgers (.772) and Giants (.729). In the postseason, they knocked off the 95-win Brewers, 106-win Dodgers, and 95-win Astros by going a combined 11-5 and never facing an elimination game themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

After a one-year hiatus due to the oddity and non-celebratory feeling of a season truncated by a raging pandemic, we’re bringing back the Elegy series in a streamlined format for a 2021 wrap-up. Think of this as a quick winter preview for each team, discussing the questions that faced each team ahead of the year, how they were answered, and what’s next. Do you like or hate the new format? Let me know in the comments below. We’ve already tackled the AL and NL Central, as well as the AL East. Today, we’ll consider the NL West.

San Francisco Giants (107-55)

The Big Question
Could a low-key winter get the Giants on pace with the Dodgers and Padres? 2020 was the fourth consecutive losing season for San Francisco, and the division’s two best teams were extremely active in the offseason. It wasn’t the kind of doom and gloom it appeared to be for the Rockies and Diamondbacks, both of which ZiPS pegged for under 70 wins, but the Giants’ offseason seemed like it was geared more towards enjoyable respectability than elite status. The offense was solid in 2020 as new manager Gabe Kapler showed a real knack for using the expanded rosters to weaponize role-player talent, but it was also the oldest lineup in baseball. I was personally optimistic about the team’s reconstructed rotation, but there were a lot of moving parts to get the offense and pitching both clicking.

How It Went
Suffice it to say, it went really well, with the Giants outperforming ZiPS by more wins than any other team in the history of the projections. Outperforming projections by more than 30 wins is a rare feat, and the Giants did in the most difficult way, like climbing Mt. Everest in a pair of gym shorts and a tank top. Generally speaking, the teams that crush expectations have a lot of high-variance players, often extremely young talent with upside but an uncertain short-term outlook or guys with an injury history. But this wasn’t the case with the Giants; a bunch of 30-to-35-year-old veterans are the easiest type of player to project. Of the 20 teams that outperformed their ZiPS by the most wins (going back to 2005), the Giants were the only team that ZiPS had with tighter projection bands than the average team.

While there was one colossal breakout season from a young player (more below), San Francisco’s astounding 2021 season was built on shocking seasons from established veterans coupled with a solid bullpen built on a shoestring budget, a feat California teams all seem to have an odd affinity for managing. Brandon Crawford had his best season at age 34. Buster Posey and Evan Longoria thought it was 2012 or 2013. Darin Ruf, a journeyman role player who looked to be wrapping up his career in Korea, had a 143 OPS+. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains two positions.

Position: Data Engineer

Department: Information Technology – Baseball Data and Development
Job Title: Data Engineer
Reports To: Director of Data Systems & Development
FLSA: Salary, Exempt

Job Purpose:
The Data Engineer will work closely with the Data team and the Baseball Systems team to maintain, enhance, and extend the Cincinnati Reds data pipelines. You will be responsible for collecting and transforming data from various sources as well as preparing and distributing data for consumption by the department’s systems and analysts. The ideal candidate is an experienced data pipeline builder who excels at automating and optimizing data systems, with a strong preference for cloud experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Analyst

Department: Baseball Analytics
Reports To: Director, Baseball Analytics
Location: Boston, MA

Position Overview:
The Boston Red Sox are seeking an Analyst for the team’s Baseball Analytics department. The role will support all areas of Baseball Operations while working closely with Director of Baseball Analytics, and our team of analysts.

This is an opportunity to work in a fast-paced, intellectually curious environment and to impact player personnel and strategic decision making. Read the rest of this entry »

There was no farewell tour, no long goodbye, and no fairytale ending. Instead, out of the blue on the day that would have been Game 7 of the World Series had Tuesday’s outcome gone the other way, was a stark, almost shocking tweet from The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly:

BREAKING NEWS: Sources tell The Athletic that Buster Posey will announce his retirement tomorrow. More to come…

— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) November 3, 2021

Wait, what? Posey just finished a season in which he earned All-Star honors for the seventh time, having come back from opting out of the 2020 season out of consideration for his family and two solid but injury-marked seasons, one of which ended with surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right hip. At the age of 34, while adhering to a strict two-days-on, one-day-off load management plan designed to keep him available and productive, he hit .304/.390/.499 with 18 homers (his highest total since 2015), a 140 wRC+ (his highest mark since 2014), and 4.9 WAR, tops among all catchers and tied for eighth among all NL players. He did that while helping the Giants to a major league-high and franchise-record 107 wins, then continued to torment the division rival Dodgers with a two-run homer off Walker Buehler in the two teams’ first-ever postseason game — nearly the first splash hit by any right-handed batter at Oracle Park, save for a water tower in right field — and then three hits the following night.

At the tail end of a nine-year, $169 million contract that he signed in March 2013, Posey had a $22 million club option with a $3 million buyout — hardly a cheap proposition, but a no-brainer for a big-spending team dealing with a franchise icon and a new window of contention. A multi-year extension seemed even more likely, particularly with the possibility of the universal designated hitter on the horizon. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi had already signaled his intent to retain Posey one way or another, saying after the team’s elimination, “He is in our estimation the best catcher in baseball this year. Obviously [we] want to have conversations with Buster and continue to have internal conversations about that, but having him on this team next year is a high priority.”

Posey chose to walk away from all that in order to be with his family, which now features two adopted twin daughters who were born prematurely last summer and spent time in the newborn intensive care unit. He also chose to forgo the daily grind of a job via which he’s been concussed at least twice, in 2017 and ’19, and probably more than that given the number of foul tips off his mask that have left him dazed; he was in concussion protocol for one such shot in late July. Then there are the collisions, the most serious of which fractured his left fibula, tore three ligaments in his left ankle, and required three screws to pin the bone in place while it healed, plus a separate surgery to remove the hardware. That one cost him most of the 2011 season, the follow-up to his NL Rookie of the Year-winning campaign, and resulted in the addition of a rule to eliminate unwarranted contact at the plate.

This is Koufaxian stuff, a player retiring despite still performing at an elite level. The parallel between Posey and Sandy Koufax isn’t perfect, though both played just 12 years in the majors, accumulated numerous individual honors and reached the pinnacle of their respective positions in helping their teams win three championships, then departed abruptly. So far as we know, Posey isn’t playing through anything as debilitating as the three-time Cy Young winner’s chronic arthritis, but the long-term effects of multiple concussions are nothing to trifle with, and Posey, already a father of two before the adoption, has two new reasons to want to make sure he enjoys his retirement years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Ward has emerged as an intriguing sleeper in the Los Angeles Dodgers system. Unranked coming into the season, the 23-year-old, left-handed-hitting outfielder swatted an eye-opening 27 home runs and logged a .278/.352/.524 slash line with the Great Lakes Loons. His long-ball total was second-highest in the High-A Central, and his 135 wRC+ was tied for third-best in the circuit. A Milbury, Massachusetts native who attended Bryant University, he was the Dodgers’ eighth-round pick in the 2019 draft.

Ward discussed his development — including the mechanical adjustment that has helped jumpstart his career — toward the tail end of the Loons’ season.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with your background. You grew up in Central Massachusetts.

Ryan Ward: “I come from a really small town. I graduated high school with something like 80 kids in my class. We were in a low division — Division-5 baseball — and I started playing varsity my eighth-grade year. I was a catcher and also played third base here and there. I kept building on that throughout high school but didn’t really get many college looks because I didn’t play travel ball and wasn’t really in showcases. I basically just played high school baseball and [American] Legion ball. I did a couple of high-school showcases, but never really got college attention until Bryant came around.”

Laurila: Opportunity aside, what made Bryant appealing? Read the rest of this entry »

The Guardians have two newly opened positions on their software development staff. Note that the club is likely to hire multiple people into each position, and that a wide range of experience levels will be considered.

Position: Data Engineer

The Cleveland Guardians are seeking a data engineer to join the organization’s Baseball Systems team. As a baseball team, we generate and store data from a plethora of data sources (e.g. FieldVision), and use this data to answer a variety of questions that include “what trades should we make,” “who should we select with our next pick in the draft,” and “how can we show players their data from yesterday’s game?” To answer those questions, this position will closely collaborate not only with its Baseball Systems teammates, but also with the organization’s R&D department and all types of end-users – Front Office, Coaches, Scouts, and Players – to support their needs.

The ideal candidate will possess a solid foundation in data or computer science, along with the ability to effectively work in a collaborative, cross-functional environment. The position offers the opportunity to craft innovative solutions to challenging problems, grow from both an engineering and leadership standpoint, and work with teammates side by side in pursuit of the organization’s ultimate mission – winning the World Series. We are open to a remote role for the right candidate, but relocation to Cleveland, OH is preferred. Read the rest of this entry »