Job Title: Research and Development Fellow/Intern, Baseball Informatics

Reporting To: Leadership in R&D

We are seeking individuals who are excited about the opportunity to be part of a collaborative and passionate environment, and to use their quantitative skills to work on projects that make an impact on field and in the front office.

In this role, you will utilize your problem solving and analytical skills to design, code, and implement focused solutions that enable Baseball Operations personnel to make great decisions in the acquisition, development, and deployment of players. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Batters

The offensive projections are kind of bleak, but they also represent the 2022 highlight for the Pirates, at least if ZiPS is correct. The offense basically consists of three highly interesting (in a good way) players.

When all is said and done, Oneil Cruz may end up having the best career of the three. The team’s sixth-ranked prospect entering 2021, Cruz destroyed minor league pitching on his return to Double-A. In a week for Triple-A Indianapolis, Cruz went 11-for-21 with five homers in six games, resulting in him getting a call-up for the final weekend of the season. Cruz is a physical anomaly, a 6-foot-7 player who can credibly play shortstop and run the bases very well. While there will naturally always be whispers about a shortstop that big staying at the position — and Cruz has gained about 30 pounds since his early prospect days — the Pirates aren’t in a position that should preclude them from letting him play there as long as he can. It’s what the O’s should have done with Manny Machado years ago, but they instead prioritized J.J. Hardy. The projection is even more exciting when you realize how few games ZiPS is projecting for Cruz due to various injuries and the missing COVID season. Read the rest of this entry »

Within the span of a few hours on Tuesday, the last two free-agent catchers projected to produce over 1 WAR next season came off the market. The Cubs landed Yan Gomes, as reported by Craig Mish of SportsGrid, for two years and $13 million with a $6 million option for a third year and some games played incentives worth up to $1 million per year. The Pirates, on the other hand, quickly filled a hole of their own making after trading Jacob Stallings to the Marlins on Monday afternoon by landing Roberto Pérez, the former Guardians catcher, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The deal was later specified to be worth $5 million over one year by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey.

As discussed by Devan Fink a couple of weeks ago, the catcher market this offseason is particularly dire, and the signing of Pérez and Gomes means that there are essentially no more starting caliber options left at the position. Let’s take a closer look at each player and how they fit with their new team before seeing what further implication these moves might have around the league. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have one of the most intriguing starting rotations in baseball. They just signed Sandy Alcantara to a five-year extension after his phenomenal 2021 season. Trevor Rogers just finished second behind Jonathan India in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. Behind those two, Pablo López, Jesús Luzardo, Sixto Sánchez, Elieser Hernandez, Edward Cabrera, and Max Meyer provide tons more talent to dream on. The only thing missing was a catcher to help guide and maximize those young arms.

Ever since J.T. Realmuto was traded away after the 2018 season, the Marlins had been rather aimless behind the plate. In the three seasons since, their catchers have accumulated just 1.3 WAR, the sixth worst mark in baseball over that stretch. In 2021, Jorge Alfaro, Sandy León, and a few other backup catchers combined for -0.1 WAR. Things got so bad with Alfaro that they tried playing him at first base and in the outfield after Miami acquired Alex Jackson at the trade deadline.

On Monday, though, the Marlins got their man: Miami acquired catcher Jacob Stallings from the Pirates in exchange for right-handed pitcher Zach Thompson and two prospects, Kyle Nicolas and Connor Scott. (Alfaro was traded to the Padres a day later for a player to be named later or cash considerations.) Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Software Developer, Baseball Informatics

Reporting To: Senior Director, Informatics

We are seeking an individual who is excited about the opportunity to be part of a collaborative environment with coworkers who are passionate about baseball, and to work on software projects that make an impact on-field and in the front office.

In this role you will utilize your problem solving and coding skills to design, code, and maintain software solutions that allow Baseball Operations personnel to translate information into actionable insights used by decision makers. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Golden Days Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to this year’s ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Danny Murtaugh

“Danny was just a flat-out good manager. He knew the game, he made decisions with guts, he was a fine evaluator of talent, and a good teacher. He had rapport with players, old and young alike, and just about anybody else he came across. his death took some of the sunshine out of the baseball scene, because he would have been a pressroom star among the scouts for twenty more years if he had lived.” — Leonard Koppett, The Man in the Dugout, 1993.

Danny Murtaugh is one of just 22 managers to win multiple AL-NL World Series, only four of whom finished with a career winning percentage of .500 or better and aren’t already in the Hall of Fame. As the manager of the Pirates for 12 full seasons and three partial ones from 1957 to ’76, he gained a reputation as a players’ manager: laid back in appearance but stern, good at unifying divided clubhouses and at overseeing the development of younger players. Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, who debuted with the team under Murtaugh in September 1962 and then had his ups and downs the following season, called him “the perfect manager” for a rookie breaking in, due to his patience.

Murtaugh oversaw substantial portions of the careers of Stargell and fellow Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski. The latter’s walk-off home run agains the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series gave him his first championship, and the one-two punch of Clemente and Stargell helped him win his second in 1971. Additionally, Murtaugh managed the Pirates to three more division titles and a total of five seasons of 92 wins or better.

Ongoing health problems led to his on-again, off-again role as Pittsburgh’s manager. He served four separate stints in the dugout, the most with a single team this side of Billy Martin and the Yankees, albeit with far less drama. Each time he stepped away, general manager Joe L. Brown — who shares responsibility for the Pirates’ success during this era — retained him via a scouting or front office role with the team. Murtaugh once said, “Managing a ballclub is like getting malaria. Once you’re bitten by the bug, it’s difficult to get it out of your bloodstream.” Just two months after stepping down following the 1976 season, he suffered a stroke and died at age 59.
Read the rest of this entry »

Edouard Julien has a unique profile, and potentially a bright future. A native of Quebec City who attended Auburn University, the 22-year-old Minnesota Twins prospect is coming off a season where he drew 110 free passes, the most of any player in the minors. Moreover, he augmented his patient approach with power and speed. In 514 plate appearances split between Low-A Fort Myers and High-A Cedar Rapids, Julien went deep 18 times and swiped 34 bases in 39 tries. His slash line was an OBP-heavy .266/.434/.480.

His English-language skills were on the light side when he began taking classes at Auburn. An International Business major, Julien was regularly referring to a French-English dictionary throughout his first semester. By and large, he learned English as a college freshman.

“Where I’m from, we only speak French,” explained Julien, whose hometown is more than 150 miles (and 250 kilometers) northeast of Montreal. “I knew a little bit of English — we took classes — but it’s like people in the United States who take Spanish classes; they learn, but then they forget because they don’t practice it. I played for [travel ball] teams in Georgia, and for the Junior National team where it’s only English, so I knew some, but I wasn’t very good. I’ll say that.”

Julien now speaks three languages — French, English, and Spanish — and contrary to what was once said about the legendary Moe Berg, he can hit in all of them. That he did so less-impressively than usual in his sophomore season impacted his appeal to MLB scouts. Julien backslid statistically after a stellar freshman year, and as a result fell to the 18th round of the 2019 draft.

The fact that he was draft-eligible is another story. Read the rest of this entry »

Position Title: Senior Analyst, Baseball Informatics

Reports To: Senior Director, Baseball Informatics

The Pittsburgh Pirates are seeking an experienced individual to help drive player- and coach-facing analysis at all levels, playing a key role in the strategic direction of player/coach facing analytics, mentoring analysts and support staff, and identifying opportunities in this area. Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the process of creating data-driven targets for player improvement and facilitate their use. This individual will be expected to help players and coaches understand and apply insights using developmentally appropriate language.
• Managing the effort to track and monitor progress on the targets in conjunction with analysts and developers through player- and coach-facing deliverables. The deliverables will include metric development, data visualization, integration into proprietary systems, advance reports, and other research items.
• Performing, publishing, and communicating analysis on specific players throughout the year, providing insights from a data-driven perspective as needed as well as lead other analysts in this process.
• Collaborating with staff and Informatics in exploring and implementing technology solutions in Baseball Operations.

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 wrapup. 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 Central; now on to its Senior Circuit counterpart.

Milwaukee Brewers (95–67)

The Big Question
Could Christian Yelich bounce back from a weak 2020 season? His .326/.402/.598 breakout season in 2018 netted him an MVP award, and he may have won back-to-back trophies if not for a fractured kneecap that ended his ’19 season prematurely. And while 2020 was a disappointment, you could at least chalk some of it up to a low BABIP.

The Brew Crew didn’t look like a 95-win team coming into the season, but in a weak division and with possible upside from players like Yelich and the contact-challenged Keston Hiura, you had to like their chances as much as anybody. Helping matters was a pitching staff that took a big step forward during the shortened season. Corbin Burnes provided an ample demonstration of why you shouldn’t freak out about homers allowed for otherwise effective pitchers, and Brandon Woodruff had an entire season at bonafide ace status. Read the rest of this entry »

Ralph Garza Jr.’s MLB debut was both forgettable and impossible to forget. The 27-year-old right-hander took the mound for the Houston Astros in a May 29 home game against the San Diego Padres, and the circumstances were anything but ordinary. Rookies rarely get their feet wet with games hanging in the balance, and Garza entered in the 12th inning with the score knotted at eight runs apiece. Moreover, the Friars — their eventual free fall still far in the future — had won 14 of their last 16 games. A hornet’s nest awaited.

“It wasn’t your stereotypical debut,” acknowledged Garza, who two months later was designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Minnesota Twins. “But it’s funny, because as a reliever you’re told to always prepare for the worst. And it was something, especially against that lineup at that time. They were hot. Basically, I was being thrown into the fire. It was extras, last guy available, ‘There you go.’”

When the bullpen phone rang, he knew that his debut was nigh. It was a moment where Garza needed to remind himself to “stay calm and remember what you do, and how to do it.” Easier said than done. As the Edinburg, Texas native aptly put it, keeping one’s emotions in check when climbing a big-league bump for the first time is “like trying to tell water not to be wet.”

Garza entered with a ghost runner on second and promptly issued an intentional walk to Fernando Tatis Jr. A harmless fly-ball out followed, but soon things went south. A few pitches later, Wil Myers launched a mis-located heater into the cheap seats, turning a coming-out party into a nightmare. Garza knew it right away. Read the rest of this entry »