Jay Bruce loves to hit, and he loves to talk hitting. He’s good at both. The veteran outfielder has a well-earned reputation for being thoughtful and engaging, and the numbers he’s put up over 12 big-league seasons speak for themselves. Bruce has 649 extra-base hits in 6,500 career plate appearances, including 312 home runs.

A first-round pick by the Reds in 2005, Bruce debuted three years later as a 21-year-old and went on to spend eight-plus season in a Cincinnati uniform. The native of Beaumont, Texas has since bounced around, hopscotching from the Mets to the Indians, back to the Mets, from there to the Mariners, and last summer to the Phillies. At age 32, he’ll head into 2020 in the final year of his current contract.

Bruce sat down to talk hitting when the Phillies visited Fenway Park in mid-September.

David Laurila: How have you evolved as a hitter over the years?

Jay Bruce: “As I’ve gotten older and more experienced, a lot has happened in the game in terms of information and hitting philosophy. Numbers have started being attached to thoughts, or assumptions. I definitely pay attention to that. But I wouldn’t say I’m of the launch-angle revolution, or whatever you care to call it. I’ve always hit the ball in the air. I have a problem with hitting the ball on the ground.

“If your fly balls are your misses, that can cause some BABIP issues — there are issues that could potentially zap parts of your game. But if you have power, and are hitting the ball in the air, you’re giving yourself more opportunities to produce a positive outcome. That should be obvious.

“The thing I probably do the most is pull the ball in the air, and that’s one of the, if not the most, successful ways to hit a ball. So for me… I think the outside philosophy of hitting has changed a little bit. When I came up, you were taught to use the other side of the field. Stay up the middle. Even hit the ball on the ground sometimes.” Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains multiple positions, all of which report to the Manager of Baseball Analytics.

Job Title: DevOps Engineer

Job Purpose:
Work with Baseball Analytics group to manage departmental infrastructure, build out analytic workflows, and support optimal development processes within the group. The Reds envision the person in this position to play a major role in the creating and maintaining stable production environments, allowing stakeholders to easily access information.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Implement and maintain software build and release processes including continuous integration of software modules.
• Develop and maintain production data analysis jobs in tandem with data scientists and baseball analysts.
• Select, deploy, and maintain software services to best support external consumers of analytical information, as well as the efficient development of new analytics.
• Develop, document and communicate processes to team members.
• Assist with the development and maintenance of automated tests and monitoring services to ensure continued reliability of our analytical products.
• Collaborate with Baseball Systems and IT departments to integrate processes and ensure organizational alignment.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Because the Reds expect any candidate for this position to possess the capacity to discover and learn new technologies quickly, their emphasis for evaluating candidates will be on their demonstrated experience and talent in developing reliable technical solutions rather than their knowledge of any specific programming languages or tools. However, the Reds anticipate that familiarity with the following items could be beneficial in this role:

• Python, or similar programming languages, including for web development (Flask) and/or data analysis (Pandas)
• Linux/Unix
• Docker and related technologies for virtualization
• R (the statistical computing environment)
• Relational databases (SQL)
• Spark and Hadoop, and/or other technologies for processing high volume data sets (HPC, stream processing, NoSQL, etc.)
• Azure DevOps or similar tools (Jenkins, TeamCity, etc.) for automation and continuous integration
• Azure cloud computing services or similar environments (AWS)
• Kubernetes
• Web services, microservices, REST APIs, serverless, and related software architecture concepts

Work Environment:

• Remote working accommodations are available.
• Work is normally performed in a typical interior/office work environment.
• Hours may periodically include nights, weekends and holidays.

Expectations:

• Adhere to Cincinnati Reds Organization Policies and Procedures.
• Act as a role model within and outside the Cincinnati Reds Organization.
• Performs duties as workload necessitates.
• Demonstrate flexible and efficient time management and ability to prioritize workload.
• Meet Department productivity standards.

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application, which can be found here.

Job Title: Baseball Research Analyst

Job Purpose:
Work with the Baseball Analytics, Baseball Operations, Scouting and Player Development staffs to develop and support analysis and research requests. The Reds envision the person in this position to play a major role in the creation of new baseball analytics/development concepts, supporting player evaluation, development and acquisitions and on-field strategies.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, test, implement and maintain method and models, utilizing appropriate tools and techniques.
• Assist staff with ad-hoc research projects and data requests.
• Create tools to improve the flow of information and insights.
• Work with the Reds’ Baseball Analytics and Systems staff to integrate new statistical analyses, models and data visualizations into existing and new applications.
• Collaborate with Major League Operations, Player Development, Sports Science and Scouting departments to plan, manage and integrate analyses.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in a quantitative field, such as Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Engineering.
• Understanding of statistical analysis and predictive and prescriptive modeling.
• Experience with statistical software (e.g. R, Python) and database querying (SQL).
• Strong ability to communicate effectively with all aspects of Baseball Operations, Scouting and Player Development.
• Knowledge of current baseball research, traditional baseball statistics and strategy.
• Understanding of the workings of baseball front office.

Work Environment:

• Work is normally performed in a typical interior/office work environment.
• Hours may periodically include nights, weekends and holidays.

Expectations:

• Adhere to Cincinnati Reds Organization Policies and Procedures.
• Act as a role model within and outside the Cincinnati Reds Organization.
• Performs duties as workload necessitates.
• Demonstrate flexible and efficient time management and ability to prioritize workload.
• Meet Department productivity standards.

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application, which can be found here.

Job Title: Data Scientist

Job Purpose:
Work with the Manager of Baseball Analytics to implement the department’s research and development efforts within new and existing applications. The Reds envision the person in this position to play a major role in the creation of new baseball analytics concepts with the ultimate goal of enhancing player evaluation and on-field performance.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, test, implement and maintain predictive models and metrics utilizing appropriate tools and techniques.
• Work with the Reds’ Baseball Analytics and Systems staff to integrate new statistical analyses, models and data visualizations into existing and new applications.
• Perform ad hoc analyses and effectively prepare and present findings.
• Keep up to date on new predictive modeling techniques and evaluate their potential for application to baseball data sets.
• Collaborate with Major League Operations, Player Development and Sports Science departments to design and implement statistical analyses.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• 3+ years of experience in computational field, such as Statistics, Biostatistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Quantitative Social Sciences or Analytics.
• Strong knowledge of statistical analysis and predictive modeling.
• Demonstrated experience with statistical software (e.g. R, Python) and database querying (SQL).
• Ability to communicate effectively with all aspects of Baseball Operations, Scouting and Player Development staffs.
• Experience with Bayesian statistics. (Preferable, but not required)
• Understanding of typical baseball data structures.
• Knowledge of current baseball research, sabermetric concepts, traditional baseball statistics and strategy.

Work Environment:

• Remote working accommodations are available.
• Work is normally performed in a typical interior/office work environment.
• Hours may periodically include nights, weekends and holidays.

Expectations:

• Adhere to Cincinnati Reds Organization Policies and Procedures.
• Act as a role model within and outside the Cincinnati Reds Organization.
• Performs duties as workload necessitates.
• Demonstrate flexible and efficient time management and ability to prioritize workload.
• Meet Department productivity standards.

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application, which can be found here.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Cincinnati Reds.

“He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.” – Josh Billings

The Cincinnati Reds used an unusual strategy during the 2018-2019 offseason: trying. OK, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but while last winter’s actual weather was mild, we saw a veritable blizzard of excuses in baseball. As top free agents remained unsigned going into spring training, we heard all sorts of reasoning from teams about why they couldn’t sign this guy or couldn’t afford that guy or why that player over there in the corner was impossible for them to acquire. No, the Reds didn’t pursue Bryce Harper or Manny Machado, but they did make aggressive moves to turn the team into a winner in the short-term, seeing an opportunity in an NL Central where every team had serious flaws. It didn’t quite work out, but many of the reasons they looked like a promising team in 2019 apply to the club in 2020 as well.

The Setup

I appreciated Cincinnati’s ambition last winter, even if I didn’t like every move they made. To be fair, the Reds didn’t go into the offseason intending to please one particularly sarcastic, overweight, middle-aged baseball analyst. But as noted above, there moves were a refreshing departure from baseball’s version of Rasputitsa.

Cincinnati went 67-95 in 2018, and adding 25 wins in one offseason was always going to be difficult. To start with, they needed all of their returning players to be the best versions of themselves. That meant Joey Votto needed to hold off serious decline for another year. Scooter Gennett had to play like an All-Star again. Ideally, Nick Senzel and Jesse Winker would have both been healthy and All-Star candidates themselves. Second-half Luis Castillo would have to become both-halves Luis Castillo. Read the rest of this entry »

Over in the American League, there’s a pretty clear top tier of Cy Young contenders in Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, followed by a solid group of candidates likely to garner down-ballot support. In the National League, there looks to be a top tier of Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom followed by a cascading set of secondary candidates, but that first look doesn’t quite tell the entire story.

To provide some idea of the statistical disparities voters must contend with when making their decision, I looked at our FIP-based WAR as well as the RA9-WAR also available here at FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference’s WAR, and Baseball Prospectus’ WARP. I included for consideration any player in the top five of any of those lists. That search returned nine pitchers for the potential five slots on a Cy Young ballot. Those players are listed below, with a mix of traditional and advanced statistics:

We have Scherzer and deGrom in first and second by about a win over the next-best candidate, with deGrom pitching tonight. After those two, we have a lot of innings from Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin, and fewer innings, but better peripherals, from Walker Buehler. After those three, we have four candidates who haven’t thrown a ton of innings, but all have much lower ERA’s than FIPs. As for how these candidates came to be considered, here are their WAR totals:

Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago, Jay Jaffe ranked Luis Castillo fifth on his list of this season’s most improved pitchers, noting in the process Castillo’s ability to carry high strikeout rates (28.9%; eighth among NL starters) and groundball rates (55.3%; second) at the same time, thereby avoiding to some degree the harshest consequences of the major leagues’ home run boom. In this, Castillo’s third major league season, the 26-year-old Dominican has posted career-best marks in innings pitched (178 2/3), FIP (3.63), HR/9 (1.01) and the aforementioned strikeout rate. Last week, I caught up with him about the pitch he thinks has been key to his success: the changeup.

When Castillo made his debut for Cincinnati back in 2017, he threw his changeup 87-88 mph with modest break down and away to lefties and middle-in to righties. Eric Longenhagen, in ranking Castillo 10th in the Reds’ system coming into the 2017 season, rated the pitch a “below average” 40/45 but noted that it could improve with repetition, given Castillo’s arm speed and underlying talent. Each year since then has seen Castillo use the pitch more often than the season before:

Apparently the repetition has helped. In its present form, Castillo’s changeup — now with an inch more bite on each axis, thanks to mechanical changes between 2017 and 2018, while still sitting at 87-88 mph — ranks behind only Brad Keller’s as the most valuable pitch of its kind in the game (as measured by linear weights). And it’s gone a long way towards correcting one of Castillo’s obvious weaknesses coming into the season: an inability to put away left-handed hitters with anything near the same effectiveness he’s always displayed when dispatching righties (lefties put up a .373 wOBA against him last year, compared to a .256 from righties). Read the rest of this entry »

This week, Michael Lorenzen put himself in the company of the Bambino, Abba Dabba, and The Caveman. In Wednesday night’s game between the Reds and Phillies in Cincinnati, the versatile 27-year-old became the first player since Babe Ruth to collect a win as a pitcher, hit a home run, and play the outfield in a single game, something Ruth did for the Yankees on June 13, 1921. On Thursday afternoon, Lorenzen drew the first start of his career in center field, thus becoming the first pitcher to make a start in the field in the game after netting a win since the Braves’ Jim Tobin (nicknamed Abba Dabba for reasons unclear) on July 29, 1943, and the first pitcher to start in the outfield since Don Robinson (nicknamed The Caveman for his physique) in 1984. As esoteric as this collection of achievements may be, it’s reason enough to examine the progress of Lorenzen and a few other potential two-way players whom I highlighted in late February.

In the top of the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game, manager David Bell called upon Lorenzen for his 66th appearance of the year, in the service of protecting a 5-4 lead. While Lorenzen served up a game-tying homer to Jay Bruce, the second batter he faced, Jose Iglesias’ solo homer off Jose Alvarez in the bottom of the frame put the Reds back on top. Lorenzen then threw a scoreless eighth, retiring Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, and Jean Segura in order. In the bottom of the eighth, with two outs and one on against Blake Parker, he launched his first home run of the season and seventh of his career, a 100.7-mph, 387-foot shot that put the Reds up 8-5. When closer Raisel Iglesias entered for the ninth, Lorenzen moved to center field (his 18th appearance in the outfield this year), replacing rookie Brian O’Grady. He was a bystander as Iglesias set down the side in order, but he did vulture a win, his first of the season.

Read the rest of this entry »

September call-ups, both high-profile and totally innocuous, have been trickling in over the transaction wire for the last several days. As always, there are some that will have real impact on the playoff race, some that are interesting for the purposes of player evaluation, such your usual spare lefty reliever and catcher (by far the most common types of September additions), and some teams with no new names at all. Below I’ve compiled notes on every player brought up by National League teams since the start of the month, no matter how inconsequential, and I slip some rehabbers and August 31st acquisitions in here, too. It’s a primer for you to get (re)acquainted with players who might impact the playoff race or seasons to come.

Contenders’ Reinforcements

Atlanta Braves — INF Johan Camargo, RHP Chad Sobotka, RHP Jeremy Walker, LHP A.J. Minter, RHP Bryse Wilson

Camargo didn’t hit with the big club at all this year, not even in late July or all of August when he was handed pretty regular at-bats filling in for an injured Dansby Swanson. But he hit .483 over the few weeks he was down in Gwinnett after Swanson returned and Camargo was optioned. He’ll be a versatile, switch-hitting bench piece for the stretch run, and he projects as that sort of premium bench player long-term.

Sobotka and Walker were optioned to make room for the multiple relievers Atlanta acquired at the deadline. Sobotka, who sits 94-98 with life and has a plus, 2900-rpm slider, posted a 16-to-2 strikeout to walk ratio at Triple-A since being sent down. You may see him pitching big innings this month. Walker has been throwing 25-pitch, 2-inning outings with three days of rest in between. He may be on mop-up or long relief duty. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2019 Arizona Fall League rosters were (mostly) announced today, and we’ve created a tab on THE BOARD where you can see all the prospects headed for extra reps in the desert. These are not comprehensive Fall League rosters — you can find those on the AFL team pages — but a compilation of names of players who are already on team pages on THE BOARD. The default view of the page has players hard-ranked through the 40+ FV tier. The 40s and below are then ordered by position, with pitchers in each tier listed from most likely to least likely to start. In the 40 FV tier, everyone south of Alex Lange is already a reliever.

Many participating players, especially pitchers, have yet to be announced. As applicable prospects are added to rosters in the coming weeks, I’ll add them to the Fall League tab and tweet an update from the FanGraphs Prospects Twitter account. Additionally, this tab will be live throughout the Fall League and subject to changes (new tool grades, updated scouting reports, new video, etc.) that will be relevant for this offseason’s team prospect lists. We plan on shutting down player/list updates around the time minor league playoffs are complete (which is very soon) until we begin to publish 2020 team-by-team prospect lists, but the Fall League tab will be an exception. If a player currently on the list looks appreciably different to me in the AFL, I’ll update their scouting record on that tab, and I may add players I think we’re light on as I see them. Again, updates will be posted on the FanGraphs Prospects Twitter account, and I’ll also compile those changes in a weekly rundown similar to those we ran on Fridays during the summer.

Anything you’d want to know about individual players in this year’s crop of Fall Leaguers can probably be found over on THE BOARD right now. Below are some roster highlights as well as my thoughts on who might fill out the roster ranks.

Glendale Desert Dogs
The White Sox have an unannounced outfield spot on the roster that I think may eventually be used on OF Micker Adolfo, who played rehab games in Arizona late in the summer. He’s on his way back from multiple elbow surgeries. Rehabbing double Achilles rupturee Jake Burger is age-appropriate for the Fall League, but GM Rick Hahn mentioned in July that Burger might go to instructs instead. Sox instructs runs from September 21 to October 5, so perhaps he’ll be a mid-AFL add if that goes well and they want to get him more at-bats, even just as a DH. Non-BOARD prospects to watch on this roster include Reds righties Diomar Lopez (potential reliever, up to 95) and Jordan Johnson, who briefly looked like a No. 4 or 5 starter type during his tenure with San Francisco, but has been hurt a lot since, as have Brewers lefties Nathan Kirby (Thoracic Outlet Syndrome) and Quintin Torres-Costa (Tommy John). Dodgers righty Marshall Kasowski has long posted strong strikeout rates, but the eyeball scouts think he’s on the 40-man fringe. Read the rest of this entry »

Amir Garrett emerged from the bullpen into quite a jam. With the Reds up 5-1 heading into the eighth, all had seemed fine, but Michael Lorenzen allowed the first three batters he faced to reach base. As Garrett prepared to face Anthony Rizzo, one swing of the bat could tie the game. Knowing that, Garrett didn’t mess around — he went to his best pitch right away.

The first slider he threw might have clipped the inside edge of the zone, but it was called a ball. Still, down 1-0, he didn’t give in. He went back inside with a slider — and hit Rizzo. That free base drove in a run, and now Garrett was right back where he started with one less run to work with.

With free-swinging Javier Báez up next, it was time for another slider. Garrett again clipped the corner, and this time was rewarded with a grounder that Joey Votto threw home for a force out. Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. There was no time to relax, though — with only one out, the situation was still precarious.

Ian Happ, coming off of a scorching-hot six game stretch where he had compiled a 343 wRC+, stepped in next. Fortunately, though, Happ has one major weakness: sliders. Garrett took no prisoners:

Read the rest of this entry »

For a losing team, the Cincinnati Reds have been busy. It’s not just trading players either, as Cincinnati made one of the biggest deadline moves while many contenders slumbered in near-stasis, picking up Trevor Bauer with an eye towards retooling for the 2020 season. Only three of the eight players in Wednesday’s lineup were also in the lineup on Opening Day: Tucker Barnhart, Eugenio Suárez, and José Iglesias. Chief among the new additions is the recently called-up Aristides Aquino, a big slugger lurking far back from the head of the team prospect lists coming into the season. After a fairly unimpressive minor league career, Aquino has feasted on the major league bouncy ball in 2019, slugging 28 homers in 294 AB in the formerly pitcher-friendly International League and then a shocking 11 homers in just 20 major league games.

Aquino was not some elite prospect finally being called up. The Reds have only received the benefit of getting a look at Aquino because they decided to use their ABs in a now-lost season in a productive way. If the team hadn’t dropped Matt Kemp or traded Yasiel Puig, choosing to go with the known quantity in a mistaken attempt to goose attendance (there’s no evidence this actually works), there wouldn’t have been as many opportunities to assess Aquino or Josh VanMeter or Phil Ervin in the majors. They now have more information on these players — how they’ve played at the big league level — and that information can have a positive effect on the decisions they make on how to win the NL Central or a wild card spot in 2020. Even picking up veteran Freddy Galvis, a 2.0 WAR player, for free has a value to a team like the Reds given his one-year, $5-million option for 2020. Scooter Gennett was always likely to be gone, but Galvis may not be, and now the Reds have another player who they can choose to start in 2020 or trade over the winter.

The Reds have been fortunate in these decisions, but I would have been in favor of this calculus even if Aquino/VanMeter/Ervin had been terrible. My fundamental belief is that among hitters and pitchers, teams have roughly a combined 12,000 plate appearances/batters faced to work with every year, and as many of them should be devoted to trying to win games as possible. Maybe they’re not 2019 wins — maybe they’re wins in 2020 or 2023 or 2026. But even players not working out gives you information; if Aquino came to the majors and hit like Lewis Brinson, it would still give the Reds data they didn’t have before. You don’t acquire that kind of knowledge when you’re a 90-loss team still penciling Billy Hamilton or Chris Davis into the lineup on a daily basis. Read the rest of this entry »