Please note, this posting contains four positions.

Position: Pro Scouting Intern

Key Responsibilities:

• Assist baseball operations and pro scouting with day-to-day operations
• Work with pro scouting on special projects and target lists
• Review daily reports and information with front office
• Assist in player acquisition preparation & analysis
• Support baseball administration and logistics
• Assist with salary arbitration preparation
• This position will work closely with the Baseball Operations and Pro Scouting staffs

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Position: Director, Baseball Data Infrastructure

Summary:
The Detroit Tigers are currently seeking a Director, Baseball Data Infrastructure. This role will be responsible for leading all internal data and infrastructure initiatives within Baseball Operations. This position will report to the Vice President and Assistant General Manager, Baseball Operations. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Full-Stack Software Engineer

Summary:
The Detroit Tigers are currently seeking a Full Stack Software Engineer. This role will be responsible for development and maintenance of software projects within Baseball Operations. This position will report to the Director of Baseball Systems.

Key Responsibilities:

• Perform development and maintenance on internal software products.
• Utilize modern software techniques and best practices in all parts of the software lifecycle.
• Support the integration of baseball analysis into the Tigers’ proprietary tools and applications.
• Assist with the design and development of new software products.
• Other projects or responsibilities as directed by Baseball Operations leadership.

Minimum Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• BS degree in Computer Science, similar technical field of study, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience developing web applications in a production environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge of modern web development including at least one popular single-page web application framework.
• Experience working with large-scale relational databases using SQL.
• Ability to work in all phases of the product lifecycle, including requirements-gathering, design, testing, and implementation.
• Ability to learn new technologies and techniques as necessary.
• Familiarity with the sport of baseball, baseball-specific data, modern statistical techniques, and sabermetric analysis.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Experience in the sports industry or with sports data
• Experience working on cloud-based software systems
• Understanding of User Experience principles and practices
• Experience with JavaScript visualization tools such as D3 or Plotly
• Preference for the declarative programming paradigm

To Apply:
To apply, please use this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Detroit Tigers.

Please note, this posting contains two postings.

Position: Analyst, Baseball Operations

Summary:
The Detroit Tigers are currently seeking a full-time Analyst in the Baseball Operations Department. This role will be responsible for performing analyses and conducting research within Baseball Operations. This position will report to the Director, Baseball Analytics. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains two positions.

Position: Biomechanist, Performance Science

Summary:
The Detroit Tigers are currently seeking a full-time Biomechanist in the Performance Science Department. This role will assist with the delivery of performance science solutions within Baseball Operations. The biomechanist will be responsible for translating biomechanical data into applied, actionable outcomes to be used by staffs to optimize performance. This role will work closely Baseball Analytics, Player Development, Strength and Conditioning, and Sports Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

Jimmy Kerr is pretty low-profile as far as prospects go. The 24-year-old infielder was a 33rd-round senior-sign in 2019 and currently playing for the Detroit Tigers’ High-A affiliate, the West Michigan Whitecaps. A standout during the College World Series in his draft year, he remains relatively unknown beyond the University of Michigan, where he earned a degree in Industrial Operations Engineering.

His knowledge of hitting promises to increase his profile. Kerr faces long odds to reach the big leagues, but he’s already begun gaining a foothold as an instructor. Last year, he co-founded K2 Baseball, an elite training facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Kerr talked hitting prior to a Whitecaps game earlier this month.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with your training facility. How did that come about?

Jimmy Kerr: “It was over the pandemic. A couple of my college teammates and I were up in northern Michigan — my parents have a place in Walloon Lake — kind of escaping for the summertime. We were working out at the local high school, trying to stay in shape, and had also ordered some workout equipment. Everybody was trying to start their own home gym at that time, so it was backordered and took awhile [to arrive].

“Once the weather turned and guys were going back to school, we rented out a space in Ann Arbor and put all the workout equipment in there. We put in a batting cage, turf, a portable mound, and started running a little baseball facility. It started with just some of our Michigan teammates who are in pro ball now, and then we turned into a business where we’ve got high school kids and youth baseball players. We’re doing training programs, lessons, and all that.”

Laurila: Who else was involved? Read the rest of this entry »

A perennial All-Star catcher who deserved better from Hall of Fame voters, Bill Freehan spent his entire 15-season career with the Tigers, his hometown team. Durable and skilled on both sides of the ball, he served as the starter on Detroit’s only two postseason teams across a 38-year span, including catching every inning of the 1968 World Series and making two of that seven-game epic’s key defensive plays, most notably the catch of Tim McCarver’s foul ball to dethrone the defending champion Cardinals and seal the Tigers’ only title between 1946 and ’83.

The photo of pitcher Mickey Lolich — whom Freehan had guided to three complete-game victories in the Series — leaping into his catcher’s arms after securing the final out was an iconic one. It was the culmination of an historic pairing, too; that battery started together in 324 regular-season games, a major league record.

Freehan died on Thursday, August 19, at the age of 79. For years, he had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease — which his family suspected was related to the concussions he suffered during his playing career — and had been living under hospice care. His condition prevented him from participating in the Tigers’ 50th anniversary celebration of that championship back in 2018.

Even while spending nearly his entire career playing alongside the man known as “Mr. Tiger,” Hall of Famer Al Kaline, Freehan was considered the team leader. “He was the heart and soul of the ballclub,” said teammate Jim Price, the Tigers’ backup catcher from 1967 to ’72. In 1968, Sport magazine’s Arnold Hano hailed him as “the thinking man’s catcher,” writing that he “leads the way sergeants lead, not second lieutenants. He leads by example.”

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On Sunday afternoon against the Blue Jays, Miguel Cabrera became the newest member of an elite baseball club by hitting his 500th regular-season home run, making him just the 28th player to reach that mark in MLB history; he joins Albert Pujols as the only active players on the list. (He’s also the first-ever Tiger and first ever Venezuelan-born player to get there). Cabrera is also chasing entry into the equally exclusive 3,000 hits club, but he would need roughly a hit per game for the rest of the season to do that, making 2022 more likely, so let’s focus on 500 and his road there.

The 28th player in MLB history to hit 500 home runs.

Congrats, @MiguelCabrera! pic.twitter.com/ajmOAbVeZg

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) August 22, 2021

It’s yet another milestone achievement in the 38-year-old’s Hall of Fame-worthy career. Signed in 1999 as an amateur free agent out of Venezuela, Cabrera reached Double-A in 2003 and made his major league debut that same year at age 20 in June. It didn’t take him long to hit his first home run, and he did so by announcing his presence to Marlins fans and the entire sport, walloping a walk-off to dead center in his first game and becoming only the third major leaguer ever to do that.

Over 87 games that season, Cabrera hit 12 home runs but also struck out a fair bit, with a 24.3% rate. He was showing signs of the player he would become in terms of power, but he didn’t quite have the discipline at the plate yet. Still, he had a meteoric rise with the Marlins, helping them win the World Series in his rookie year and making four straight All-Star appearances from 2004 to ’07.

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Shane McClanahan is one of the best young pitchers in the game, and a weapon that wasn’t in his arsenal prior to this season is one of the reasons why. The 24-year-old Tampa Bay Rays southpaw has added a slider, and he’s been featuring it prominently while putting up a 3.63 ERA, a 3.31 FIP, and 113 strikeouts in 94-and-a-third innings. Delivered at an average velocity of 89.5 MPH — fourth highest among hurlers with 60-plus frames — McClanahan is throwing his new pitch a healthy 35.4% of the time.

The seeds of the offering date back to early-January.

“I was throwing a pre-spring-training bullpen at the Trop,” explained McClanahan, whom the Rays drafted 31st overall out of the University of South Florida in 2018. “I told [pitching coach Kyle] Snyder, ‘Hey, I want to try this pitch and see if it does anything.’ He said, ‘OK,’ so I did. Then he was like, ‘Throw it again.’ From there, I just kept throwing it and working on it.”

Snyder echoed that recollection when asked about McClanahan’s new asset, adding that the organization was all-in with the idea of adding a firmer breaking pitch. That was the sole intent. According to McClanahan, the idea was never as specific as “learn a cutter” or “learn a slider,” but rather to introduce a pitch that differentiated both from his curveball and the slurve he threw last October when debuting in the postseason.

I asked Snyder about the addition from a pitching coach’s perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Baseball Operations Software Engineer

Location: Detroit, MI

Job Summary:
The Detroit Tigers are currently seeking a Software Engineer. This role will be responsible for development and maintenance of software projects within Baseball Operations. This position will report to the Sr. Software Engineer, Baseball Operations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Perform general development and maintenance tasks for the upkeep of internally developed software products.
• Use modern software techniques and best practices in all parts of the software life cycle.
• Support the integration of baseball analysis into the Tigers’ proprietary tools and applications.
• Assist with the design and development of new software products.
• Other projects as directed by the Baseball Operations leadership team.

Read the rest of this entry »