Organizational Intern, Baseball Operations Analyst

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports to: Director, Baseball Operations
Status: Full-Time Salary/Non-Exempt Intern

Position Overview:
The Phillies are seeking passionate and knowledgeable applicants for an entry-level baseball operations analyst. This role will provide analytical and administrative support to our baseball operations group and will consist of opportunities to contribute throughout the many facets of the department, including close collaboration with our Research & Development team.

Responsibilities:

• Assist with and compose research and analysis for baseball operations initiatives including internal and external player evaluation
• Support salary arbitration preparations
• Provide administrative support as needed

Required Qualifications:

• Strong foundational knowledge in modern baseball analysis
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Rigorous attention to detail
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel
• Familiarity with SQL
• Experience with programming languages (e.g. R, Python)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with video and with baseball technologies (TrackMan, Rapsodo, bat sensors, etc.)
• Familiarity with league transaction rules

Interested applicants should submit both their resume and an answer to the following question:
Write a brief analysis of the top three starting pitchers expected to be free agents at the end of the 2023 season. Given the information you have available today, how would you advise team decision makers to rank the pitchers for acquisition purposes next offseason and why? (max. 300 words)

The Phillies are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and are committed to growing a workforce diverse in perspective and background. We proudly strive to build a group of employees who represent the fans and communities we currently, and aim to serve.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Director, Baseball Software Engineering

Department: Baseball Systems
Reporting To: Assistant GM / Vice President
FLSA Classification: Excempt
Employment Type: Full-Time

Primary Purpose:
The Director of Baseball Software Engineering will manage a growing department – presently about a dozen engineers – in its effort to develop cutting-edge software and data solutions that directly impact the organization’s ability to acquire players, develop their skills, and optimize their performance. The products we build help answer questions such as “Which trades should we execute?”, “Who should we select with our next pick in the draft?”, and “How can we help players use data from yesterday’s game to improve?” Those products facilitate operations and enhance decision-making across all areas of the organization to support the Cleveland Guardians accomplish their ultimate mission of winning the World Series.

This job might be for you if you have a passion for leading teams that work with ever-expanding data sets, build high-leverage data visuals, and witness the impact of their work while watching baseball games. The position offers the unique opportunity to work with a variety of emerging technologies that span the entire applications stack. From data warehousing to web design, you will have the opportunity to craft innovative solutions to challenging problems.

We are seeking candidates with excellent technical backgrounds, track records of guiding innovation, and deep enthusiasm for developing people within a collaborative learning culture. If you align with our values of People, Collaboration, Learning, and Excellence and have a track record for building high-performing teams, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities & Duties

• Hire top engineering and technical talent, and support the growth and development of team members, setting the conditions for them to flourish both personally and professionally
• Cultivate a collaborative learning culture where individuals are inspired to continuously improve, be their best, and make significant impact
• Interface with key stakeholders and organizational leaders to align on priorities that allow the team to build and maintain products, databases, and platforms that fuel our work
• Facilitate the day-to-day work of the team and its integration across Baseball Operations
• Guide the department in its effort to build transformational software products that drive the organization’s most important baseball decisions
• Provide technical perspective and develop processes that help service the software, data, and technology needs of the organization
• Help redefine the technology stack to shape the organization’s platform infrastructure that provides the foundation to build and support industry-changing software products
• Manage the team’s transition to the cloud, helping to take advantage of the explosion of data across the industry

Education & Experience Requirements and Preferences

• Management Experience: Multiple years of experience in a management role, supporting the growth of software engineers, data engineers, and/or related roles
• Technical Experience: 5+ years of experience in software engineering with a background in multiple of the following areas:
  • Front-End Development: Working in modern, component-based frameworks, ideally in monorepo architectures
  • Cloud: Developing software in a hybrid, multi-cloud environment
  • Data Engineering: Modeling and integrating disparate data sources into a data platform that supports analytical and transactional workloads, ideally in hybrid, multi-cloud environments
  • API Development: Working in RESTful monolithic and microservice architectures, ideally across multiple languages
  • Platform: Building internal developer platforms, enabling engineers to produce higher-quality output with a better developer experience

Role Requirements

• Role will be based out of Cleveland, Ohio

Organizational Requirements

• Reads, speaks, comprehends, and communicates English effectively
• Represents the Cleveland Guardians in a positive fashion to all business partners and the general public
• Ability to develop and maintain successful working relationship with members of the Front Office
• Ability to act according to the organizational values and service excellence at all times
• Ability to work with diverse populations and have a demonstrated commitment to social justice
• Ability to work extended days and hours, including holidays and weekends
• Ability to work in a complex and changing environment

The Cleveland Guardians are committed to developing and maintaining an environment that embraces all forms of diversity to enrich our core values, enhance our competitive position, strengthen our impact within our community, and foster a greater sense of belonging for our employees.

In this spirit, we know studies have shown that people from historically underserved groups – including women and people of color – are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications as described in a job description. We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job and understand that candidate may bring certain skills and experiences to the role that are not listed in our job description, but that would add tremendous value to our organization. We would encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet every one of our qualifications described.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Cleveland Guardians.

As of this writing, Mexico leads Canada 10-3 in the ninth inning of its final pool stage game. If that result holds, Mexico will win World Baseball Classic Pool C. (Update: That result held.) This evening, the U.S. will take on Colombia to determine who advances as the second-place team in the group. If Team USA wins, it’s simple: both the U.S. and Mexico will finish 3-1, with Mexico advancing as the no. 1 seed by virtue of its head-to-head win on Sunday. If Colombia wins, it will finish 2-2, as will the U.S. and Canada, with each team having a head-to-head win over one of the others. That throws things to the WBC’s wonderfully confusing runs-allowed-per-outs-recorded tiebreaker. Making things more complicated: Because the U.S. beat Canada by mercy rule, all three teams will finish the group stage having recorded a different number of outs. That makes the math all the more complicated. Read the rest of this entry »

After Sunday night’s loss to Mexico, Team USA was facing down — to quote Thomas Paine — the times that try men’s souls. But Monday brought new life; Great Britain’s upset win over Colombia put the Americans’ destiny back in their own hands, and in the nightcap the United States bludgeoned Canada with nine first-inning runs en route to a 12-1 mercy rule win.

Team USA is idle on Tuesday, but will advance with a win over Colombia on Wednesday. With a win and a Mexico loss in either of its two remaining games, Team USA will win the pool. If Mexico and the U.S. both win out, Mexico will win the group.

For fans of chaos, the dreaded five-team tiebreaker scenario is still on the table under a specific set of circumstances:

If that happens, be prepared to laugh and/or cry and/or pray.

Software Engineering Associate, Baseball Systems

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Job Description:
The New York Mets are seeking a Software Engineering Associate. This associate will design, build, test, and deploy mobile and web applications that enrich the Mets data ecosystem and inform decision-making within Baseball Operations. The ideal candidate would be an engineering generalist with prior experience. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus but is not required.

Pay Rate:
$18.15/hr

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Develop exciting user-facing features
• Collaborate with a variety of internal stakeholders to validate designs and facilitate clean rollouts and deployments of new products
• Integrate with a variety of third-party APIs to enrich the New York Mets data ecosystem
• Document technical architectures and baseball-specific systems
• Maintain and update a broad collection of internal applications that enhance player development, scouting, and executive decision making
• Job will include mentorship, hands-on production coding, building and fixing tools for baseball stakeholders

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field
• 1+ years of relevant work experience
• Some experience in Javascript (including React, React Native, and/or Node.js frameworks)
• Some cloud experience (AWS, GCP, etc)
• SQL experience
• Familiarity with modern agile practices and development tools
• Ability to work collaboratively with others
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Prior experience in baseball is a plus

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Product Design Associate, Baseball Systems

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Job Description:
The New York Mets are seeking a Product Design Associate. This designer will work with Baseball Systems to help design the user experience of mobile and web applications that enrich the Mets data ecosystem and inform decision-making within Baseball Operations. This position requires a designer that is comfortable designing low- and high-fidelity mockups for a wide array of stakeholders within Baseball Operations. The ideal candidate would have a strong grasp of modern design tools with prior experience rapid prototyping and working collaboratively within a software engineering team. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus but is not required.

Pay Rate:
$18.15/hr

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Day-to-day design production working with product managers, engineers, and designers, leveraging our design system to maintain brand consistency across products and optimize the full product life cycle
• Create UX related design assets such as wireframes, sitemaps, user stories, user journeys, and prototypes to help illustrate solutions
• Take part in qualitative and quantitative data collection across the organization to validate the development and adoption of new tools and features
• Stay up to date on UX/UI best practices, patterns, and disciplines
• Take part in design reviews and feedback sessions where you will present your work as well as provide feedback to others
• A willingness to learn, and a hunger to problem solve

Qualifications:

• 1+ years of relevant experience in UX or product design
• Portfolio of UX and product design projects with an eye toward process and collaboration
• Strong proficiency in Figma and other collaborative design and prototyping tools
• Ability to work cooperatively with others
• Familiarity/experience within an agile environment
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Prior experience in front-end development, including CSS, is a plus
• Prior experience in baseball is a plus

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Product Management Associate, Baseball Systems

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Job Description:
The New York Mets Baseball Systems Department is seeking a Product Management Associate that will help reinforce the product development lifecycle in partnership with teams across baseball operations to the build-out of internal products in collaboration with Software Engineering and Design.

Pay Rate:
$18.15/hr

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Help lead the development and implementation process for products throughout the product development lifecycle
• Facilitate broad collaboration with clear communications and documentation
• Collect and analyze relevant feedback and take action accordingly
• Drive and track key results, success criteria, and performance metrics in order to leverage insights on product performance and user needs
• Develop and execute plans under a set of implementation and delivery time constraints, optimizing for a blend of cost, schedule, and features
• Analyze current user experiences to identify friction points in order to create simple and effective experiences
• This opportunity will allow you to identify investment opportunities, evaluate tradeoffs, and drive the product roadmap

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree is strongly preferred
• Strong analytical capabilities coupled with good business savvy
• Attention to detail without becoming lost in the details
• Strong communication, organization skills, mentality, and eagerness to learn
• Ability to operate in an environment of ambiguity with diverse partners
• Strong knowledge pertaining to information technology including proficiencies with Excel and other Microsoft Office software.
• Interest or experience in leading projects with a strong organizational mindset
• Spanish speaking skills are a plus
• SQL/Analytical experience is a plus
• Ability to work evenings, weekends, or holiday hours.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.

Associate, Minor League Analytics (Dominican Republic)

Location: New York Mets Complex – Dominican Republic

Job Description:
The New York Mets are seeking a DR Associate Analyst in Baseball Analytics. This analyst will be based in the Dominican Republic Academy. The Analyst will spend the full year at the Academy, from Spring Training through the end of the season.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Drive the direction of Player Plans by working with the Player Development & Performance departments to choose the right individual development focus and find ways to measure progress 
• Interpret data and model-based results on internal reports and websites to help coaches use the information to work with their players 
• Help young players learn their strengths and areas for improvement by educating them on how to use data to enhance their development 
• Work with the other affiliate analysts to help improve each other’s understanding of the game and our minor league players, especially as players transfer from one affiliate to another 
• Modify existing codebase and develop new automated reports to be used by coaches and players before games 
• Develop a strong understanding of the various types of technology that are used throughout Player Development 
• Provide feedback to the rest of Baseball Analytics and Baseball Systems on reports, models, and tools that relate to Player Development 
• Collaborate with members of Player Development, including coordinators and the coaching staff, to help the affiliate prepare for games and to help the players develop their skills 
• As time permits, analysts will be assigned additional coding and/or statistical modeling projects relating to Player Development 
• Additional ad hoc requests from Baseball Analytics and Player Development in line with these job responsibilities 

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field or equivalent experience 
• Fluency in Spanish 
• Firm understanding of modern baseball technology 
• Basic proficiency in R, Python, or similar, as well as proficiency in SQL 
• Strong communication skills 
• Statistical modeling experience is a plus 
• Ability to work cooperatively with others 
• Willingness to spend the season at the DR Academy throughout the duration of the season, which includes working nights, weekends, and holidays as dictated by the team’s schedule 

The above information is intended to describe the general nature, type, and level of work to be performed. The information is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required for this position. Nothing in this job description restricts management’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time. The individual selected may perform other related duties as assigned or requested.

The New York Mets recognize the importance of a diverse workforce and value the unique qualities individuals of various backgrounds and experiences can offer to the Organization. Our continued success depends heavily on the quality of our workforce. The Organization is committed to providing employees with the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.

Senior Developer, Baseball Systems

Location: Boston, MA
Department: Baseball Operations
Status: Full-Time

Description:
The Senior Developer, Baseball Systems position will be a member of the baseball operations software development team, and is responsible for the design, development, and support, of all baseball systems. This individual will work closely with members of baseball operations to understand business requirements that drive the analysis, design, and development of quality baseball systems and solutions. This senior developer will collaborate closely with the Director of Baseball Systems, colleagues on the software development team, and baseball operations personnel from all departments.

Responsibilities:

• Create leading-edge baseball solutions together with the software development team and others on new and existing baseball systems
• Lead the design and implementation of the software architecture and embrace a software engineering mindset
• Lead the software development process of critical baseball applications, including requirements gathering, analysis, effort estimation, technical investigation, software design and implementation, testing, bug fixing, and quality assurance
• Responsible for the design and development of databases, web services, graphical user interfaces, and other aspects of web and desktop applications
• Actively participate in the architecting, deployment, and maintenance of system solutions in a cloud-based environment
• Actively participate with colleagues in design reviews, code reviews, and exercise best practices
• Work closely with baseball analysts to design and implement solutions to their modeling and data needs
• Respond to and resolve technical problems and issues in a timely manner
• Identify and implement creative solutions for technical challenges
 

Qualifications/Characteristics:

• TECHNICAL SKILLS:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• 6 or more years of development experience using some combination of C#, C++, Python, Typescript, JavaScript, T-SQL, ServiceStack, Angular, React, Vue, or other frameworks, with a focus on responsive & progressive web applications. 
• Strong database design and development experience, especially with MS SQL Server
• Experience integrating systems and data using third-party APIs and web services
• Experience with cloud technologies from Azure, AWS, or GCP are a plus
• Experience with R is a plus
• Design experience with Zeplin, Photoshop, or similar applications, are a plus
• Experience with source control tools such as Git, TFS, or similar

• GENERAL SKILLS:
• Ability to work autonomously and as a team in a fast paced environment
• High level of attention to detail with the ability to multi-task effectively
• Comfortable working remotely using Zoom, Teams, Slack, Trello, and other tools to communicate with all team members
• High degree of professionalism and ability to maintain confidential information
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
• An understanding of baseball, common terms, and analytic measures, are a plus

The Red Sox (or FSM) requires proof of being up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment, subject to applicable legal requirements. Up-to-date means having received all recommended COVID-19 vaccination doses in the primary series and a booster dose(s) when eligible, per CDC guidelines.

Prospective employees will receive consideration without discrimination based on race, religious creed, color, sex, age, national origin, handicap, disability, military/veteran status, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or protected genetic information.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Boston Red Sox.

A few weeks ago, I regressed as a writer. I regressed a lot, actually: twenty years worth of slash line data regressed against twenty years of run scoring data in various ways. But — and this is a dangerous sentence, and usually a bad one — someone asked me a question on Twitter and I want to answer it. Namely: was batting average always the weakest correlation to run scoring among the slash line statistics, or has it only become so recently?

This is going to be a quick hitter. I broke the game down somewhat arbitrarily, using eras defined by OOTP Perfect Team. I started in 1947 and went up until 2000 (the results of the 2000s were in my previous article). Here’s what those 2000s results look like, which should both give you an idea of the correlations today and preview the format for the rest of the article:

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Golden Years, 1947–1960
Now, these weren’t the golden years for me, because I wasn’t alive, but I guess that’s what some people call this era of baseball. Jackie Robinson! Ted Williams! Stan Musial! Willie Mays! Batting average mattered more, but it still didn’t matter:

What do I mean by that? Well, if you predict run scoring with OBP and SLG, you get a 0.908 adjusted r-squared to actual runs scored. Predict run scoring with the entire triple slash line, and you get an adjusted r-squred of 0.91. Batting average did better, on its own, as a run scoring predictor, but using OBP and SLG was the gold standard in the golden years.

Baseball Boom, 1961–1979
This is a broad era that folds in some pitching-dominant years that led to rules changes, the early part of the speed era, and some early-60s home run mania. It’s also an era where, if you know OBP and SLG, you don’t need to know batting average to predict run scoring:

Like the 1947–60 span, using OBP and SLG as predictors does just as well as using all three statistics. More specifically, OBP/SLG had a 0.922 adjusted r-squared to runs scored. The full AVG/OBP/SLG regression checks in at 0.923. Average… if you’re already 99.89% of the there, it’ll get you that last tiny bit of explanatory power. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Defensive Era, 1980–1992
Even though I wasn’t alive for a big chunk of this era and wasn’t following baseball for the vast majority of it, it’s one of my favorite eras, thanks to Ozzie Smith, my single favorite baseball player and, per my mom, the person I’ve most emulated in my life. I spent countless hours mimicking the defensive plays I saw on my “Ozzie, That’s a Winner” VHS tape, which my uncle had recorded on local access TV in St. Louis. I’m a lefty, so I was doing them backwards and they never led to me becoming a defensive wunderkind, but none of that mattered to me; I just wanted to be like Ozzie. Uh, where were we? Oh, right. Average didn’t matter:

Using the criteria from above, OBP/SLG checks in at 0.863, and an all-three-slash-stats regression checks in at 0.864. It’s interesting to note that OBP and SLG explain the lowest percentage of variation in run scoring in this era, which I attribute to the huge range in team baserunning strategy and effectiveness, but that’s not the point of this study. The point is that if you already know a team’s OBP and SLG, you don’t need to know their batting average to predict how many runs they scored.

The Power Years, 1993–2000
I cut this one off at 2000, since my previous article already covered the 21st century, but OOTP extends it to 2004. Regardless, you guessed it:

This time, the adjusted r-squared is the same whether you look at OBP/SLG or AVG/OBP/SLG. So there you have it: throughout the eras, the correlations have remained the same. If you’re trying to predict a team’s run scoring and already have their on-base percentage and slugging percentage, you can stop there. Batting average won’t add anything to the equation.

With only a few hours to go before the results of the BBWAA’s 2023 Hall of Fame balloting are announced, the widespread assumption is that the voters will pitch their second shutout in three years and their fifth since voters returned to annual balloting in 1966. Not only is there no slam-dunk candidate with the milestones and squeaky-clean reputation that portends a first-ballot election, or a returning candidate who’s the equivalent of a gimme putt away from 75%, but the highest share of the vote from among the 201 ballots published (just over half of the expected total) shows no candidate receiving more than 80.1%. Given that voters who don’t publish their ballots ahead of the announcements tend to be more conservative when filling them out, at best we’ve got a nail-biter ahead of us for the top two candidates. As of Monday evening, Jason Sardell, the top prognosticator for election results for three years running, forecast only about a 13% chance of a candidate being elected. He hasn’t updated the odds in the 21 hours since, which has added just 18 ballots to the pile, but I believe these will suffice:

Just over 24 hours to go until the Baseball Hall of Fame reveal, and here's where we are with 183 ballots in @NotMrTibbs's tracker. Today has been a bad day for Scott Rolen, but Todd Helton continues to slowly climb. pic.twitter.com/xRpCjZR3BL

— Jason Sardell (@sarsdell) January 23, 2023

If you’re looking for a glimmer of hope for Scott Rolen and Todd Helton, I do have one. Here’s a table showing all of the candidates who have received at least 70% via the pre-announcement ballots since 2014 (“The Tracker Era”):

As I noted in my election day preview, of the 14 candidates who received 75% to 85% via ballots published prior to the results, the average differential between those shares and their final results was a drop of 5.6% overall, and 4.4% once you exclude Bonds/Clemens/Schilling, whose baggage created a resistance to their candidacies that doesn’t apply to any of the others here.

While on the one hand just two out of 10 instances in which a candidate received less than 80% resulted in his election that year, the data has been consistent, in that everybody receiving 78.2% or higher has in fact ended up across the finish line. Sardell’s forecasting, which groups voters based upon the number of candidates they include and their electoral stance on PED users, is certainly more sophisticated than this quick-and-dirty table. But as we count down to the announcement, we at least know that there’s something to be said about the possibility of Fred McGriff having company in Cooperstown on July 23.

Player Valuation Analyst

The Pirates Why

The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary

The Pittsburgh Pirates are currently seeking a full-time Analyst to join their Professional Player Valuation team. The Professional Player Valuation team is responsible for producing internal valuations of players and for communicating the insights from their research to others within Baseball Operations. In this role, you will have the ability to influence roster construction and to see the impact of your work on the field. This role will provide candidates with opportunities for growth and the ability to learn from others throughout the organization.

When you submit your application, please include an original piece of research, or a project you have worked on, that you feel is relevant to this position. There is no expectation that this research/project is baseball specific. While not essential for consideration, priority will be given to applicants who submit a sample of their work.

Primary Role Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary analyst for a subset of the professional player population
• Collaborate with other areas of Baseball Operations on the assessment of professional players
• Assist in the building of models and tools to aid in player skill assessment discussions
• Prepare tools, visualizations, and reports to aid in disseminating information throughout Baseball Operations
• Answer research questions that you think will add value to the organization, as well as those requested by department leadership and other within Baseball Operations

Involvement In:

• Trade deadline meetings.
• Off-season strategy meetings.
• Roster management discussions.

Required:

1. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
2. Expertise with R, Python, or Stan
3. Ability to generate insights with testable predictions from complex data sets
4. Experience with programming data visualizations (Rshiny, Ggplot, or equivalent)
5. Demonstrated ability to explain complex models and ideas clearly and succinctly
6. Proficiency in SQL to perform data manipulation with an understanding or relational database structures
7. An understanding of skill-acquisition and development concepts and their applications

Desired:

1. Strong interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with a wide range of individuals throughout the Baseball Operations department
2. Passion for learning, especially in areas outside of individual expertise
3. Ability to apply insights from external fields to baseball. Examples include, but are not limited to, computer science, kinesiology, machine-learning, physics, or psychology
4. Initiative to seek out and perform research on topics of personal interest

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Pittsburgh Pirates.