Position: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Baseball Systems Developer

Location: Anaheim

Description:

The Los Angeles Angels are hiring an experienced software developer to build and maintain an aggregated player information and tracking system to help in the decision making process of the Baseball Operations Department.

Responsibilities:

• Drawing from multiple data sources, design and manage a single player information and tracking system.
• Manage receipt, storage, merging, and formatting of multiple data sources (flat files, APIs, database pulls, etc.) Identify, diagnose and resolve data quality issues.
• Develop web-based front-ends to display data at multiple levels of detail.
• Implement and optimize advanced algorithms for player projection from software prototypes.
• Continually work with baseball operations staff to identify features and areas of improvement within the player information system to facilitate a user-friendly research tool.
• Integrate new information sources and multimedia displays into player information and tracking system.
• Communicate results to appropriate staff members through presentations, written reports, and tools.
• Other duties as identified by the Director of Quantitative Analysis.

Qualifications:

• Experience with software development, including requirements definition, design, development, testing, implementation, and iterative improvement.
• Expert level knowledge of SQL and database optimization techniques.
• Proficiency with front-end web development technologies (including HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and JavaScript frameworks) Strong understanding of desktop, laptop and mobile UI/UX design concepts and demonstrated ability to apply responsive design techniques. Particularly focused on representing large data sets in easy to consume user interfaces.
• Experience designing ETL (extract, transform, load) processes to integrate multiple data sources, formats, and media into a single application.
• Management of multi-tiered deployment environment (development, staging, production).
• Working familiarity with advanced statistical concepts, particularly those relevant to sabermetric player projection techniques that include experience implementing statistical calculations, derivations, and graphical representations into software applications (experience with Python and Matlab a plus).
• Bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and five years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please apply here.

Position: Tampa Bay Rays Baseball Research & Development Intern

Location: St. Petersburg, Fla.

Description:

We are seeking interns with a passion for winning through mathematics, data analysis, and computation. The internship positions will be with the team’s Baseball Research and Development group in the Baseball Operations department. Start and end dates are flexible, and we will consider applicants who are available for only the summer of 2016. Please note that these positions have the potential to lead to a full-time employment offer, but such an offer is not guaranteed.

Responsibilities:

• Statistical modeling and quantitative analysis of a variety of data sources, for the purpose of player evaluation, strategic decision-making, decision analysis, etc.
• Collecting public and private data for additional analysis.
• Ad hoc queries and quantitative research in support of general Baseball Operations tasks.
• Various game-day duties, as necessary.

Qualifications:

• A strong foundation in mathematics, statistics, computer science and/or engineering.
• Some experience with computer programming.
• Familiarity with a statistical software package such as R.
• Familiarity with SQL.
• Familiarity with Python or MATLAB.
• Familiarity with the online baseball research community.

In addition to working closely with the broader Research and Development team, we desire candidates who will challenge the status quo and explore new research opportunities. Previous interns have developed ideas that have changed the way the organization approaches important challenges.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
To apply, please send an email to researchresume@raysbaseball.com with the subject “2016 R&D Internship” and include a resume, an unofficial transcript (if you were enrolled in a college degree program within the last three years) and answers to the following questions:

1. What dates are you available for the internship?
2. What computer programming experience do you have?
3. What is a project that you believe would add substantial value to a baseball team? Please describe the project and provide an overview of how you would complete it.

The image presented here is a screencap of Jimmy Paredes from roughly five minutes ago, shortly before he recorded the last out of regulation during this evening’s Dominican Winter League game between Gigantes del Cibao and Leones del Escogido.

Here are some players from Gigantes who’ve recorded plate appearances: Maikel Franco and Carlos Peguero and Wilson Betemit. Here’s a single one from Leones to do the same thing: Patrick Kivlehan, just identified as the player-to-be-named in the Leonys Martin trade.

Here’s the count on Hanser Alberto just before the author published this inconsequential notice: 1-2.

Here, finally, is a link to watch the game in technicolor video.

When you read descriptions of Nori Aoki, you’ll often read about how he’s entertaining before you read about how he’s talented. Even his numbers are entertaining, if you’re into that sort of thing — in four years, he’s batted .285, .286, .287, and .288. He’s an unusual player to watch, which makes him an interesting player to watch, and though he’s not the greatest player to watch, you could say he puts smiles on faces. Ultimately that’s the real purpose of all of this.

Aoki was having a solid year with the Giants before he wound up with a leg fracture and, later, a concussion. Aoki’s agent says he’s fine now, which is a very agent-y thing to say, but the Giants still declined Aoki’s very much affordable 2016 option. So into free agency he went, and out of free agency he’s going, to Seattle, for a one-year contract with an option. I don’t yet know what it’s worth, but I assume the money is modest, by free-agency standards. Aoki didn’t sign for much a year ago, and it’s not like his 2015 did anything to change the profile.

Offensively, he’s clearly consistent. He’s not a power threat, but he’s a contact and on-base threat, with a career 107 wRC+. He’ll make some puzzling decisions on the bases, but he can move around just fine. His defensive reputation is for routes like this one:

…and those aren’t uncharacteristic. Aoki isn’t fluid out there, and he doesn’t score very well according to the Fan Scouting Report as a consequence, but as a corner guy, Aoki has rated just fine by DRS and UZR. He doesn’t seem to be a defensive liability, in other words. He’s not prime Ichiro or anything, but he can handle the outfield better than incumbent Nelson Cruz. As for any aging concerns, that’s the neat thing about one-year contracts.

For his career, Aoki’s averaged almost exactly 2 WAR per 600 plate appearances. It stands to reason he should be almost that good in the season ahead, if he’s really healthy. A little worse, probably, but fine enough as a stopgap. One of the things to know is that Aoki’s one of the very most difficult players in the majors to strike out. He’s also a lefty who, to this point, has owned a reverse platoon split at the plate. He’s a contact-oriented slap hitter, which allows him to be consistent, no matter who he’s facing. Righty, lefty, power, finesse, fly ball, groundball. Aoki doesn’t change.

Something I want to share: grounders. Aoki hits a bunch of them. And he sprays them around, more than almost any other player. Since 2002, 553 players have hit at least 500 groundballs. Here are the five lowest rates of pulled grounders over that span:

• Joey Gathright, 23% pulled grounders
• Jean Segura, 33%
• Nori Aoki, 35%
• Ben Revere, 36%
• Luis Castillo, 36%

Gathright wins by a giant margin, but Aoki’s third-lowest, slapping grounders up the middle and the other way, toward the shortstop. Sticking with that, Aoki gets a quick start out of the box, and he runs a very high soft-hit rate on his grounders. So what follows shouldn’t be too surprising — here are the big-league leaders in infield hits, according to our leaderboard, since Aoki debuted in 2012:

• Nori Aoki, 122 infield hits
• Jose Altuve, 114
• Ben Revere, 105
• Ichiro Suzuki, 100
• Mike Trout, 96
• Jean Segura, 96

Aoki’s also bunted a bunch. There is a power swing in there, a pull swing with lift, but so much of his game is soft contact, and it worked again last year before the injuries. It should work similarly going forward.

The one troubling thing is what the Giants did. Aoki seems like a modest bargain, here. Same thing looked to be the case last offseason. But the Giants had the chance to keep Aoki for next year for $5.5 million, and instead they paid a $0.7-million buyout, meaning they didn’t think Aoki was worth $4.8 million. This is the same team that liked him a year ago. Maybe it’s just a money thing; maybe they’d prefer to stay cheaper in the outfield, and put the most money possible toward rotation improvements. But alternatively, the Giants might not have a great opinion of what’s to come. And they’re the ones who’ve seen Aoki most recently, not the Mariners. It’s a consideration.

But Aoki says he’s okay, and I guess we believe him until we have reason not to. For the Mariners, maybe this is the end of any Marcell Ozuna pursuit, but they could still futz around with left field if they wanted. The more important thing to them was accumulating enough options to keep Cruz out of the outfield as much as possible. In that regard, this is a step forward, and it presumably came at a quite affordable price. Sometimes a bargain can just be a bargain.

When the Twins won the rights to negotiate with Byung-ho Park, his signing wasn’t quite a foregone conclusion — we’ve seen these things go wrong before. But it seemed very likely the Twins and Park would eventually reach an agreement, and now we’re officially there, with Park having been introduced at a press conference.

To quickly review, the Pirates bid $5 million for Jung-ho Kang. Then they signed him to a four-year contract worth $11 million, with a maximum possible value of five years and $20 million.

The Twins bid $12.85 million for Byung-ho Park. Now they’ve signed him to a four-year contract worth $12 million, with a maximum possible value of five years and $23 million.

So, it’s clearly a very similar contract structure. For all intents and purposes, Park and Kang wound up with the same deal. Kang would’ve deserved a bit of a bonus for having middle-infield potential, but Kang was also the first of his player type to try to come over, so Park benefits some from Kang’s success. Yet, the contract isn’t where the real effect is observed.

Because of Kang, other Korean players will draw more attention. They’ll be more highly valued. And that shows up in the posting fee: the Twins had to bid a lot more than the Pirates did the first time around, because there was increased competition and they really wanted to bring Park into the fold. In bidding for Park initially, the Twins faced competition from the rest of the league. But because of the system, once the Twins were declared the winners and once Park’s Korean team accepted the bid, the Twins wound up with almost all the leverage. They were the only team that could negotiate, and all Park could do was threaten to go back and wait two years for free agency. Such a threat would’ve been almost empty.

Some have said the Twins took advantage of Park’s eagerness to try to play in the majors. Park himself says he’s content. Of course, Park wasn’t going to say anything else, and millions of dollars are millions of dollars. He’s getting a chance he might not have thought would be possible a few years ago. Like Kang, Park can make a difference for future Korean players, down the road. Park deserves more money, though. This isn’t what his market value would be. The Twins did take advantage, but not because they’re monsters — this is just how the system is, and no team would be willing to shower Park with money just because. This system doesn’t benefit the players. The Twins did what they had to, and no more. It’s something of a shame, and players should get more of the share in an ideal world, but now Park gets to be an everyday DH or first baseman at the highest level of baseball in the world, and he’ll have a whole country behind him. The point is, Park isn’t getting screwed.

The profile is what it was: Park can hit the crap out of the ball. His power is real, even if he won’t hit 50 homers a season in the majors, and he manages to pair some walks with his strikeouts. He’s said to be a decent first baseman. For the sake of quick comparison, the Orioles just picked up Mark Trumbo from the Mariners for basically nothing, and he figures to get about $9 million next year. The Astros might non-tender Chris Carter, who’s in line for a salary just under $6 million, but he should make around that much, wherever he goes. Trumbo, the last two years, has been a replacement-level player, by our WAR. Carter has a career mark of just over 2 WAR in just over 2,000 plate appearances. Given Park’s ability and upside, you can see he should get more. The posting fee, of course, is a big part of the Twins’ investment — it’s more than half of the investment — but Park sees none of that. Now I’m just repeating myself.

Byung-ho Park: interesting player, who might be a good player. The Twins will pay him very little, relatively speaking, through the rest of his career prime. Kang posted a 109 wRC+ in last year’s first half, and in the second half he jumped to 154. If Park adjusts anything like that, this is going to look fantastic. For, you know, the Twins.

In perhaps the easiest move to predict of the entire winter, Dave Dombrowski went and bought his new team an ace. And it’s the same ace he went and bought 18 months ago, for his old team, so I think we can say with a good amount of clarity that Dombrowski likes David Price. A lot.

To lure the best free agent pitcher on the market to Boston, the team gave him the largest contract for any pitcher in baseball history: seven years, $217 million. In addition to the $31 million annual average value, Price also gets an opt-out after the third year, so the deal could be viewed as a three year, $90 million contract, with a four year, $127 million player option that Price can choose to exercise if he gets injured or sees his performance diminish. So not only does Price’s deal beat Max Scherzer’s contract from a year ago in terms of total value and not include the deferred money that Scherzer took to get that total, but he also gets the right to hit the market again and get an even larger payday in a few years if he continues to pitch at a high level over the next 600 innings.

In terms of expectations, this deal beats the crowd’s estimate by $21 million, though my 7/$215M guess ended up being pretty close, though I didn’t think he’d also get an opt-out. Steamer projects him for +5.3 WAR in 2017, so based on our normal assumptions about the free agent market, the $/WAR framework would have had him at just a hair over $240 million. If you think the opt-out is worth about $25 million, then this is almost exactly in line with an $8 million per win estimate for free agents in this market.

David Price’s Contract Estimate — 7 yr / $241.2 M

Year	Age	WAR	$/WAR	Est. Value
2016	30	5.3	$8.0 M	$42.4 M
2017	31	4.8	$8.4 M	$40.3 M
2018	32	4.3	$8.8 M	$37.9 M
2019	33	3.8	$9.3 M	$35.2 M
2020	34	3.3	$9.7 M	$32.1 M
2021	35	2.8	$10.2 M	$28.6 M
2022	36	2.3	$10.7 M	$24.7 M
Totals		26.6		$241.2 M

Assumptions
Value: $8M/WAR with 5.0% inflation
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-27), 0 WAR/yr (28-30),-0.5 WAR/yr (31-37),-0.75 WAR/yr (> 37)

It’s certainly a huge commitment, but it’s a huge commitment for a great player, and Price should help get the Red Sox back to being a playoff contender. Their work certainly isn’t done after adding just one arm, but this is a big first step for the Red Sox.

On Thanksgiving Eve, the Athletics acquired infielder Jed Lowrie from the Astros in exchange for minor league reliever Brendan McCurry. If you haven’t already, you should check out Jeff Sullivan’s piece on Lowrie. This abbreviated missive focuses not on Lowrie, but on the minor league reliever who’s headed to Houston.

An undersized reliever, McCurry fell all the way to the 22nd round in 2014’s amateur draft, but his minor league performance has since lifted him to fringe prospect status. McCurry worked in relief at High-A and Double-A last season, where he pitched exceptionally well. He struck out 32% of his batters faced last season, and finished up with a 2.44 ERA.

McCurry’s numbers are excellent, but plenty of minor league relievers put up excellent numbers, especially in the lower levels. Throw in that he’s nearly 24, and he’s about as fringy as they come. KATOH forecasts McCurry for a mere 0.7 WAR through his age-28 season, making him the 771st highest-ranked prospect. Going by the stats, at least, most organizations have multiple relief prospects just as interesting as McCurry, if not more interesting. His Mahalanobis distance comps help illustrate how rarely guys like this become anything more than Triple-A depth.

Brendan McCurry’s Mahalanobis Comps

	Name	Year	Mah Dist	IP	WAR
1	Austin House	2014	0.23	0	0
2	Seth Frankoff	2013	0.28	0	0
3	Adam Kolarek	2012	0.37	0	0
4	Randy Fontanez	2013	0.42	0	0
5	Zack Thornton	2012	0.47	0	0
6	Cody Ege	2014	0.59	0	0
7	Grant Dayton	2012	0.71	0	0
8	Seth Rosin	2012	0.73	6	0
9	Robert Bell	2009	0.76	0	0
10	Rob Musgrave	2010	0.77	0	0
11	Zach Quate	2010	0.82	0	0
12	Ricky Brooks	2008	0.91	0	0
13	Cody Winiarski	2013	1.08	0	0
14	Mason Mcvay	2014	1.1	0	0
15	Kyle Bellamy	2010	1.12	0	0
16	C.C. Lee	2009	1.12	34	0
17	Jose Valdez	2012	1.22	0	0
18	Christopher Nunn	2014	1.24	0	0
19	Hector Neris	2012	1.25	41	0
20	Justin Kaye	2000	1.31	3	0

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Red Sox have added to their outfield depth today.

Sources: #RedSox in agreement with free-agent outfielder Chris Young on a multi-year contract, pending a physical.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 30, 2015

Chris Young the hitter is one of the better fourth outfielders in baseball today, combining the ability to play all three outfield spots with some lefty-mashing abilities, making him a very nice platoon partner and capable reserve who won’t drag the offense down too far if pushed into regular duty. He gave the Yankees 350 quality plate appearances in just that role last year, putting up +1.2 WAR as a useful part-time player, and now he’ll take his skills to Fenway Park to provide depth behind the young OF trio of Rusney Castillo, Mookie Betts, and Jackie Bradley Jr.

With Betts and Castillo both being right-handed, it would seem that — barring a trade — most of Young’s playing time may come as part of a job-share with Bradley. Or, alternately, the team could be looking at trading Rusney Castillo and replacing him with a left-handed hitting outfielder; they’ve been rumored to have interest in Alex Gordon and Jason Heyward at different points this winter, and while you’re not going to platoon either of those guys, having Young around would be more useful if two of the three OFs were lefties.

Or, potentially, they just might like Young’s fit in their ballpark. After all, he’s about as extreme a pull hitter as there is in baseball.

Chris Young by Field Direction

Field	wOBA
Pull	0.496
Center	0.291
Oppo	0.156

Young is also one of the game’s most extreme fly ball hitters, and since Fenway inflates the value of fly balls to left field, Young’s skillset could work better in Boston than places without a Green Monster to bounce balls off of. So perhaps this isn’t as much about a roster fit as it is a skillset fit.

We don’t have terms of the deal just yet, but the FG crowd had Young down for a two year, $12 million deal in the crowdsourcing project, which sounds about right to me.

Well, the first major free agent domino has fallen, as the Tigers have agreed to sign RHP Jordan Zimmermann to a five year, $110 million deal. While I listed Zimmermann as a potential landmine to avoid this winter, that was with the expectation that he’d end up getting something closer to the 7 year, $140 million deal I guessed, but this comes in even below the crowd’s expected 6 year, $126 million estimate; it is pretty rare that a high-end player signs for less than the crowd expects.

At this price, Zimmermann seems a good bit more likely to be worth the deal. With an assumed cost of $8 million per win this winter, plus 5% annual inflation, this price is almost exactly what you’d expect if you projected Zimmermann as a +3.5 WAR pitcher for 2016.

Jordan Zimmermann’s Contract Estimate — 5 yr / $108.4 M

Year	Age	WAR	$/WAR	Est. Value
2016	30	3.5	$8.0 M	$28.0 M
2017	31	3.0	$8.4 M	$25.2 M
2018	32	2.5	$8.8 M	$22.1 M
2019	33	2.0	$9.3 M	$18.5 M
2020	34	1.5	$9.7 M	$14.6 M
Totals		12.5		$108.4 M

Assumptions
Value: $8M/WAR with 5.0% inflation
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-27), 0 WAR/yr (28-30),-0.5 WAR/yr (31-37),-0.75 WAR/yr (> 37)

That’s certainly not an absurd expectation, given his career track record; he’s averaged +3.7 WAR per 200 innings up to this point, and has been at +3.0 or better in five straight seasons. Steamer has him at closer to +3 WAR for next year, as it’s a little down on him due to the decline in velocity and strikeout rates in 2015, and it doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep suppressing home runs as he did earlier in his career. But even at that somewhat pessimistic forecast, he still looks like about a $90 million pitcher, so this isn’t some huge risk for Detroit. If he stays healthy, this contract will probably turn out fine for Detroit.

It will be interesting to see what Zimmermann signing for less than expected will do to the rest of the mid-tier pitching market. I’d imagine Johnny Cueto’s agents aren’t thrilled with this deal.

Just to be clear, there are two job postings here.

Position: Cincinnati Reds Manager of Baseball Analytics

Location: Cincinnati

Description:

The Cincinnati Reds are seeking a Manager for the team’s Baseball Analytics department. The Manager of Baseball Analytics will work closely with the Senior Director of Baseball Analytics and Manager of Baseball Systems to implement the department’s research and development efforts and statistical models within new and existing applications. We 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 on-field performance.

Responsibilities:

• Work with our Analytics staff to integrate new statistical analyses, models and data visualizations into existing and new applications.
• Design stored procedures and views for baseball operations database systems using Microsoft SQL Server.
• Work closely with front office, coaching and scouting personnel in the compilation, analysis and visual representation of baseball information, including professional, amateur and advance scouting, player development and in-game strategy.
• Conduct research related to baseball strategy, player evaluation and sports science by performing ad-hoc database queries and analysis.
• Assist Director in prioritizing the implementation of new initiatives and continued evolution of existing applications by identifying present and future needs of Baseball Operations staff.
• Serve as project manager for all Baseball Operations analytics projects.
• Ensure that Baseball Operations staff is fully informed of statistical and technological research related to the game and identify new trends.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computational field, such as Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Quantitative Social Sciences or Analytics strongly preferred.
• Experience with Major League front office, sabermetric website or related work.
• Ability to design and implement complex database structures using SQL Server tools.
• Strong understanding of typical baseball data structures, plus knowledge of current baseball research and traditional baseball statistics and strategy.
• Working familiarity with advanced mathematical and statistical concepts, including experience implementing statistical models, simulations, derivations, and graphical representations into software applications.
• Experience with Javascript, R, Python, Perl, and/or other languages a plus.
• Experience with statistical software, programming languages and/or machine learning techniques is strongly preferred.
• Ability to communicate effectively with all aspects of Baseball Operations, Scouting and Player Development staffs, and understand their job functions and subsequent software needs.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please apply here.

…

Position: Cincinnati Reds Baseball Operations Analyst

Location: Cincinnati

Description:

The Cincinnati Reds are seeking an Analyst for the team’s Baseball Analytics department. The Analyst will work closely with the Senior Director of Baseball Analytics to enhance the department’s research and development efforts with respect to statistical models and applications.

Responsibilities:

• Create and enhance predictive models by integrating data from all available sources, including advanced statistical feeds.
• Work closely with the Director and Major League coaching staff to identify trends gleaned from statistical data feeds and develop systems to automate these processes.
• Work closely with front office, coaching and scouting personnel in the compilation, analysis and visual representation of baseball information, including professional, amateur and advance scouting, player development and in-game strategy.
• Conduct research related to baseball strategy, player evaluation and sports science by performing ad-hoc database queries and analysis.
• Ensure that Baseball Operations staff is fully informed of statistical and technological research related to the game and identify new trends.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computational field, such as Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Quantitative Social Sciences or Analytics strongly preferred.
• Experience with Major League front office, sabermetric website or related work a plus.
• Proficiency with SQL and relational databases, using SQL Server tools.
• Strong understanding of typical baseball data structures, plus knowledge of current baseball research and traditional baseball statistics and strategy.
• Working familiarity with advanced mathematical and statistical concepts.
• Experience with R, Python, Perl, and/or other languages a plus.
• Experience with statistical software, programming languages and/or machine learning techniques is strongly preferred.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Excel, Access and Visual Basic for Applications.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving skills, interpersonal and communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with all aspects of Baseball Operations, Scouting and Player Development staffs.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please apply here.