Position: Texas Rangers Baseball Operations Intern

Location: Arlington, Texas

Description:
Interns assist in the day to day operation of the Baseball Operations department. Duties will include some of the following (depending on background): compiling and maintaining data, writing reports, developing visualizations, SQL queries, player evaluations, independent research. We’re looking for unique profiles and perspectives – how can your strengths complement our organization?

Possible Profiles/Majors/Backgrounds:

• Scouting
• Applied mathematics, statistics
• Engineering, computer science/software development
• Psychology
• Physics
• Kinesiology
• Economics, business management
• You tell us – how can your specialty contribute?

Qualifications:

• Must be an excellent communicator.
• Must relocate to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
• Passion for baseball.
• Must be very organized.
• Must be willing to work long hours, weekends and holidays.

Compensation:
This position is compensated. An in-person interview is preferred.

To Apply:
Please email resumes and cover letters along with links to any baseball research, blog posts, software or other projects here.

The Royals outperformed their preseason projections here at FanGraphs by a substantial 16 wins. The Royals also assembled one of the best defensive teams in the majors this year — and have done so for much of the recent past. Indeed, from 2011 to 2015, the Royals have produced the league’s highest UZR total (175), averaging 35 runs saved per season above average.

One area I have not seen quantified is the effect a good defense (such as that possessed by the Royals) might have when combined with a low-strikeout pitching staff. Would a good defensive team’s pitchers and defense record more outs and post lower ERAs than FIPs? Probably some, but also how much of difference would it actually make? I decided to perform a quick study to see if there was anything to my little theory.

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Position: Inside Edge Baseball Operations Intern

Location: Minneapolis

About Inside Edge:
Inside Edge Scouting Services specializes in data capture and analytics down to the finest details of every Major League game. Major League clubs, media, and other clients subscribe to our real-time pitch-by-pitch data, custom-tailored reports, and advanced analytic tools to gain an edge on their competition. We provide an exciting, fast-paced work environment and an opportunity to get started on a career in baseball and differentiate yourself from other job seekers. Past interns have gone on to positions with both Major League clubs and media organizations.

Description:
Candidates filling this position will gain valuable experience with technologies and processes increasing their qualifications to work in baseball and the broader sports industry. College and / or professional baseball playing experience is a plus. Hires can expect to begin training March 14, and the position will run until the end of the 2016 season. Interns will need to make a commitment to working most nights, weekends, and holidays over the course of the season.

Responsibilities:

• Participate in a rigorous training program before the season starts.
• Use Inside Edge software to enter and crosscheck live pitch and scoring data.
• Mark actions to be reviewed by supervisors.
• Add, review, and update qualitative player notes.
• Review video replay ensuring integrity of charted data.
• Update internal Inside Edge logs and databases.
• Generate end of game reports.

Qualifications:

• Candidates need a strong understanding of both the basics and subtleties of baseball games.
• Ability to quickly and accurately recognize pitch types and locations.
• Ability to quickly and accurately recognize scoring data.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please email Andrew Pautz.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now ready and waiting to be devoured. It is the 12th edition of the book.

We’ve got a great book this year, including the longest analysis section in the four years I’ve been working on the book — nearly 150 pages! It is available now for purchase direct from both Amazon, and our independent publishing platform, Createspace. It will soon be available for sale on the Kindle as well.

You can read a full breakdown of the table of contents in my post that went up moments ago at THT Live.

This book is a labor of love for us every year. The book is full of posts from our great team at The Hardball Times and here at FanGraphs — Dave Cameron, Jeff Sullivan, Eno Sarris, Carson Cistulli, August Fagerstrom, Jeff Zimmerman, Neil Weinberg, Owen Watson, Chris Mitchell and Jonah Pemstein, among others — plus special guests like Erik Malinowski, Mitchel Lichtman and Phil Birnbaum.

We hope you enjoy it!!!

Position: Kansas City Royals Baseball Analytics Intern

Location: Kansas City

Description:

The Kansas City Royals are looking to add a creative and hard-working Intern to the Baseball Analytics Department. The Intern will work closely with Baseball Analytics to conduct research and develop tools for use by all areas of Baseball Operations (Amateur/Pro Scouting, Advance Scouting, and Player Development). The position will run from February 2016 through the end of the 2016 MLB baseball season.

Responsibilities:

• Work with amateur and professional baseball staff to provide the most relevant statistical support.
• Develop predictive models to assist Baseball Operations in player evaluation.
• Perform advanced statistical analysis on large volumes of baseball data in order to aid in Baseball Operations decision making.
• Monitor latest statistical and baseball research in order to implement the most cutting edge techniques.
• Conduct research on several new types of data to uncover actionable baseball knowledge.
• Work to understand and improve existing information systems.
• Create visualizations to both explore raw data and communicate internal tools throughout Baseball Operations.
• Ad-hoc reports or small studies that come up during the year based on circumstance.

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree or equivalent experience in mathematics, physics, statistics, or related quantitative field. Specialized training, certifications, or published research are a plus.
• Up to date knowledge of statistical analysis techniques, machine learning models, simulation of models and experience with experimental design.
• Experience manipulating (through database systems such as Oracle or SQL Server) and analyzing large data sets.
• Knowledge of baseball and baseball data (Trackman, Statcast, other high frequency data sets) is highly preferred.
• Ability to work evening, weekend, and holiday hours during the baseball season is a must.
• Excellent interpersonal and communications skills and ability to interact and work with staff at all levels.
• Ability to recognize and maintain confidentiality of work materials and issues as appropriate.
• Proficiency with the following tools and/or software are required: R, MATLAB, STATA, Minitab, or similar; SQL or MySQL.
• Proficiency with the following tools and/or software are preferred: Python, C++, or similar.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please apply here.

Position: Chicago Cubs Analyst (Pitching Evaluation), Research & Development

Location: Chicago

Description:

The Chicago Cubs are seeking an Analyst for the team’s Baseball Research and Development group. The role will focus primarily on using an analytical approach for the evaluation and projection of pitcher performance. The analyst will work closely with the R&D team to develop methods to improve the effective understanding and application of in-game pitch data throughout Baseball Operations. The Chicago Cubs are an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Responsibilities:

• Research, develop and test methods and models of pitcher performance to support Baseball Operations decision-making.
• Prepare and explore a variety of pitch data sets and construct workflows to utilize these data.
• Conduct in-depth evaluation of a wide range of major league, minor league and amateur pitchers.
• Work closely with all groups within Baseball Operations to successfully combine analytic, scouting and player development information into integrated evaluations.
• Effectively present analyses through the use of written reports and data visualization methods to disseminate insights to other members of the Baseball Operations staff and leadership.
• Maintain working expertise of state-of-the-art analytics, including publicly available research and novel statistical approaches, in order to recommend new or emerging techniques, technologies, models and algorithms.
• Other projects and related duties as directed by Director, Research & Development and Baseball Operations leadership team.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in an analytic field such as statistics, engineering, applied math, physics, quantitative social sciences, computer science, operations research.
• Demonstrated experience with pitch data analysis and pitch-level datasets (e.g., PITCHf/x or TrackMan).
• Advanced understanding of statistical methods or machine learning techniques.
• Demonstrated experience with programming languages (e.g., C, Python or R).
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical ideas to non-technical audiences using data visualization.
• Demonstrated work ethic and passion for baseball operations.
• Proficiency with modern database technologies.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please apply here.

According to Jeff Passan, the A’s have signed left-handed pitcher Rich Hill to a one year, $6 million deal.

Source: Rich Hill agrees to terms with Oakland. One-year deal for $6 million, pending physical.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 18, 2015

Rich Hill had a big market, and one team said it had a bigger-money offer on table than Oakland's. Hill liked A's guaranteed rotation spot.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 18, 2015

This morning, I ranked Hill at #4 on my Free Agent Bargains post, and wrote the following.

#4: Rich Hill, LHP
Crowd’s Estimate: 1 year, $6 million
Dave’s Estimate: 1 year, $7 million
2016 Steamer Projection: +2.5 WAR

Probably the hardest guy on the market to value, Hill went from a non-roster invite to a fascinating test case in extreme performance in small samples with his dominating September run for the Red Sox. His success came out of nowhere, and it would be irresponsible to expect those four starts to represent some kind of new level of ability that he reached at the age of 35, but at the same time, we also don’t want to entirely ignore the fact that he put together a 29 inning stretch of Kershawian performance.

Over that four start stretch, hitters made contact on only 75% of their swings at his pitches in the strike zone, which is the kind of number that tends to identify skill more quickly than a lot of others. He’s not going to sustain that number — Max Scherzer led all MLB starters at 79% last year — but given that his lack of a track record is going to keep the commitment short, I think it’s worth betting a decent amount of 2016 salary on the chance that there Hill’s crazy finish to 2015 suggests that he’s figured something out.

No one should expect ace-like performance, and you’re basically buying a lottery ticket, but we’ve seen enough Cliff Lee transformations to not entirely discount the idea that Hill could be a quality arm for the team that takes the risk. Maybe he won’t be able to stay healthy; maybe it will turn out to be a colossal fluke. But for the kind of dollars that get you a mediocre bench player with some clubhouse chemistry voodoo, I’d take a flyer on Hill and just see what I get. If there’s even a 20% chance he’s a quality starting pitcher next year, throwing $5 to $10 million his way is a worthwhile use of funds for a team that needs to buy upside on the cheap.

The A’s are the embodiment of a team that needs to buy upside on the cheap, and this is exactly the kind of risk that makes sense for a team in their position. This is similar — though even more risky — to the Scott Kazmir bet they made two years ago, and that turned out quite well for them; it’s not a huge surprise to see them go back to this well. Hill’s upside makes this kind of gamble worthwhile, even if there’s a pretty high likelihood that he doesn’t really give them much value next year. It’s probably best to look at Hill kind of like a prospect, with an absurdly high bust rate but also a chance of returning a lot of value if he pans out.

This past Thursday, the author endeavored to publish here a pair of leaderboards featuring the top average velocities — as recorded by PITCHf/x — among pitchers currently participating in the Arizona Fall League. What the post ultimately served to document, however, was less a collection of hard-throwing prospects and more the author’s own (and already well-documented) incompetence.

Having failed to communicate with MLB Farm’s Daren Willman before publishing that dispatch, what became clear immediately — by way largely of the enthusiastic comments left by readers — was that the data was incomplete. As a result, certain pitchers who’d definitely appeared in a stadium equipped with PITCHf/x cameras were omitted.

I’ve spoken with Willman in the meantime, however, and — after certain generous efforts on his part — it would appear as though the data is currently as robust at it ever will be. That having been established, what follows is an updated pair of leaderboards featuring the top velocities among those AFL pitchers — both overall and also among starters only — who’ve appeared at either of the two PITCHf/x-equipped stadiums. Following those leaderboards are three observations of limited merit.

The pitch type FF denotes a four-seam fastball; FT, a two-seamer. Count denotes the number of the relevant pitch type to have been recorded by PITCHf/x cameras.

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When you give Dave Dombrowski a loaded farm system and a mandate to win, something like this is probably inevitable. The Red Sox new President of Baseball Operations swung his first deal since taking over, bringing Craig Kimbrel to Boston to assume ninth inning duties and give the team a big boost in the bullpen. The cost, however, was quite steep.

To land Kimbrel, Dombrowksi parted with outfielder Manny Margot, shortstop Javier Guerra, second baseman Carlos Asuaje, and left-handed pitcher Logan Allen, which is a pretty remarkable group of prospects to acquire for any player, much less a relief pitcher. Back in August, not too terribly long before the Braves hired him away from us, Kiley McDaniel rated Margot as the #19 prospect in all of baseball, putting a 60 FV grade on him, which put him in the tier of guys that ran from #7 to #20. For context, he ranked Dansby Swanson, who just went #1 overall in this summer’s draft, at #24, with a 55 FV.

From my perspective, Margot for Kimbrel alone would have been a deal worth making for the Padres, but in addition, they’re also getting Javier Guerra, who got upgraded to a 50 FV prospect in that same mid-season update. For context, 50 FV prospects ranked from #80 to #142 last year, so that pegs him as a back-end Top 100 prospect, also a valuable asset. Asuaje got a 40 FV grade and looks more like a part-time player than an everyday guy, but middle infielders who hold their own in AA aren’t nothing. And while Allen didn’t appear on Kiley’s Red Sox list last year or in the mid-season update, Baseball America’s Ben Badler tweeted this out tonight.

And Logan Allen's talent level is commensurate with a second or third-round pick. I know a lot of good scouts who liked that pick by Boston.

— Ben Badler (@BenBadler) November 14, 2015

So that’s a Top 25 prospect, a Top 100 prospect, a guy with 2nd-3rd round ability, and a depth piece with enough upside to be kinda interesting. That is a remarkable return for a reliever, and in my view, quite a bit more than what the Angels gave up to acquire Andrelton Simmons yesterday. Not that the Red Sox needed a young shortstop, but the fact that the Padres got more for a one inning reliever — even a really great one — than the Braves got for a 25 year old above average shortstop is pretty surprising to me.

Of course, we just saw the Royals bullpen their way to the World Series two years in a row, and Jeff just provided some evidence the other day that elite relief aces may bring more value to a team than just their own run prevention abilities would suggest. Kimbrel isn’t a rental, since he’s under contract through 2017, with an option for 2018 as well, so this isn’t necessarily just a win-now move. And the Red Sox have a great farm system, with elite young talents at both SS and CF already in the majors, so Margot and Guerra were likely trade bait at some point.

But this is a very high price to pay for a reliever. Kimbrel’s awesome, and we may very well be selling elite relievers short on their overall value, but Kimbrel didn’t fix the Padres problems by himself, and the Red Sox will have more work to do this winter, and now have fewer chips with which to do it. For A.J. Preller, this is the kind of move that, if he can repeat a few more times, can undo a lot of the damage that was done last winter, and from my perspective, this marks his first big win as a GM.

The Angels and Braves swung a trade last night that sent Andrelton Simmons and catching prospect Jose Briceno to LA in exchange for Erick Aybar and pitching prospects Sean Newcomb and Chris Ellis. Jeff Sullivan had some thoughts on the trade itself last night. KATOH has some thoughts on the prospects involved, which you can find below.

Sean Newcomb, 1.9 WAR

The Angels selected Newcomb with their first round pick in 2014, and he’s been a strikeout machine in the minors thus far. He split the 2015 season between three levels — Low-A, High-A and Double-A — and pitched well at each stop. All told, he finished up with 2.36 ERA and a 29% strikeout rate. However, those strikeouts came with a heavy dose of walks.

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