Earlier this week, the author published a post claiming to include the top players by (maybe) predictive stats from college baseball’s most competitive conferences.

What follows are the three weekend series likely to feature the greatest number of players whose names appeared within that post. MPS+ and MPS- are index metrics based on those (maybe) predictive stats and designed for batters and pitchers, respectively. In each case, 100 is average, while above 100 is better for batters and below 100 is better for pitchers. Read more about the author’s questionable methodology here.

Arkansas at Texas A&M
Who It Features
One of the best players in all the SEC. Draft-eligible sophomore and Arkansas center fielder Andrew Benintendi (160 PA, 151 MPS+) leads not merely the conference but all of Division 1 with 14 home runs. He’s also recorded a strikeout rate (12.5%) about a standard deviation better than conference average and occupies (one notes) a place on the more challenging end of the defensive spectrum. All five of the following also appear among the conference’s top-20 batters: junior right fielder Tyler Spoon (148 PA, 123 MPS+) and junior third baseman Bobby Wernes (151 PA, 115 MPS+) on Arkansas; plus sophomore right fielder Nick Banks (148 PA, 114 MPS+), sophomore third baseman Ronnie Gideon (107 PA, 118 MPS+), and junior left fielder Logan Taylor (132 PA, 128 MPS+) for Texas A&M. Among pitchers, Arkansas’ Friday night starter Grayson Long (51.0 IP, 86 MPS-) has produced the best numbers. Long features a fastball that sits in the low-90s and peaks at 93 mph, according to Perfect Game.

When It’s On (ET)
Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 8:30pm
Sunday at 4:00pm

How to Watch It
SEC Network and Watch ESPN (link).

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It’s not very often you see Andrew McCutchen making a mistake, but it happened yesterday in Pittsburgh’s 1-0 loss to the Tigers. A tip of the hat to Pirates broadcasters Tim Neverett and Bob Walk for pointing out this interesting wrinkle.

It was the Pirates’ half of the fourth inning, with the game tied 0-0 and Alfredo Simon on the mound for the Tigers. With two outs and nobody on, McCutchen hit a single (the Pirates’ first hit of the game) and stood on first with Neil Walker at the plate.

Walker hit a bloop single to right field. It dropped just in front of J.D. Martinez:

What the baserunner on first, in this case McCutchen, has done since the dawn of time in this instance is go to second — and go to third only if the outfielder terribly misplays the ball. Here is McCutchen at second, monitoring Martinez to see if he misplays the ball. (He doesn’t.)

The modern(ish) wrinkle here is that the Tigers were shifting against Walker. Here is their formation before the pitch (click to embiggen):

And here is what their defense looked like the moment McCutchen was rounding second. Martinez is throwing in the ball from right, and arrows are pointing at Tigers, while McCutchen is in the tiny circle:

So here’s McCutchen’s mistake: he should not be looking at Martinez, because it almost doesn’t matter how Martinez plays this ball. What’s important is that Detroit’s shift has left third base vacated. Third basemen Nick Castellanos (underneath top arrow) is near McCutchen at second base, and also facing Martinez. Castellanos is a few steps closer to third, but that doesn’t matter: he would need to turn around, beat McCutchen in a footrace, turn back towards the field (only now can the relay man deliver the throw), see and catch the ball, and finally apply the tag. Simon (underneath second arrow) is a bit closer to third base, but is also faced towards right field, and I’d take McCutchen in the race to apply the tag.

It seems like the only Tiger aware of the danger is catcher James McCann, playing in career game #13, who is moving up the third-base line while facing right field. Despite his gear, he would have been the only Tiger to have a shot at catching McCutchen. Nice.

Keep in mind, McCutchen has a great chance to beat the Tigers to third after he has decelerated to a stop, and then turned around. With a more aggressive pre-pitch strategy, I think third base could easily have been his.

We always wonder what factors could lead to the shift’s natural death — or at least a factor that would start the frequency of the shift trending downward. Perhaps enough baserunners going from first to third on well-played bloop singles would do the trick.

Vanderbilt junior right-hander Carson Fulmer entered the spring as a probable first-round selection in this June’s amateur draft. His performances, certainly, have only reinforced the likelihood of that contingency. After hovering among the conference leaders for a while, Fulmer appeared atop the (maybe) predictive leaderboard for the SEC published here earlier this week. His most recent start was his best of the season. Pitching at home against Ole Miss, Vanderbilt produced a 14:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 30 batters over 9.0 innings (box).

Lest there were concern about Fulmer’s endurance or his capacity to maintain velocity into the later innings, the purpose of this post is to assuage that particular concern. The other purpose is to “produce content” lest the author is “fired from his job.” The third and final purpose is to use do some work with the word lest. For practice, like.

Here, by way of example, is Fulmer’s third-to-last pitch from that start against Ole Miss — a 94 mph fastball:

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Before the start of Saturday’s game between Louisiana State and Auburn, the SEC Network revisited several decisive plays from the previous night’s contest (won 3-2 by LSU) between those same clubs. Present in a disproportionately high number of those clips was LSU junior shortstop — and possible top-10 draft selection this June — Alex Bregman.

On the one hand, this isn’t surprising: as the (maybe) predictive stats reveal, Bregman is among the SEC’s top-10 hitters. Notably, though, none of the footage depicted Bregman’s hitting — but rather only his fielding — exploits from that same game.

The purpose of this post is (first) to steal the aforementioned footage from the SEC Network and then (second) to disseminate it to the FanGraphs readership so that they might experience undue optimism regarding the future of the Pastime.

Here, first of all, is Bregman making a play from the hole:

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Position: Arizona Diamondbacks TrackMan Operator

Location: Geneva, Ill.

Description:
Operator will be responsible for running TrackMan system at the Single-A Kane County Cougars affiliate during each home game. This position is available from April until mid-September.
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Matt Williams wasn’t a happy camper after yesterday’s loss at Fenway Park. It wasn’t so much the final score – Boston won 9-4 – it was the manner in which it transpired. The Nationals played defense like they were allergic to horsehide. A pair of sky-high fly balls were allowed to fall untouched. Ground balls resembled hot potatoes. Bag coverage was shoddy. Only one error was charged, but the ineptitude was undeniable.

The prohibitive favorites in the National League East have lost five of seven games, and while it’s way too early to panic, it’s never too soon for pointed questions. The Washington skipper received several of them after the defensive debacle. Here are a handful of his responses, which were delivered with exasperation and a hint of snippiness:

* “Balls that are up there for four, five seconds need to be caught. Ground balls (that) are hit need to be caught and thrown across the diamond. It’s got to get better.”

* “These are big league baseball players. They’re here because they can catch a baseball. Any time you go out there against a club like this and you don’t catch fly balls, and you don’t catch ground balls, they’re going to kick your fanny.”

* “A wake up call? We’re fully awake, man. Believe me. With all that’s been said about our club, we’re fully aware of it. We’re fully awake.”

* “Last year’s over, man. Last year’s way over. We have to catch the ball tomorrow.”

* “Nobody is playing tight. It’s a function of catching it, making pitches, and getting base hits. Nobody’s tight. Those expectations were there long before today.”

Chances are, this game, and the 2-5 start, will become forgotten footnotes in a pennant-winning season. But for now, Matt Williams’ team is playing poorly, and defense is one of the culprits.

activate the andrelton simmons ridiculous play batsignal

— pete beatty (@petebeatty) April 11, 2015

Like all of us, Pete Beatty is a writer/editor formerly born — and now currently living — in Cleveland who’s also had an entire career (whilst living in New York City) in the publishing industry. What else Pete Beatty is, is someone who has the People’s Interests at heart — and one of those manifest Interests is consuming as many of Andrelton Simmons‘ feats of athleticism as possible before both Simmons and all the rest of us are dead together.

To that end, Beatty has sounded tonight — after witnessing the Atlanta shortstop getting intimate with the Impossible — Beatty has sounded the Andrelton Simmons Ridiculous Play Batsignal. Further to that end, the current author has rendered Simmons’ exploits into animated GIF form, which GIFs one can find below.

Here, for example, in something not unlike “real time”:

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The Washington Nationals were hit with a $300,000 federal religious discrimination lawsuit on Tuesday. The complaint – available here – alleges that the team illegally discriminated against three former ushers – all Seventh-day Adventists – due to their religious beliefs. Although the team allowed the men to miss games during the 2013 season in order to observe their sabbath (sundown Friday through sundown Saturday), the Nationals allegedly fired the three in 2014 when their religious beliefs prevented them from working at least 80% of the team’s games.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers are generally prohibited from discriminating against workers on the basis of their religious beliefs.  In applying the law to cases like the one filed against the Nationals, courts typically require that an employer reasonably accommodate its employee’s religious beliefs whenever possible. This means, for instance, that an employer should generally allow an employee to take a particular day off work for religious observation, so long as this preferential scheduling does not impose an “undue hardship” on the business (such as by significantly increasing the company’s costs, or requiring other employees to work more than their fair share of the hours in a week).

The plaintiffs’ suit alleges that the Nationals were willing to reasonably accommodate their religious beliefs in 2013, setting aside the requirement that ushers work 80% of the team’s games in order to allow the men to observe their sabbath. The men contend that the team changed its policy in 2014, however, and terminated their employment due to their failure to have worked a sufficient number of games the previous season. The suit also asserts that the team could easily allow the plaintiffs to observe their sabbath, as Friday evening and Saturday games are particularly desirable work shifts for ushers, many of whom also maintain other day jobs.

So the new suit would appear to assert a credible case of religious discrimination against the Nationals. That having been said, the team will undoubtedly present another side to the story when it responds to the suit in court. For instance, the team could allege that the three plaintiffs were not retained for the 2014 season for reasons other than their scheduling limitations (such as for poor performance). The team might also argue that allowing the men to miss every Friday evening or Saturday afternoon home game would in fact impose an undue hardship on its business, despite the plaintiffs’ claims that there are plenty of readily available replacements for those shifts.

Although the team could have legitimate defenses to assert on its behalf, it still would not be surprising if the Nationals ultimately decide to settle the case. Being charged with religious discrimination is never a good thing from a public relations perspective. Moreover, despite the plaintiffs’ request for $300,000 in damages, other parts of the suit suggest that they may really just be hoping to be reinstated to their positions for the 2015 season. Time will tell, then, if the team ultimately decides that it’s easier to rehire the men in this case than it is to contest their discrimination claims on their merits.

When I started at FanGraphs eight months ago, I announced our team of prospect writers, with some holdover writers and some new writers I had hired, then I asked for people interested in joining the team to email me. Some of those writers didn’t work out, some have moved on and a lot of you emailed me about coming on board. For those writers from group two that have moved on, I’m 100% happy to see them go on to bigger and better things in the game, because I was also forced to jump form job to job to continue chasing my dream in baseball, so it’s fun to see people I believe in continue their journey.

In that spirit, I wanted to announce some of our prospect writers have moved on to greener pastures. Ron Shah has joined the Houston Astros in a scouting and development role, Zeke Fine has joined the Atlanta Braves as a scout, Eric Longenhagen has joined ESPN to work with Keith Law on the prospect side for Insider and Andrew Krause has joined Perfect Game as their newest full-time employee doing a number of things on the scouting end. These guys have been here for varying tenures: Ron has been with FanGraphs since my first day, Zeke only wrote a handful of articles before Atlanta scooped him up and Andrew was hired away shortly after joining the staff. Andrew’s first article ran today and we have another post that was in process when he left that will appear soon.

The length of their tenure isn’t the important part of this story, as opportunities in baseball come and go at different rates. The takeaway here is the caliber of baseball mind that we’ve been able to have on the scouting end of the things at FanGraphs in the short time I’ve been on board. These four guys were the only four guys I’ve hired while at FanGraphs (at least until I hired Jesse Burkhart two weeks ago) and all came with long track records of writing online and/or multiple recommendations from scouts and executives. For now, I see this role as a platform to prove your talent to a huge audience in the industry, with these four guys proving it can get you a job with a team pretty quickly if things line up just right.

While I’m sad to see this talent walk out the door, I’m also confident that we will expand what we’re doing on the prospect end and that’s one reason why I’ve been soliciting more applications to write for us on twitter. If you missed those, email me (kiley dot mcdaniel at gmail dot com), give me a little background about yourself and some sort of sample of your writing. I’ve already received dozens of submissions that I’m steadily working my way through and I should respond to all of you within the next week (now that I’ve finally finished the team prospect lists). I don’t have a number of people in mind, so it could be one new writer to join Jesse and Nathaniel Stoltz, or a whole bunch of them. We won’t replace these departed writers per se, but we can find people that are just as talented in their own way, play to their strengths and hopefully see you succeed as much as this first group has.

Position: STATS LLC Data Collection Analyst

Location: Northbrook, Ill.

Description:
STATS LLC is the leader in providing sports information, stories, photos, and audio content to industry-leading media companies, professional teams, game companies, and many more. Our customers include, among others, Fox Sports, ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo!, NBCSports.com, The Associated Press, Sirius XM Radio, and numerous professional teams and leagues. STATS was recently named the 29th most innovative company in the world by Fast Company, and placed number one for sports companies.

Responsibilities:
STATS is looking to add to its baseball Data Collection group. We are seeking creative-thinking Data Collection Analysts who thrive in a fast-paced environment and possess an exceptionally high level of attention to detail. Duties include logging data in our baseball pitch type charting software, assessing pitcher game logs, editing scouting reports, and helping with the everyday duties of our Data Collection team.

Qualifications:
Candidates should possess extensive baseball knowledge and excellent oral and written communication skills. College or professional playing experience is a big plus. This position requires between 25-30 hours per week.

Compensation:
This position is compensated, at $13/hour, increasing to $15/hour after a year of excellent work. Night and weekend shifts are required. It has the potential to continue past the baseball season, with duties transitioning to other sports. Work may be enhanced with à la carte Reporter opportunities at the discretion of both the employee and STATS – employees often add an additional 20 hours+ of optional game scoring assignments per week, depending on the time of year. STATS frequently promotes from within – over the last 12 months, 12 employees have been promoted from part-time Data Collection positions into full-time jobs throughout the company.

To Apply:

Apply online directly or view their jobs page for other potential positions.