Position: Analyst, Research & Development

The Lotte Giants, a Busan, South Korea-based member of the KBO League since its inaugural season in 1982, are searching for an Analyst in their Research & Development Department.

Job Description:

The R&D Analyst will report to the Director of Research & Development. The role will involve data collection, organization, and distribution across all levels of baseball within the organization. The R&D Analyst will interface daily with people across many departments, including Baseball Operations, Scouting, Player Development, and Major League Operations.

This position is not available as a remote position. The candidate must be able to relocate to Busan, South Korea.

Requirements:

• Experience with baseball-specific technologies. Examples of such technologies include, but are not limited to: Trackman, Rapsodo, high-speed cameras, and Blast Motion.
• Expertise in Microsoft Excel.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Strong understanding of practical application of data in baseball.
• Experience with modern database technologies and SQL.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience with R
• Experience with Python, especially with machine learning frameworks.

Pluses:

• Educational background in math, computer science, economics, statistics or related quantitative field.

To Apply:
If interested in this position, please email your resume and any pertinent work samples to lottegiantsjob@gmail.com.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Lotte Giants.

Baseball Operations Video Editor

Position Overview:
The New York Yankees Organization is accepting applications for a Baseball Operations Video Editor. The Video Editor will be responsible for the day to day creating, editing and delivering of high quality video to the greater Baseball Operations department within the organization. The Video Editor will use computer editing software programs, video switching devices, digital video effects programs and other tools to piece together video components.

Roles/Responsibilities:

• Operate computer editing systems and equipment used for video media and effects for the creation of Baseball Operations videos
• Establish a clear understanding of the storyline and purpose of the video’s creation
• Improve video and sound quality of files/clips using various video software
• Edit videos for Baseball Operations to include preselected music, interviews, sound clips and other important aspects of the project
• Discover and implement new editing technologies and industry’s best practices to maximize efficiency
• Collaborate on video projects with various members of different departments (Major League Coaching Staff, Player Development, Pro Scouting, etc.) within the organization
• Organize workload, manage priorities, meet deadlines and work well within a fast paced, multi-tasking environment, especially within the baseball season
• Quality check videos and deliverables to ensure all assets meet standards, appropriate specs and are ready for upload and archive
• Troubleshoot and identify technical issues as they arise
• Maintain, archive, and expand digital library of video clips for future use

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Please note, this posting contains three positions.

Quality Assurance Engineer

Position Overview:
The New York Yankees organization is accepting applications for a Quality Assurance Engineer as part of their Baseball Systems department. Applicant should have experience working in QA/Testing roles, have strong understanding of different testing types (Functional Testing, Regression Testing, Compatibility Testing), have experience with automating testing frameworks, and knowledge of industry best practices around DevOps and Test Automation.

Roles/Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain automated test suites, libraries and utilities using various automated testing platforms.
• Be involved in all stages of the software development lifecycle to frame testing and validation plans, as well as understand functionality, coverage, and risks.
• Work closely with developers to create test cases, test product functionality, and investigate product failures.
• Perform final validation of customer requirements against finished products.
• Investigate potential data quality issues, determine root causes, and work with data engineers to address them.
• Design internal and external-facing reports to communicate system health.
• Maintain issue logs and manage bug reports.
• Develop and enforce quality assurance standards throughout product teams.

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The long-awaited Mookie Betts trade came to pass Tuesday evening, with the 2018 American League MVP heading to Chavez Ravine in a three-way trade that folded the Minnesota Twins into the mix. A free agent at the end of the 2020 season, Betts adds even more heft to a Dodgers team that won 106 games in 2019.

Also heading to the Dodgers is David Price, who went 7-5 with a 4.28 ERA and a 3.62 FIP in 22 starts for the Red Sox in 2019, accumulating 2.3 WAR in 107.1 innings. It’s a bit unusual to see a player of Price’s reputation essentially become a salary dump in a larger trade, but his recent injury history made the $96 million owed to him over the next three years a daunting prospect for Boston to pick up. While the Dodgers no doubt expect to see real contributions from Price, they likely see the money owed to him as a significant chunk of what they’re “trading” for Betts.

The Dodgers were determined to not give up any of their elite prospects in a Betts trade and that’s exactly what they managed to do. Alex Verdugo took a giant step forward in 2019 and hit .294/.342/.475, good for 2.2 WAR for Los Angeles. With Betts and Cody Bellinger in the outfield, A.J. Pollock under contract, and the team still retaining Chris Taylor and Kiké Hernandez (Joc Pederson is leaving in a separate trade), a very good argument can be made that Verdugo was simply more expendable than Gavin Lux or Dustin May. Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Professional Scout

Department: Professional Scouting
Reports To: Manager, Player Personnel (in addition to VP, Scouting)
Status: Full-time

Dates: Must be available to start by March 15th, 2020. Relocation to Phoenix, Arizona is desirable but not required.

Primary Objective: Support the professional scouting department in all facets of player evaluation.

Essential Functions:

• Provide written evaluations on players, with coverage to be assigned by management.
• Support the professional scouting department with video research and ad hoc special assignments, including Prospect Lists and Players of Interest.
• Assist amateur and international scouting departments on an as-needed basis.

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Major League Baseball’s Diversity and Inclusion Department is proudly sponsoring college students to attend the 9th Annual SABR Analytics Conference (Society for American Baseball Research) to be held in Phoenix, Arizona at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown March 13-15th. The SABR Analytics Conference is a three-day event featuring guest speakers, presentations on the impact of analytics on the game of baseball, and features the Diamond Dollars Case Competition.

The Diversity and Inclusion Department is seeking qualified women and gender non-binary individuals, and candidates from diverse backgrounds who are interested in careers in baseball operations – Salary Arbitration and Economics, Research & Development, Scouting and Player Development.

• Undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to participate
• Individuals with backgrounds in business, computer science, statistics and economics are strongly encouraged to apply

To Apply:
Prospective candidates must submit the following materials to receive full consideration:

• Current resume
• Personal essay (500 words or less)

The application can be found here. Space is limited. The application deadline is Friday, January 31, 2020.

Details:
MLB will subsidize the conference fees (travel, lodging and meals, etc. will be the responsibility of the individual attendees and/or universities/colleges). MLB will also arrange additional educational and networking opportunities in Phoenix, including private meet-and-greets, informational sessions with MLB employees, and tickets to a spring training game.

MLB has a hotel block at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown (100 N. 1st Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004) for a rate of $239 per night (plus tax) for single & double occupancy. Attendees should arrive at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport by 2 pm MST on Thursday, March 12th and depart on Sunday, March 15th after 3 pm MST.

The Rangers beefed up their infield depth over the weekend, signing third baseman Todd Frazier to a one-year contract. The former Reds All-Star will be guaranteed at least $5 million, with a base salary of $3.5 million in 2020 along with a $1.5 million buyout if the team doesn’t pick up his $5.75 million option in 2021.

Adding Frazier is just the latest addition to a team that has been slowly reconfiguring its roster for contention over the last 18 or so months. Adding Frazier to the infield gives the team flexibility to deal with their remaining roster questions in ways that the returning Danny Santana does not. With Delino DeShields gone to the Indians in the Corey Kluber trade, Santana figures to get playing time in center field, making him less available on the infield.

Ronald Guzmán as the starting first baseman presents a significant lineup problem, for whom Frazier represents a fallback. Even if Guzmán doesn’t lose his job completely, the fact that he’s hit .179/.242/.315 against lefties in the majors leaves Frazier as a compelling timeshare candidate — he has a.246/.322/.491 career line against lefties. Frazier’s no longer a Gold Glove candidate at third base, but he’s solid enough at the hot corner to give the Rangers a free hand to play Nick Solak at second — Rougned Odor doesn’t have the longest rope — or in the outfield. Read the rest of this entry »

For some time, the Rays have approached prospect valuation similarly to other small market clubs like Pittsburgh. The short version is that Tampa has valued their prospects more highly than almost any other club because their small payroll means cheap contributors are worth more because they have the least to spend. In recent years, they have also led the farm system rankings and had among the deepest 40-man rosters, causing them to trade valuable prospects like Nick Solak and
Jesús Sánchez due to these two pressures. This dynamic was also clearly at work in last week’s Matthew Liberatore trade.

Adding cheap, controllable major league talent to one of the best teams in baseball is key to the Rays both being better when their present competitive window is open and allowing the team to keep players who they’ve helped improve and create value, thus avoiding the same fate as they did with Avisaíl García. García signed a one-year make-good deal for 2019 for $3.5 million guaranteed; he then made good and got $20 million from the Brewers. Read the rest of this entry »

You might have noticed the URL structure for our player pages changed during the Winter Meetings. We are in the process of updating these pages, and that was our first step. We are planning on making more changes as the winter continues.

Some of these upcoming changes will alter the underlying HTML structure of the page, which could affect data analysis tools you might have built or use. We are creating a legacy version of the pages, so the player pages can be accessed from a direct URL (but not through normal navigation) in their current form for the near future.

To access the legacy version of the pages you will have to add -legacy to the old URL structure. So the statss.aspx becomes statss-legacy.aspx. This will circumvent the redirects to any updates we make to the pages. Below are a list of legacy player page URLs.

Notes

• This is different but related to the URL redirects we did during the Winter Meetings. Using the -legacy URL will circumvent the redirects.
• This isn’t designed to allow for normal browsing on these pages, so no site links will ever point to them. You can only access the legacy pages through the direct URL with the proper query string.
• Some of the controls on these pages might not work. The URL parameters will still work, though.
• We won’t add new features to the legacy pages.
• After we launch the new player pages, the legacy pages might not last forever, but they will give you time to transition to the new pages.

The Royals agreed to sign third baseman Maikel Franco to a one-year, $2.95 million contract with up to $1.05 million in incentives, according to reports on Thursday afternoon. Franco is expected to be the Royals’ everyday third baseman in 2020 and could remain in Kansas City through 2021, as he has a year of arbitration eligibility remaining.

Now 27, Franco was once one of the Phillies’ top prospects and among the top 100 prospects in baseball — Baseball America ranked him third in the system and 56th overall after the 2014 season. But he never reached his lofty potential in Philadelphia. He hit well out of the gate, posting a 129 wRC+ in 335 PA in 2015, but has been unable to repeat those results in the years since. He hit relatively well in 2018, producing both a 105 wRC+ and one of the best bat flips of the year:

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