Please note, this posting contains multiple positions.

Position: Research & Development Intern, Baseball Operations

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Responsibilities:

• Support the Research and Development Department by delivering tools and research that improve decision-making processes for the breadth of Baseball Operations personnel.
• Evaluate and build statistically rigorous models to aid and inform in a variety of areas of baseball operations, including: amateur scouting, advance scouting, player development, and player acquisition.
• Administrative support also expected.

Requirements:

• Proficiency in Microsoft Word and Excel
• Advance knowledge of sabermetric methods and analytical tools (e.g. SQL, R, Python) is preferred
• Major in Operations Research, Math, Statistics, Economics, Physics or Engineering is preferred
• Must be able to lift 35 pounds as needed

Time commitment: March 2020 through October 2020

Hours: 40 hrs/week

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.

Position: Intern, Baseball Operations

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Responsibilities:

• Support the Baseball Department in all areas, including Draft meeting preparation and support during Draft days, post-Draft player pick-up, data entry, filing, and other assigned projects.
• Administrative support is expected throughout the internship, however, there is ample opportunity for areas of personal interest/development through self-determined projects and access to Baseball Operations personnel, information, and systems.
• Other administrative projects, as assigned.

Requirements:

• Proficiency in Microsoft Word and Excel
• General baseball knowledge
• Valid Driver’s License and vehicle
• Must be able to lift 50 pounds
• Able to stand or sit for long periods of time
• Some working knowledge of quantitative analysis (preferred)
• Spanish Proficiency (preferred)

Time commitment: March 2020 through October 2020

Hours: 40 hrs/week

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.

Position: Motion Analysis Intern, Baseball Operations

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Responsibilities:

• Support Motion Performance Coach by providing analysis, insights and recommendations related to player motion data.
• Process, clean and verify integrity of data used for analysis.
• Collaborate with performance staff, coaching staff and baseball operations to improve player health, player performance and proprietary projections.
• Administrative support also expected.

Requirements:

• Advance knowledge of human movement and analytical tools (e.g. SQL, R, Python) is preferred.
• A sense of intellectual curiosity and a penchant for explaining technical solutions to a non-technical audience.
• Majors in Kinesiology or Biomechanics are preferred.
• Must be able to lift 35 pounds.

Time Commitment: January 2020 through October 2020

Hours: 40 hrs/week

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.

Position: Baseball Systems Developer Intern

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Responsibilities:

• Assist with various programming projects to accomplish the objectives of the baseball department.
• Assist in the daily operations of the department.
• Design and code new features and enhancements.
• Collaborate on finding and fixing bugs.

Requirements

• Must detail relevant coursework within resume.
• Experience with JavaScript/TypeScript, C#, and SQL is preferred.
• Current college Junior or Senior pursuing a 4-year degree in Computer Science is preferred,
• Must be able to lift 35 pounds.

Time Commitment: January 2020 through December 2020

Hours: 20 hrs/week minimum during the school year, 40 hrs/week during the summer months

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Minnesota Twins.

Please note, this posting contains two positions.

Position: Atlanta Braves R&D Developer Trainee

Location: Atlanta, GA

Description:

The R&D Developer Trainee position emphasizes software and web development as it relates to the Baseball Operations department. The trainee’s main responsibilities will be to assist the R&D department with building proprietary applications for displaying baseball information and visualizations, maintaining existing information management systems, and developing additional productivity tools to aid in Baseball Operations decision making. Candidates must have proven experience with application and/or web development, with interest in baseball and sports analytics research as a strong plus. The position will report to Assistant General Manager, Research and Development.

Note: Applicants for full-season R&D Developer Trainee positions (Jan-Nov), and summer R&D Developer Intern positions (May-Aug) will be considered.

Responsibilities:

• Assist in the development and maintenance of all proprietary software used within the Baseball Operations department.
• Work with department stakeholders to develop, deploy and test applications within IT best practice parameters.
• Build relationships, communicate effectively, and gather feedback from Baseball Operations staff to build new platforms and improve existing systems.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications:

• Past or expected BA or BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field of study or equivalent work experience.
• Demonstrated software development experience in one or more programming languages: Java, .NET, Python, JavaScript, C#, C/C++.
• Familiarity with database technologies and SQL. Microsoft SQL Server experience is a plus.
• Familiarity with using version control such as git.
• Ability to learn new technologies, including new coding languages.
• Strong work ethic, initiative, and the ability to solve technical problems.
• Ability to work flexible hours, including some nights and weekends as dictated by the Major League season.
• Must complete a successful background check.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of current baseball statistics and analytics used in player evaluation a plus
• Experience with data visualization a plus.
• Solid fundamentals with HTML/CSS.
• Web development experience, especially with JavaScript (Node.js, Vue.js), or Python (Flask)
• Experience with big data techniques
• Demonstrated software development work product.

To Apply:
If you are interested, please email your resume and any other materials to bravesrdpositions@gmail.com.

Position: Atlanta Braves R&D Analyst Trainee

Location: Atlanta, GA

Description:
The R&D Analyst Trainee will assist Baseball Operations decision-making through the analysis and research of baseball information. The day-to-day responsibilities of this position will revolve around using data analysis to provide insight into player evaluation, performance projection, roster construction, and all other facets of baseball operations decision making, with emphasis on different sub-departments depending on the baseball calendar and needs of the department. The position will report to Assistant General Manager, Research and Development.

Note: Applicants for full-season R&D Analyst Trainee (Jan-Nov), and summer R&D Analyst Intern (May-Aug) positions will be considered.

Responsibilities:

• Perform advanced statistical analysis on large datasets in order to assist in the decision-making of the Baseball Operations department.
• Develop software, databases, models, applications, reports, and other information systems to increase efficiency of the Baseball Operations department.
• Perform ad-hoc research projects as requested and present results in a concise manner.

Required Qualifications:

• Strong foundation in the application of statistical concepts to baseball data, including familiarity with current state of baseball research.
• Experience with SQL and relational databases.
• Experience with statistical modeling software (R or Python preferred).
• Ability to communicate concepts to individuals with diverse baseball backgrounds, including coaches, scouts and executives.
• Ability to work flexible hours, including some nights and weekends as dictated by the Major League season.
• Must complete a successful background check.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Extensive experience with statistical modeling and prediction techniques, including regression, classification, and machine learning.
• Web development experience, especially with JavaScript, Vue JS, or Python Flask.
• Experience with at least one scripting language (e.g. Python, Ruby, Perl).
• Experience with big data techniques a plus
• Demonstrated baseball or other sports analytics research work product.
• Ability and desire to learn other programming languages as needed.

To Apply:
If you are interested, please email your resume and any other materials to bravesrdpositions@gmail.com.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Atlanta Braves.

Position: Miami Marlins Data Engineer, Baseball Operations

Location: Jupiter, FL

Description:
The Miami Marlins are seeking a full-time Data Engineer for the Baseball Operations department. The position will be responsible for developing and maintaining ETL processes that ingest, clean, validate, and organize baseball data. The Data Engineer will support the information requirements of the Marlins’ analysts, coaches, and scouts. Strong applicants will have experience with ETL processes and database management, with extensive knowledge of both SQL and object-oriented programming.

Responsibilities:

• Continually enhance the department’s access to information, making new data sources available and improving the completeness, cleanliness, and timeliness of existing sources.
• Develop production quality Python and SQL scripts for automated and ad-hoc data loading, using clean, concise, and modular code.
• Maintain high data quality standards. Proactively identify, diagnose, and resolve data issues.
• Ability to work with a variety of data types (statistics, video, etc.) coming from a multiple different sources (APIs, FTPs, .csvs, etc.).
• Learn, extend, and improve the existing database architecture – ensuring data is well organized for end-users and easy to connect to other data sources.
• Maintain a source controlled code repository of ETL scripts.
• Communicate with analysts and Baseball Operations staff to understand the organization’s information needs. Effectively prioritize workflows and share relevant expertise to best support data users.

Qualifications:

• Strong work ethic, attention to detail, and ability to self-direct.
• Passion for engineering development, creativity, intellectual curiosity.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated experience with SQL.
• Demonstrated experience with object-oriented programming; preferably Python.
• Demonstrated experience with ETL processes and database management.
• Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent.
• Understanding of and passion for baseball and baseball research.
• Ability to work extended hours including evenings, weekends, and holidays.

To Apply:
Please apply with your resume, cover letter, and other supporting materials (relevant past projects) on TeamWork Online here.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Miami Marlins.

Back in July, we launched the RosterResource depth charts, the first of several features moving over to FanGraphs. Today, we have added RosterResource’s payroll pages.

As is the case with the depth charts, these are a near-replica of the RosterResource version. The loading time is faster, however, and player names link to the corresponding FanGraphs player page.  These can currently be accessed by clicking on “Payroll” at the top of the RosterResource pages and then clicking on the team.

Here is most of what you can learn by visiting a RosterResource payroll page.

Player Info

• Contract details (years, total, options, and opt-outs)
• Year-by-year salary breakdown
• Major league Service Time (updated at the conclusion of each season)
• Arbitration eligibility and Free Agency years
• AAV (average annual value of contract)

Team Info

• Estimated Payroll for each year that includes at least one guaranteed contract.
• Estimated Payroll at the end of previous season.
• Estimated Luxury Tax Payroll.
• Dollars due to players no longer with organization.
• Dollars owed by another team.

Players included on each payroll page are separated into three sections:

• Players With Guaranteed Salaries
• Players Eligible For Arbitration
• Notable Players Not Yet Eligible For Arbitration

The Notable Players Not Yet Eligible For Arbitration group has simple criteria: that the player is likely in the major leagues for good, and won’t have their service time interrupted by a demotion to the minor leagues. Players will be added or removed during the season, however, if a situation changes.

For players without a guaranteed contract, we display an estimated salary during the offseason until they have officially agreed to terms. For free agent signings, the annual salary will be broken down evenly across the years of the deal until official numbers are reported. For example, a two-year, $20MM contract will be displayed as $10 million in 2020 and $10 million in 2021. We will update it once the official breakdown is reported. All estimated values will be displayed in italics.

The payroll pages will be updated immediately following the 2019 season to reflect the 2020 through 2026 seasons. If you find anything that’s incorrect, or something that’s not working, please let us know in the comments.

You are now able to add stat (and age!) filters to the Minor League Leaderboards. They work in a similar manner to our splits tools and leaderboards.

The filters are downstream from the main data query, so if your leaderboard stretches across multiple seasons, it will filter out players based on the stat value returned for that time span. For example, with a leaderboard spanning 2018-2019, you can filter for players with 300 or more hits, and it will yield Gavin Lux.

A much-requested feature was the ability to filter by age. Currently, you can filter age on single season leaderboards based on the age-season value, since there’s no single age value for a multi-season span.

Stat Filter Bar Details

• Adding more filters can only narrow the pool of players, because the logical operator between filter is AND.
• The filters operate after the data query; it’s the same as the HAVING statement in SQL.
• This isn’t yet available on the combined Scouting + Stats! board.
• You are able to save your stat filters with your custom reports.
• The playing time query is still handled in the main controls, and not with this filter.
• The player ages used are the age-season values we use on player pages and other leaderboards. These can different from the board and RosterResource, which denote the current age of the player to one decimal place.

Back in March, we introduced catcher framing numbers on FanGraphs. Not long after, Tom Tango noted in a blog post that pitch framing numbers should be park-adjusted since pitchers and catchers in some parks are getting more strike calls (relative to Trackman’s recorded locations) than others.

We can see this in the graph above, which is based on called pitches within a 3.5 x 3.5 inch area in and around the strike zone. There are, on average, 64 pitches per game that meet this criteria so this graph essentially shows how many extra “framing” strikes pitches and catchers were assigned in each park per game. Put another way, this tells us how many more strike calls they received than we’d expect based on the recorded locations of the pitches. We’d certainly expect some spread in the results for home team pitchers and catchers, since some teams have better framers than others, but we shouldn’t see such a large spread for road pitchers and catchers, whom we’d expect to have essentially average framing talent. We also see that there’s a strong positive correlation between extra strikes for the home team and extra strikes for road team, suggesting that the park itself plays a role. There are two big outliers here — Sun Trust Park and Coors Field, both in 2017. Something must be amiss at those parks and we should control for it when calculating our framing numbers.

Adjusting Pitch Framing Numbers for Park Effects

Just as when constructing other park factors, we need to be careful to account for the quality of the players playing in each park. We’ll need to account not only for the pitchers and catchers who played in each park but also for the batters, some of whom have fewer strikes called against them. What we need is essentially a WOWY (with or without you) calculation where we find each park’s tendency to yield strikes, controlling for the pitcher, catcher, and batting team. In practice, it’s easiest to do this with the help of a mixed effects model. We can take the mixed-effects model we used to estimate pitcher and catcher framing and simply add random effects for the ballpark and batting team.

After adjusting for the park and batter effects that we find, we can take another look at the graph that led us here and compare home and road framing at each park, but this time with park-adjusted numbers.

This looks much better! With park effects removed, we still have a significant spread in home-team framing but a relatively small spread in road-team framing.

New Pitch Framing Numbers

For most catchers, our park adjustments make little difference. The graph below plots the new framing runs for catcher-seasons against the old framing runs with 2017 performances shown in red.

The tables below show the team-seasons, catcher-seasons, and catcher careers most affected by the park adjustments.

At long last, FanGraphs Hoodies are back in stock!

Frequently referred to as the “Mike Trout of Hoodies,” the FanGraphs Hoodie features a 52/48-poly/cotton blend and a drawstring that has never gotten lost in my hood.

Get them while you still can.

MLB Senior Data Architect Tom Tango posed an interesting question on Twitter today:

The best questions are usually simple, and this one is perfect. What does average matter? What does slugging percentage mean in the context of two different batting averages? If your OBP and slugging are the same, does it even matter how you get to them?

The first-level answer is “give me the average.” If I’m going to get the same OBP and slug, I’ll do it with extra hits, because hits advance more runners. As you can see, that was the most common answer on the poll.

Go a level up, and you might end up where I was at first. With a lower batting average but the same slugging percentage, Player B is hitting for a ton of power. An easy way to think about the trade-off is that Player B is getting the same number of bases per at-bat (slugging percentage) and reaching base as often (on-base percentage), which means there’s an exchange where Player B adds a base to a hit (stretching a single into a double or a double into a triple) and converts a single to a walk. Read the rest of this entry »

Saberseminar, the excellent annual baseball research conference, kicks off this weekend and that can only mean one thing: it’s almost time for FanGraphs’ Saberseminar meetup at Meadhall in Kendall Square! As we have in years past, we’ve reserved space on the bar’s mezzanine level and ordered some tasty snacks to share. We’ll kick things off tonight at 7 p.m., just in time to have a beer and watch the Red Sox take on Mike Trout and the Angels.

Event Info
Friday, August 9th from 7 to 10 p.m.
Meadhall, Upper Mezzanine
90 Broadway, Cambridge, MA

In addition to many of Saberseminar’s presenters, there will be a number of FanGraphs folks in attendance, including Jay Jaffe, David Laurila, Rachael McDaniel, David Appelman, Sean Dolinar, FanGraphs alum Paul Swydan, and yours truly. It should be a fun evening of good beer and good conversation, and we hope to see you there tonight. Until then, please enjoy this GIF of Mookie Betts being charming.

Position: Web Developer

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Work closely with the entire Baseball Operations department to design and develop new applications to help support the decision process around player development and player evaluation.
• Work closely with the Research & Development Department to support existing applications that directly support front office and field personnel decision making.
• Update existing applications to utilize newer client- and server-side frameworks
• Collaborate with members of the Baseball Operations department to create internal best practices for application development, QA testing and deployment
• Communicate with users to gather system requirements
• Create tests and documentation for bug fixes and new application features/functions

Experiences and Job Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent professional experience required
• Experience with both front and back-end development is preferred
• Demonstrated ability to successfully develop and deploy data driven web applications is required
• Understanding of full-stack web development and agile software development concepts, including CSS, Git, HTML5, Javascript, and responsive design is required
• Experience using Python web frameworks such as Django, Flask, or Pyramid
• Experience with at least one of Python, Ruby, Perl, C++ and/or other programming languages is required
• Experience using jQuery and Bootstrap or other front-end framework
• Experience using Plotly, D3.js and other data visualization tools is a plus
• Experience with SQL and relational databases is required, including experience creating complex queries, stored procedures and functions
• Knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server database design is a plus
• Experience working with baseball data or delivering sports analysis tools and/or applications is a plus
• Ability to read, speak and comprehend English effectively
• Legally able to work in Canada

To Apply:
To apply, please visit this site and complete the application.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Toronto Blue Jays.