Position: Software Developer, Baseball Informatics

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Description:
The Developer will design, code, and maintain software solutions that allow Baseball Operations to translate information into actionable insights used by decision makers.

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for the design and creation of software systems that will be utilized by Baseball Operations staff.
• Makes use of the existing frameworks in use and data assets within Baseball Operations.
• Makes use of Pirates’ standards and industry best practices to implement elegant and high performance code.
• Participate in gathering and documenting requirements for existing and new software systems in Baseball Operations.
• Understand business processes, required outcomes, and decisions that will be impacted by our use of the software you create and maintain.
• Work with other Informatics developers, interns and consultants in the maintenance and extension of the software development frameworks and tools utilized.
• Be capable in both front-end design and coding techniques as well as service oriented back-end development.
• Assist in evaluating software development tools and techniques for use by Baseball Operations.
• Develop and maintain familiarity with baseball metrics and research.
• All other duties as assigned.

Position Requirements:
Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
• A minimum of two (2) years experience developing software

Desired:

• Experience with Angular 2+
• Mobile UI Design in React Native, Xamarin or similar
• Knowledge of SQL, preferably SQL Server and writing stored procedures and functions
• RESTful Web Service Design

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

What follows is simply a list of prospects who exceeded rookie-eligibility requirements in 2018. They are sorted into FV tiers (as listed at time of graduation) but not ranked within those tiers. Note the players whom we missed in the “Not Ranked” section at the bottom of the list. Lou Trivino (dominant reliever, probably should have been a 45 FV) and Niko Goodrum (a multipositional bat, typically a 45 FV for us) are prominent whiffs. Several of the 35 FV players were graded more highly in previous years (Fletcher, Laureano, O’Hearn, Palka) and they are a lesson in impatience and over-correction. Also take a gander at this piece from last winter, which I think has aged pretty well, especially the list of middle infielders.

Position: Baseball Systems Developer

Department: Baseball Operations

Reports To: Application Development Specialist, Baseball Systems

Job Description:
The Baseball Systems Developer will be responsible for developing, maintaining, testing and implementing web based, packaged, and/or mobile applications to support the Baseball Operations staff. The Systems Developer reviews, analyzes and develops information systems including planning, design, develop, testing, debugging and installation to support the applications and systems of the organization. May be expected to write documentation to describe program development, logic, coding, and corrections.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Work with the Information Technology department, Baseball Systems Development staff, Analytics staff, and senior Baseball Operations staff to understand department needs and develop technical solutions that integrate existing and future applications into the organization’s information systems.
• Employ an iterative software development approach to ensure quick roll-out along with incremental improvements to baseball systems over time.
• Create specifications through gathering and documentation of user requirements as needed.
• Work with Baseball Operations staff to prototype and implement user interfaces that are efficient, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing.
• Provide time estimates for programming tasks based on defined project scope.
• Develop responsive web, mobile, and desktop applications while making use of industry best practices and recommended coding standards to write clear, readable, and efficient code.
• Ensure code quality with the use of automated unit and integration testing.
• Responsible for training staff on use of system, including in-person training or videos, and development and maintenance of a reference manual as needed.
• Provide ongoing support and troubleshooting of all baseball systems, including upgrades to take advantage of new technology.
• Adhere to Reds Information Technologies security standards, support protocols, and server hardware/software build outs.

Experience, Education and Licensure:

• Minimum of a BS or equivalent in Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent; advanced degree preferred.
• A minimum of 2 years of experience developing enterprise level applications utilizing the Microsoft technology stack including the Microsoft .NET framework.
• Requires past working experience in all phases of the systems development life cycle (SDLC), including planning, designing, developing, testing, and deployment of information systems.
• Interface successfully with functional users and clients.
• Proven track record of building customer relationships.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Proficient in Microsoft .NET using C# and WebAPI/MVC Framework.
• Experience using web technologies particularly HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript.
• Knowledge and experience with at least one Javascript application framework such as AngularJS, Vue.js, React, or similar framework.
• Mobile development, relational SQL knowledge, and cloud services are nice to have skills.
• Ability to apply business and industry knowledge to internal applications, databases and systems.
• Additionally, the position requires developing, reporting from, and integrating existing applications.
• Passion for baseball, strong intellectual curiosity, and ability to work with a team framework highly desired.
• Candidate must be available to work non-traditional hours (various nights, weekends, holidays)

Expectations:

• Adhere to Cincinnati Reds organization policies and procedures.
• Act as a role model within and outside the Cincinnati Reds organization.
• Perform duties as workload necessitates.
• Demonstrate flexible and efficient time management and ability to prioritize workload.
• Meet department productivity standards.

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

Equal Opportunity Statement:
The Cincinnati Reds are an Equal Opportunity Employer. It is the policy of the Cincinnati Reds to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion or creed, sex, age, disability, citizenship status, marital status, genetic predisposition or carrier status, sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by law.

Position: Analyst, Baseball Research

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Statistical modeling and quantitative analysis to aid in the creation and improvement of models/tools for decision making in player development, game strategy, scouting, trades and free agency.
• Assist R&D department with data and model quality assurance.
• Prepare reports and presentations to disseminate information throughout baseball operations.
• Facilitate greater knowledge within R&D department of modeling best practices.
• Perform ad hoc quantitative projects to support baseball operations.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in mathematics, statistics, economics, physics or other quantitative field.
• 1-5 years of full-time work experience in a quantitative field.
• Data analyst experience: ability to interpret and analyze statistics.
• Exceptional skill communicating complex statistical concepts.
• Experience with statistical programs such as R, Python, Matlab, SPSS, Stata.

To Apply:
Please visit this site to complete an application.

It’s difficult, as a human person, not to arrive at the conclusion that the world is riddled with injustice. Epictetus felt it keenly. Marcus Aurelius felt it keenly. Owing to the infancy of medical science at the time, probably a lot of other ancients felt it keenly, as well.

Among those feeling it keenly in the year 2018, however, seems to be Cincinnati reliever David Hernandez. On Thursday, the winners of the Silver Slugger Award were announced. Hernandez, it seems, was unimpressed by the results.

It should be noted immediately that Michael Lorenzen and Hernandez were teammates in 2018, so there’s certainly a case to be made that bias is at play here. It should also be noted that, in this case, the “people” who “vote on awards” are major-league managers and coaches. These are important points to establish.

What’s also probably important to establish is that Hernandez, whatever the weaknesses of his rhetorical style, doesn’t lack for evidence.

This is the batting-runs leaderboard for pitchers from 2018. Batting runs account for everything that occurs at the plate. Walk? That’s a way to first base. Grounder to third? That’s also included, in its way. Most of the leaders here have a figure that’s just above zero because most pitchers regress to something even worse than that that.

Not Lorenzen, though. Over 34 plate appearances this year, he hit four homers and slashed .290/.333/.710. Overall, he recorded the top batting line of the year among pitchers with as few as 10 plate appearances:

The actual winner of the Silver Slugger, blameless German Marquez, did reach the .300 threshold, but he also recorded just a single extra-bast hit — a homer off a position player pitching — this season. Lorenzen, on the other hand, hit a double and four homers in roughly half the plate appearances.

Homers like this one, after a weird bunt thing:

There are certainly moments when one is wrong to feel aggrieved. For right-hander David Hernandez, however, this isn’t one of them. His teammate Michael Lorenzen both (a) probably deserved but also (b) didn’t win the Silver Slugger Award for pitchers. An injustice has probably occurred. A minor, minor, minor injustice.

The Houston Astros announced Tuesday afternoon that pitcher Lance McCullers was to undergo Tommy John surgery, causing him to miss the entire 2019 season.

Because fate is crueler to pitchers than German fairy tales are to misbehaving children (in some traditions, Santa Claus has sidekicks who actually eat kids), it’s never a surprise to hear of a pitcher going under the knife. It’s true that Tommy John surgeries have a solid success rate, with the majority of pitchers returning to the mound and resuming their careers — mostly where they were left off. The prospect of elbow surgery certainly isn’t as frightening as various shoulder operations, which are sufficiently risky and cruel that none have a pitcher’s name affixed to them. Still, nobody wants to miss a year-plus of their career due to a medical issue. For the Houston Astros, this complicates both their short- and long-term rotation plans.

One of the reasons the Astros were such a dangerous team in 2018 was the depth of the starting rotation. With the additions of both Justin Verlander and then Gerrit Cole in a six-month period, the team had too many starter — something about which nobody in history has ever complained. It gave them the luxury of being able to absorb some nasty surprises. Without the rotation staying healthier than in 2017, the Astros happily used Collin McHugh and Brad Peacock nearly exclusively as relievers, with sexy results.

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Yankees and CC Sabathia reached an Election Night agreement on a one-year, $8 million contract that keeps the big lefty in the middle of the rotation for another year.

All the Yankees hoped Sabathia would do for the team in 2018 was eat 150-175 innings respectably and cut off the downside risk of the team’s rotation so they wouldn’t have to cross the luxury-tax threshold with a free-agent acquisition. That’s precisely what Sabathia did, his late-career mini-renaissance continuing to the tune of a 3.65 ERA and 8.2 K/9 — his most in a healthy season since 2012, the tail end of his ace years.

There’s no question that Sabathia’s day at the top of the rotation has long since turned to night, but there’s little reason to think he can’t continue to do what he’s been doing for the last few years. Surgery on his knee last month was only a minor one and shouldn’t affect his availability.

Fittingly for someone wearing the same uniform as Mariano Rivera, Sabathia pulled his career off the brink in 2014-15 with the addition of a cutter, a pitch initially taught to him by Andy Pettitte in 2014. It essentially replaced his fastball, a pitch that went from touching 95 in his prime to around 90 in recent years. The cutter hasn’t gotten Mariano-esque results, necessarily — he’s allowed a .238 batting average and .382 slugging percentage on the pitch since 2016 — but it gives him a good complement to his slider, which has always been his key pitch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our 2019 Free Agent Tracker is now live, housing the results from our crowdsourcing effort from the last two weeks. It will update with new contract data as free agents sign.

You might notice a new interface: readers are now able to filter the board choosing multiple teams and multiple positions. Also, in the top-right corner, we’ve put links to leaderboards and projection boards for the free agents.

The crowdsourcing numbers include both the average values and the median values for prospective player deals. The projected WAR uses the Depth Charts projections available on the projection page and player pages. At this point in the offseason, the Depth Charts projections closely reflect Steamer, but the playing time might differ slightly. ZiPS will be added at a later point in the offseason.

If life reveals anything, it’s that the best way to contend with the past isn’t to process it calmly and deliberately but rather to push it far away and pretend it never existed and hope blindly that the future will somehow facilitate better outcomes.

Today, FanGraphs is happy to participate in this very healthy and doctor-approved process by presenting the 2019 Steamer projections. The work of Jared Cross, Steamer represents the first opportunity of the offseason to peer into the gauzy mists of the future. The prorated version of the forecasts (known as Steamer 600) is useful, too, as a sort of quick estimate of true talent.

What does one find in the numbers? That Mike Trout remains strong in the baseball department, for one. And that free agents Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are likely to produce very similar age-26 campaigns. And that, whatever happens next week, Boston left-hander Chris Sale is the AL Cy Young favorite for 2019.

Position: Product Manager, TrackMan Baseball – Baseball Research, Analytics, and Reports

Job description:
TrackMan is looking for an experienced product manager to further develop and expand their baseball research, analytics and reporting products, services, and capabilities.

TrackMan is a Danish company founded, owned and managed since 2003 by three entrepreneurs with a strong passion for sports. Today, they have a global footprint with their headquarters located in Denmark (Vedbaek) and offices in New York, Phoenix, Poland and Tokyo. They employ more than two hundred and fifty people worldwide, half of whom work in Denmark where most of their hardware and software products are developed, tested and manufactured.

Serving as product manager, you will lead TrackMan Baseball’s team of analysts, conduct research to gain key insights from TrackMan data, and develop the baseball reports and tools necessary for all TrackMan customers to use and find value in TrackMan’s unique and valuable data. Customers include not only all professional baseball teams globally, but internal users as well. As a baseball analytics expert with knowledge on the use of data throughout TrackMan’s customer organizations, you will provide guidance and insights to drive their overall business.

If you are a baseball data expert and can create and manage products, this is an exciting opportunity for you to help TrackMan further revolutionize and impact the game of baseball. In the United States, TrackMan technology is installed in all major league and all minor league stadiums, used by all 30 MLB teams for player development and evaluation, and is a core component of MLB’s award-winning StatCast system.

Baseball Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) team management

Serving as the baseball analytics lead for TrackMan baseball, you will:

• Lead a talented and established team of analysts and BI developers
• Be a thought leader both internally and externally on baseball data, and its application and use across baseball
• Survey latest methods and advancements in baseball research to support TrackMan Baseball
• Develop leading data-driven, baseball insights benefitting TrackMan’s broad customer base
• Assist the TrackMan Baseball team in building and managing a sales pipeline for reports and analytics-driven businesses

Product Management and Development

Serving as the product lead for TrackMan Baseball’s research, analytics, and reporting offerings, you will:

• Identify, research, and quantify new data-driven opportunities across all segments of the baseball market, and present findings to management for consideration.
• Interact with, and at times collaborate with, global customers and users.
• Develop and execute an analytics/reporting/tools-based product strategy and roadmap, offering customers the ability to best use TrackMan’s valuable baseball data.
• Develop and manage baseball analytics and BI-based products and services that serve their multiple customer users and stakeholders, including baseball operations, coaches, player development, and scouting.
• Develop visualizations and methods for disseminating analytical results for a variety of users, including less technically and analytically inclined users.
• Work closely with TrackMan’s Denmark-based data engineering team, and collaborate with US, European, and Asian-based counterparts in developing products and services.

Requirements:

• Strong statistical and database understanding along with excellent verbal and written skills.
• Extensive baseball knowledge with experience in the latest baseball research and trends.
• Product development or product management experience.
• Understanding of agile SW development process.
• Strong baseball industry knowledge and experience.
• Experience with leading Business Intelligence SW tools and statistical SW packages.
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively as part of a team.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Excellent people management and leadership skill with the ability to attract, recruit, and retain great people.
• Strong work ethic with an attention to detail, and an ability to self-direct.
• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited university is required.
• Advanced degree in mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering, or other quantitative discipline is desired.
• 5+ years relevant industry experience encompassing quantitative analysis.
• 3+ years of experience managing staff or leading development or research teams.

To Apply:
Applications are continuously assessed, so please send your application as soon as possible. To apply, please visit this site.