Please note that this posting contains two positions.

Position: Data Engineer- Baseball Operations

Location: Milwaukee, WI

Summary:
The Data Engineer will work closely with the Data Architect and the Baseball Research & Development team to maintain, enhance, and extend the Brewers databases and data pipelines. They will be responsible for collecting and transforming data from various sources, preparing and distributing for consumption by the department’s systems and analysts. The ideal candidate is an experienced data pipeline builder who excels at automating and optimizing data systems.

Responsibilities:

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned.

• Create, maintain and optimize data ETL pipelines
• Document, troubleshoot, and resolve issues with data processes
• Collaborate with the development and research teams
• Extend our AWS cloud platform initiative
• Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements
• Work with stakeholders to utilize data to create innovative solutions to baseball operations problems
• Prepare datasets for processing and research
• Deploy and maintain system and database monitoring tools.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• SQL knowledge and experience working with relational databases such as SQL Server and PostgreSQL.
• Experience with Object Oriented programming languages such as Java, C#.
• Experience with scripting programming languages such as Python, R.
• Experience with a variety of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data formats including delimited files, XML, JSON and natural language text.
• Experience with software development life-cycle, including requirements definition, design, development, testing, implementation, and iterative improvement.
• Experience with Docker is a plus.
• Experience with AWS Cloud services such as EC2, RDS, S3 is a plus.
• Experience with job orchestration tools such as Airflow is a plus.
• Familiarity with advanced statistical concepts, particularly those relevant to player evaluation techniques including experience implementing statistical calculations and derivations.

Education and/or Experience:
Bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and three to five years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Computer Skills:
To perform the job successfully, the individual must be proficient using Microsoft office software including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Internet Explorer.

Other Skills and Abilities:
Capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends when necessary.

Language Skills:
Ability to read and comprehend simple instructions, short correspondence, and memos. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information in one-on-one and small group situations to department members and non-technical baseball operations staff.

Mathematical Skills:
Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals. Ability to compute rate, ratio, and percent and to draw and interpret bar graphs.

Reasoning Ability:
Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions. Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out detailed but uninvolved written or oral instructions. Ability to deal with problems involving a few concrete variables in standardized situations.

Physical Demands:
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to reach with hands and arms. The employee isoccasionally required to stand; walk; sit and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must regularly lift and /or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision and ability to adjust focus.

Work Environment:
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly exposed to outside weather conditions, which may include heat, cold and various forms of precipitation. The employee is occasionally exposed to moving mechanical parts.

The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet.

Work Hours:
Business hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, however, candidates must be capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends, when necessary.

To Apply:
To apply, please visit this site.

Position: Developer – Baseball Systems

Location: Milwaukee, WI

Summary:

The Milwaukee Brewers are currently seeking a full-time Developer for Baseball Systems. This individual will collaborate with the Baseball Research & Development team and will assist in the expansion and maintenance of an aggregated player information and reporting system. This position requires strong software development skills and experience as well as a demonstrated ability for independent thought and working within a team framework.

Responsibilities:

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned.

• Responsible for design and development of user interfaces/experiences and fast and efficient back-end systems for all new and existing Baseball Operations department systems.
• Assist in creating additional application content and visualizations for organizational share, especially for mobile environments.
• Create necessary data structure to facilitate user-friendly analytical research to be conducted within the Brewers player information/reporting system and additional external applications.
• Identify, diagnose and resolve data quality issues.
• Facilitate discussion between department head and end users as it relates to building easy-to-use and intuitive interfaces that meet their needs.
• Create tests and documentation around new features and functionality.
• Execute exploratory research and analysis directed by the department head, as needed.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• Experience with software development, including requirements definition, design, development, testing, implementation, and iterative improvement. Experience in Agile teams, particularly Scrum, is a plus.
• Proficiency with web development technologies (including C#, Angular, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and JavaScript frameworks). Strong understanding of desktop, laptop and mobile UI/UX design concepts and demonstrated ability to apply responsive design techniques. Particularly focused on representing large data sets in easy to consume user interfaces.
• Knowledge of Microsoft SQL (database management and optimization techniques a plus).
• Working familiarity with advanced statistical concepts, particularly those relevant to sabermetric player evaluation techniques including experience implementing statistical calculations, derivations, and graphical representations into software applications (experience with R and Mathematica a plus).

Education and/or Experience:
Bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and zero to three years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Computer Skills:
To perform the job successfully, an individual should have knowledge of Microsoft office software including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Internet Explorer.

Work Hours:
Business hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, however, candidates must be capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends, when necessary.

To Apply:
To apply, please visit this site.

Last week, Craig Edwards observed that the current Cubs rotation was on pace to become the club’s worst ever. While the team as a whole had prevented runs at something slightly better than an average rate, that was due largely (noted Edwards) to the contributions of the defense. The starters, meanwhile, had performed poorly in those areas (strikeouts, walk, home-run prevention) over which they exerted the most control.

From Edwards’ post:

The Cubs appear to have gone some way towards addressing this particular shortcoming on Thursday night. While nothing’s official, a trade for Rangers left-hander Cole Hamels appears imminent. Per Jeff Passan:

For all his name recognition, the present-day incarnation of Cole Hamels is inferior to the best version of that same pitcher, the one whose on-field exploits for a decade were rivaled only by those produced by a group of starters who will receive real consideration for the Hall of Fame. After recording a successful first full season with the Rangers in 2016, Hamels has authored more ordinary work in the meantime, recording 1.7 WAR in 262.1 innings since the beginning of 2017. That said, both his swinging-strike and overall strikeout rates (9.7% and 17.1%, respectively, in 2017) have returned to his pre-2017 levels (12.3% and 22.7%, respectively, in 2018). He has exhibited, meanwhile, no real signs of velocity decline.

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Hawaiian LHP Kodi Medeiros was part of a high-risk 2014 Brewers draft class that also featured SS Jake Gatewood (who had elite raw power but also contact issues) and OF Monte HarrisonChristian Yelich). On Thursday, he was the centerpiece of two-prospect package traded to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for ageless reliever Joakim Soria.

Medeiros was a curious selection in the middle of the 2014 draft’s first round, as he had command issues and a low-slot delivery that made him vulnerable against right-handed hitters. The gap between where Medeiros was, developmentally, and where he’d eventually need to be in order to profile as a starter was much greater than is typical of a top-15 pick, even as far as high-school pitching is concerned.

After parts of four years in pro ball, Medeiros continues to have issues with strike-throwing efficiency and with getting right-handed batters out, so while he has been developed as a starter (which makes sense if you believe the extra reps help accelerate or improve pitch development), he still projects in relief. His fastball velocity is down beneath what it was when Medeiros was drafted, now residing in the 88-92 range. A move to the bullpen might reignite some of the fire that has been lost and, if it does, then Medeiros’s fastball, plus slider, and low arm slot mean he’ll be death to lefty hitters in late innings.

The White Sox also acquired 20-year-old righty Wilber Perez from the Brewers. Signed as a 19-year-old in July of last year, Perez pitched the rest of the summer in the DSL. He’s still down there and has a 47:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 40 innings this year. His fastball sits in the upper 80s and rarely crests 90, but he can manipulate its shape to have cut. Perez can spin a soft breaking ball, and there’s significant spin rate separation between his fastball and changeup, a favorable trait. He’s a fringe prospect in need of more velocity. There’s room on Perez’s frame for more weight, but most of these guys are relatively maxed out, physically, around age 22, so projecting heavily on a 20-year-old’s velo based purely on physical maturation seems excessive.

The Blue Jays’ made their first move of the deadline last night, sending late-inning reliever Seung Hwan Oh to Colorado for two minor leaguers, CF Forrest Wall and 1B Chad Spanberger. They made their second one this afternoon, exchanging LHP J.A. Happ for IF Brandon Drury and Triple-A left fielder Billy McKinney of the Yankees.

Wall was a comp-round pick out of high school and played second base because of a 40 arm on which he underwent shoulder surgery as an amateur. He’s since moved to center field and is still the advanced hitter he was as a prep, but the game power hasn’t showed up yet and he’s had some minor injuries along with some streakiness. Given the complications along the way, Wall probably ends up as a hit-first, multi-positional fourth outfielder, with some chance of less (an up/down guy) or more (low-end everyday center fielder for a few years). He’s maintained his 45 FV preseason grade.

Spanberger had a hot finish to his draft year last spring at Arkansas, showing off his 70-grade lefty raw power. He’s a late-count power guy who will always strike out some and occasionally gets overeager to launch one, chasing at times. He’s below average in terms of speed, defense, and positional value — and he also has some contact questions — so the power needs to show up in games and he needs to be patient enough to allow it to happen. He’s 22 in Low-A, so he’ll also need to move quicker to avoid becoming a Quad-A slugger or pinch-hitter, the latter of which is a luxury for which most teams don’t have a roster spot. He’s a soft 40 FV, but that will likely change given how he performs next year against more advanced pitching.

McKinney was a first-rounder in 2013 by Oakland and was traded for Addison Russell in an exchange with the Cubs, then again in 2016 to the Yankees in the Aroldis Chapman deal. He’s been a similar player the whole time, a medium-framed left-field-only defender with fringe to average speed, a 40 arm, and an average glove in left. What’s changed is that, in the past few seasons, he’s gone from a line-drive, hit-over-power type (which would probably make him a platoon/bench player) to a power-over-hit type with lift (which fits more in today’s game). With this shift, the outcome looks something like a soft 50 hit grade with 55 game power and a 50 glove, the lefty-hitting side of a solid platoon — and with no service time, to boot. He’s still a 40+ FV for us, as some stuff still needs to go well in the big leagues to turn into a 45+ or 50 FV type player, and there’s no margin for error given his profile.

Due to the various injury setbacks of Zach Davies and the loss of Brent Suter, the Milwaukee Brewers will likely have to address their rotation at some point before the trade deadline. That didn’t keep the team from adding depth to the bullpen today, however. As reported by Mark Feinsand, here’s who’s changing hands:

Brewers get:

• Joakim Soria

White Sox get:

• Kodi Medeiros
• Wilber Perez

Even before the acquisition of Soria, Milwaukee was projected to have the second-best bullpen over the rest of the season according to FanGraphs Depth Charts, which include the Steamer and ZiPS forecasts. The club’s relievers have combined for the third-most WAR in the league to-date, behind only the Yankees and Padres. With Matt Albers coming off the disabled list, there’s a bit of a roster crunch that may very well be remedied by another, because unless I’ve miscounted, his return and Soria’s addition gives the Brewers 15 pitchers on the 25-man roster. Jorge Lopez appears to be the most likely to be shuttled once again to Colorado Springs, but something else might very well be, uh… brewing. Yes, I feel dirty for that pun.

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The first of what will likely be several Blue Jays players to depart Toronto before the deadline has been traded this evening: right-handed reliever Seung Hwan Oh is headed off to Planet Coors. While the majority of the Blue Jays’ most likely trade candidates — Josh Donaldson, for example, and basically all the starting pitchers — have generally been disappointing this year, Oh was one of the legitimate success stories for Toronto in 2018. Coming off a 4.10 ERA/4.44 FIP campaign in St. Louis, a significant decline from the 1.92 ERA he put during his first season in the United States, Oh signed with the Blue Jays for just one year and $2 million this offseason — with a $2.5 million club option for 2019 after his contract agreement with the Rangers fell through. Oh needs his slider working to have sustained success and, by and large, it’s worked this year.

Burned by bullpens that ranked among the bottom-third of baseball each year from 2014 to -16, the Rockies have spent on relievers recently, an effort which led to the seventh-best reliever WAR among clubs in 2017. The team doubled down last winter, spending $106 million to bring back Jake McGee while adding Wade Davis and Bryan Shaw to replace Greg Holland. These moves worked out less well, to be generous: McGee and Shaw have combined for an ERA well past six, while Wade Davis is in the midst of an unremarkable, though less disastrous, season as the closer. With Nolan Arenado creeping towards free agency, the team’s window to contend is now, so bringing in Oh, who can also help in 2019, is a good add, and one that didn’t require an obscene amount of money. Colorado has more problems, but they did address one of their pressing needs.

Of the players included in the return, first basemen Sean Bouchard and Chad Spanberger, the latter is interesting enough — and probably sufficiently low in the organization’s pecking-order — that I tried to acquire him for the Orioles in exchange for Adam Jones this morning. This is the preferable haul for the Rockies, though. Not likely being able to play outfield professionally — and certainly not in a large outfield like the one Coors possesses — Spanberger is probably limited to first or designated hitter. Simply put, with other first basemen in the system and no DH in most games, he didn’t have a great deal of utility for the Rockies. In Toronto, he’ll have more of an opportunity. The Sally League is a long way from the majors and McCormick Field in Asheville is the second-best home-run park in the league (behind Greensboro), but Spanberger’s shown enough raw power that he merits some attention. For a relief pitcher in whom you’ve only invested a couple of million dollars, that’s good enough.

The Rays traded RHP Matt Andriese to the Diamondbacks this afternoon for minor leaguers Michael Perez and Brian Shaffer.

Tampa Bay has targeted basically two kinds of player in trades over the past few years — specifically, big-league-ready types who either (a) could function as a starting pitcher or (b) feature contact skills and the capacity to play an up-the-middle defensive position. Perez, a catcher, fits the latter category and has made strides this year defensively, moving from a 50 to a 55 behind the plate, driven by his improvement metrically in the framing department. There isn’t much in the way of publicly available minor-league framing numbers, and there’s some variance even with the big leagues ones, but multiple front-office sources described Perez’s figures this year as “elite.” He’s a definite hit-over-power type offensively and is seen as a future backup with just mistake power, but sometimes these types can turn into low-end regulars for a few years. He will likely be a 40+ FV in the coming update to THE BOARD, adding to Tampa Bay’s embarrassment of minor-league depth that was already supplemented earlier today.

Perez was the headliner here. Shaffer, meanwhile, is more of a generic depth arm. He was a sixth-rounder in 2017 out of Maryland and would occasionally show fringey stuff (87-91 mph) and sometimes more than that (90-93 mph with above-average life). His 6-foot-5, 220-pound frame is durable and he throws strikes, so any kind of improvement in the stuff department would make him a solid bet to turn into a back-end starter. He’s been mostly 89-92, touching 94 mph, this year with a slider that’s fringey to average and a changeup that’s a little better but mostly average. In today’s game, this is somewhere in the range of a sixth starter, swing man, innings-eating middle reliever or up/down fill arm, as indicated by the fact that Shaffer is still pitching in Low-A at nearly 22 years old. Shaffer will likely be a 35 or 35+ FV.

Here are my very brief thoughts on Jalen Beeks, who was acquired by Tampa Bay from Boston in exchange for Nathan Eovaldi:

Beeks was ranked 6th in a bad Red Sox system entering the year and received a 45 FV grade from us as we thought he had passable control and a deep enough pitch mix to start. He proceeded to dominate the International League and had accumulated 117 strikeouts in 87.1 innings at the time of the trade.

We still have a 45 FV on Beeks, who has a fringe fastball in the 89-93-mph range, an above-average curveball, and an average changeup and cutter. Finding some way for the fastball to play is of paramount importance to Beeks’ ability to start, and it’s probably going to take heavier in-zone use of his curveball to keep hitters from sitting on a relatively hittable fastball. Tampa Bay’s pitchers have used their fastballs less than all other big leagues teams aside from the Yankees, so this seems likely to occur. Beeks projects as a No. 4 or No. 5 starter, and because we’re talking about a lefty with a good breaking ball, his injury-independent floor is that of a good bullpen piece.

You could argue this was Boston’s best realistic trade chip as none of the other 45 FV prospects in the org have really performed this year, and 50 FV prospects Michael Chavis (PED suspension) and Jay Groome (Tommy John) have other issues impacting their value.

It’s somewhat lost in the buildup to the July 31 trade deadline, but this coming weekend is Hall of Fame Induction Weekend in Cooperstown, New York. Saturday, July 28 will feature the presentation of this year’s Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasters (Bob Costas) and the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for writers (Sheldon Ocker), as well as the Parade of Legends. Sunday, July 29 will feature the inductions of six former players, namely BBWAA honorees Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, and Jim Thome, plus Modern Baseball Era honorees Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. Not since 1971 has the Hall inducted as many living honorees. For a full schedule of the festivities for June 27-30, see here.

If you’re among the many thousands of people making the pilgrimage to Cooperstown, you can purchase a signed copy of my book, The Cooperstown Casebook (which was released one year ago today; see Paul Swydan’s review for The Hardball Times as well as an excerpt from “Chapter 6: Blyleven, Morris, and the War on WAR”) and perhaps even talk a little baseball with me on Saturday afternoon. From 1 to 3 pm, I’ll be hawking my wares in front of Willis Monie Books at 139 Main St. Other authors will be signing there, as well, all weekend long.

Whether or not you buy a book, you can see the eight-minute spot I did discussing this year’s class and upcoming candidates with MLB Network’s Brian Kenny (filling in for Chris Russo) on Tuesday’s episode of High Heat:

For more of my yakkin’, I’ll also be part of an MLB Network roundtable on The Rundown on Friday at 2:45 pm ET and then on MLB Now from 4-5 pm.

Finally, if you want to read more about this year’s inductees, I’ve got lengthy, JAWS-flavored profiles of all six of them at SI.com: Guerrero, Hoffman, Jones, Morris, Thome, and Trammell.

Who trades players at 10 AM? The Red Sox, apparently, is who. That’s what they’ve done today, at least, picking up right-hander Nathan Eovaldi from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for minor-league pitcher Jalen Beeks.

Trading Eovaldi represents the successful culmination of a two-year strategy for the Rays, who signed him to a one-year, $2 million contract for a 2017 he was going to miss due to Tommy John surgery. A one-year option for $2 million gave the Rays a chance to get some serious upside in value for their patience, $4 million representing basically ashtray money when it comes to signing major-league-competent starting pitchers.

Eovaldi’s always been a bit of a puzzle, a pitcher who possessed a fastball that touched 100 mph but lacked the key to closing the deal and punching out batters, his breaking pitches never effectively complementing his velocity. Relying heavily on a cutter this year, however, Eovaldi has produced the highest strikeout rate of his career to date (23.7%). Eovaldi had fooled around with the pitch before, but this is the first time he’s had real success with the pitch, FanGraphs’ linear-weighted measure of pitch value gives him the 10th-most valuable cutter in baseball this season, ninth on a rate basic for pitchers with a minimum of 50 innings.

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