The Phillies are currently hiring Video Coaching Representatives and TrackMan Operators across multiple affiliate locations.

Position: Video Coaching Representative

Position Overview
Oversee the daily Video Coaching operations at assigned minor league affiliate. Duties will include, but not be limited to, filming and logging home and road games and assisting in daily instructional film sessions with coaches, players, and staff. Representative will also be asked to take part in daily IT assistance within the Video Coaching department and may have the opportunity to contribute in other operational areas including sports science, advance scouting, and analytics as needed.

Essential Duties

• Open and oversee operations of Video Coaching room on a daily basis
• Be able to operate, troubleshoot, and support IP cameras, computer networks, and hard drives Film and accurately log all home and road games using BATS video system
• Upload all logged games to the Phillies Video FTP server in Philadelphia
• Assist with daily video viewing sessions between Phillies coaching staff and players
• Film bullpens, batting practices, and workouts based on requests by Phillies coaches and staff Provide regular status reports to Video Coaching staff in Philadelphia and Clearwater
• Assist with sports science, advance scouting, and analytics initiatives as needed

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or currently enrolled college student
• Must be technology savvy and possess strong knowledge of computers, computer networking, and storage
• Previous experience working with BATS video system is preferred
• Previous experience working in a baseball clubhouse is preferred
• Must possess strong knowledge of the game of baseball
• Must be detail-oriented and well-organized
• Must be able to interact professionally with players, coaches, front office personnel and medical/training staff
• Must be able to work flexible hours, including nights, weekends and holidays
• Must possess strong work ethic
• Must be a team player with strong oral and written communication skills
• Must be active, quick-thinking, and a good technology troubleshooter

Physical Demands and Working Conditions
Must be able to stand and walk in hot conditions for long periods of time.

Position: TrackMan Operator

Position Overview
Log all home games at assigned minor league affiliate using the TrackMan Baseball Analysis software. Operator may have the opportunity to contribute in other operational areas as needed, including sports science equipment maintenance and management.

Essential Duties

• Accurately log all home games of assigned affiliate using TrackMan Baseball Analysis software
• Operate and troubleshoot computer networks
• Upload all logged games to the Phillies TrackMan server in Philadelphia
• Assist with daily analysis between Phillies coaching staff and players
• Assist with special requests from Phillies Minor League Video Coordinator/Phillies Baseball Operations Offices
• Provide regular status reports to Minor League Video Coordinator in Clearwater

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or currently enrolled college student
• Must be technology savvy and possess strong knowledge of computers, computer networking, and storage
• Previous experience working with TrackMan software is preferred
• Previous experience working in a baseball clubhouse is preferred
• Must possess strong knowledge of the game of baseball
• Must be detail-oriented and well-organized
• Must be able to interact professionally with players, coaches, front office personnel, and medical/training staff
• Must be able to work flexible hours including nights, weekends and holidays
• Must possess strong work ethic
• Must be a team player with strong oral and written communication skills

Location Information
The Phillies intend to hire one Video Coaching Representative and one TrackMan Operator for each of the following locations, with the exception of the GCL teams in Clearwater, where they will hire two Video Coaching Representatives (one for each GCL team):

• Allentown, PA (AAA)
• Reading, PA (AA)
• Clearwater, FL (Class A Advanced)
• Lakewood, NJ (Class A)
• Williamsport, PA (Short Season)
• Clearwater, FL (Rookie)

All positions run from mid-March through the end of their respective minor league season, with the exception of Williamsport, which will begin in mid-June, and the Clearwater TrackMan position, which begins in late February.

To Apply
To apply, candidates should send their resume and cover letter to JLipman@Phillies.com with either “Video Coaching Representative” or “TrackMan Operator” in the subject line, along with their affiliate preference if they have one. The team will begin reviewing applications immediately.

The Phillies is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Despite recording 86 wins and finishing just a game out of the Wild Card in 2017, the Brewers have been pretty quiet this offseason. Of course, a lot of teams have been pretty quiet this offseason. Milwaukee added Jhoulys Chacin, which helps, and they’ve brought back Yovani Gallardo, which might help. But little more than that.

Well, until now. The Brewers’ offseason just got loud. In the midst of a busy winter themselves, the Marlins — who’ve already moved Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, and Dee Gordon — have now sent what is likely their most valuable asset, Christian Yelich — to Milwaukee.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic had it first, and the Brewers made it official.

Brewers receive:

• Christian Yelich, OF

Marlins receive:

• Lewis Brinson, OF
• Monte Harrison, OF
• Isan Diaz, INF
• Jordan Yamamoto, RHP

We expected that the package would be significant given Yelich’s talent and a contract that will pay him around $10 million a year for the next five seasons. It is big with Brinson as the headliner. The young outfielder just appeared 18th on Baseball America’s recently released top-100 list, while Eric Lohenhagen placed a 60 future-value grade on Brinson, making him one of the best prospects in baseball.

The deal isn’t just Brinson and filler, either. Longenhagen listed Monte Harrison as the third-best prospect in the Brewers system, with Isan Diaz close behind at the six spot. All three profile as average regulars at least. Yamamoto is more of a project, but he has an above-average curveball.

Just a few days ago, Jeff Sullivan examined a potential Brewers trade for Yelich:

What the Brewers have assembled is a cheap, young foundation. They have dozens of would-be major-league contributors, average starters or plug-in role players. Everyone has his own share of upside. But looking at the 2018 Steamer projections, the Brewers don’t have a single player in the top 150. By WAR, you find Jimmy Nelson ranked at No. 156, and Nelson seemed to break out last season as an ace, but he’s also going to miss the start of the regular season, because he’s coming off major shoulder surgery. And Nelson, it turns out, is the Brewers’ only player in the top 300. I don’t mean to suggest that Steamer is flawless, and I don’t mean to suggest that Ryan Braun or Domingo Santana or Chase Anderson are bad. But this isn’t a club with an obvious star. The best player is a question mark, because of his health. Stars aren’t everything, but good teams tend to need them, which could explain the Brewers’ pursuits. They know they already have plenty of upside, but it’d be good to also have some higher-end certainty.

The Brewers have that higher-end certainty. They might still do more.

Data Quality Analyst

MLB Advanced Media, New York, MLB Advanced Media, San Francisco

Position: Data Quality Analyst

Reports to: Director of Engineering, Data Quality

Location: NYC or SF

MLBAM is looking to fill the position of Data Quality Analyst. As a Data Quality Analyst at MLBAM, you will be part of the newly created Data Quality group, which is responsible for ensuring the utmost integrity of the information maintained and supported by the Baseball Data team, including the Statcast and Gameday applications, and communicating with various stakeholders, including MLB clubs, broadcast partners, and web/mobile properties. In this role you will partner closely with world-class talent across technical, advanced analytics, and subject matter experts to improve our operations and products. You will have some of the richest and most robust data at your fingertips and an opportunity to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Responsibilities

• Investigate potential data quality issues both proactively and responsively
• Respond directly to inquiries from MLB clubs, broadcasters, and MLB/MLBAM leadership
• Compose and edit documentation and communicate best practices to consumers with varying technical backgrounds
• Maintain status reports and issue logs for internal monitoring and external transparency
• Query the database and build statistical reports/models as appropriate to identify and detect trends
• Design internal and external-facing reports to communicate system health and status to various stakeholders
• Correspond with technical and operational leadership to address issues at the deepest level
• Collaborate with the Statcast engineering, database, data science, and content teams to strengthen the next generation of storytelling metrics
• Contribute to the testing and validation of new data, analyses, and solutions

Required Skills & Experience

• Experience communicating professionally in a customer support role with technical and non-technical users via phone, email, blog, instant message, and other media
• Detailed knowledge of cutting-edge tracking technology, including optical and radar systems
• Critical thinking skills and the ability to apply analytical insights to improve data
• Flexibility to work nights, weekends, and holidays, especially during baseball season
• Baseball Fan Strongly Preferred
• Experience servicing MLB clubs and baseball industry vendors from a technical and business development perspective
• Intimate familiarity with baseball tracking systems, especially Pitch F/X and Statcast
• Advanced knowledge of SQL or similar database querying experience
• Familiarity with R and/or Python for data science

Click here to Apply!

This morning, we’re launching The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2018!

This year’s Annual returns with a great line up of contributors from The Hardball Times and FanGraphs — folks like Jeff Sullivan, Eric Longenhagen, Kate Preusser, Adam Dorhauer, Jack Moore, Britni de la Cretaz, Carson Cistulli, Sarah Wexler, Chris Mitchell, Neil Weinberg, and Travis Sawchik, among others — plus a few special guests.

It’s our first online edition, which we hope will make the smart, incisive work in it more accessible and easier to share. And in an effort to bring you as many different kinds of baseball stories as possible, we’re pleased to feature another first — a fiction section.

We’re really proud of the work this team has done to bring you insight across Commentary, Analysis, History, and Fiction, and we hope the Annual helps you pass this slow offseason with a bit more ease. Thank you for reading!

The Hall of Fame is adding to its roster this year with a large class of players. The Eras Committee already elected Jack Morris and Alan Trammell back in December. Today, the BBWAA announced the results of their own vote, which includes four more honorees for next summer: first-time candidates Chipper Jones and Jim Thome, as well as holdovers Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman.

Jones and Thome sailed in on the first try, while Guerrero easily cleared the 75% bar this year after falling 15 votes short last year in his first appearance on the ballot. Hoffman’s path was less direct. After becoming eligible two years ago and appearing on 67.3% of ballots, he fell just five votes short last year. In public voting, he was tracking just above 75% for most of the winter — this after receiving a similar percentage of both the private and public vote.* Given those trends, Hoffman had a good shot at election. He makes it in his third try.

*Not all votes are available, as the Hall rejected the BBWAA’s request that ballots be made public.

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Position: Boston Red Sox Baseball R&D Analyst

Location: Boston, MA

Description:
The Boston Red Sox are seeking an Analyst for the team’s Baseball Research & Development department. The role will support all areas of Baseball Operations while working closely with the VP, Baseball Research & Development, and the analysts on the R&D team.

This is an opportunity to work in a fast-paced, intellectually curious environment and to impact player personnel and strategic decision making.

Responsibilities:

• Statistical modeling and quantitative analysis of a variety of data sources, for the purpose of player evaluation, strategic decision-making, decision analysis, etc.
• Effectively present analyses through the use of written reports and data visualization to disseminate insights to members of the Baseball Operations leadership.
• Maintain working expertise of leading-edge analytics, including publicly available research and novel statistical approaches, in order to recommend new or emerging techniques, technologies, models, and algorithms.
• Other projects and related duties as directed by VP, Baseball Research & Development, and other members of Baseball Operations leadership.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in an analytical field such as statistics, engineering, applied math, physics, quantitative social sciences, computer science, or operations research.
• Demonstrated experience with baseball data analysis.
• Advanced understanding of statistical methods or machine learning techniques.
• Proficiency with modern database technologies including SQL.
• Demonstrated experience with programming languages (e.g., R or Python).
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical ideas to non-technical audiences using data visualization.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word).
• Demonstrated work ethic, passion for baseball, and strong baseball knowledge, including familiarity with current baseball research and analysis.
• Attention to detail while also having the ability to work quickly and balance multiple priorities.
• Ability to work evening, weekend, and holiday hours is a must.
• Other programming and database skills are a plus.

To Apply:
To apply, please send an email to analyticsresume@redsox.com with the subject “Analyst”. Please include the following items/answer:

• Updated resume.
• Example of analysis you’ve done, preferably related to baseball.
• What is a project that you believe would add substantial value to a baseball team? Please describe the project and provide an overview of how you would complete it.

Blue Jays, red birds, Conner Greene. The 22-year-old righty was the lone prospect involved in a trade Friday evening that sent power-hitting OF Randal Grichuk from St. Louis to Toronto in exchange for Greene and reliever Dominic Leone.

Greene is coming off a maddening statistical season at Double-A New Hampshire, where he accumulated a 5.29 ERA in 132.2 innings. He experienced some success till the beginning of summer, entering July with a 3.23 ERA despite erratic command, but started getting shelled as the season continued. Greene has a plus-plus fastball that sits 94-97 and will touch 99. The pitch has heavy sink and arm-side movement, as well as notable downhill angle to the plate — a result, that, of Greene’s size, relatively upright delivery, and high three-quarters arm slot. It’s Greene’s best pitch and he uses it heavily, perhaps too frequently, as his strikeout totals are not commensurate with his quality of stuff.

The curveball (which was bad last fall) has taken a huge step forward and is now Greene’s best secondary pitch. It has traditional power curveball shape, bite, and depth. It projects to a 55 on the scouting scale. Greene’s changeup is inconsistent and a bit easy to identify out of his hand, as Greene is prone to drop his arm slot when he throws it. Due to his loose, fluid arm action and incredible arm speed, though, some scouts project quite heavily on the changeup. It pretty conservatively projects to average and has more upside than that. There’s a chance Greene develops two above-average secondaries to pair with his plus-plus fastball, but no measure of his ability to miss bats indicates anything remotely close to that.

Greene struggles to repeat his release point and has 30-grade control. He walked 13% of hitters he faced in 2017 and 83 total hitters in his 132.2 innings. Unless Greene’s ability to locate greatly improves, he’ll wind up in the bullpen. It makes sense to continue developing him as a starter on the off chance that he develops 45 or better command and simply as a way to get him more reps than he’d get out of the bullpen, but the Cardinals were quick to move Sandy Alcantara to the bullpen last year and seemed inclined to keep him there. They’re thought, by other clubs, to be considering pulling the bullpen ripcord on either or both of Jordan Hicks and Ryan Helsley. Greene would seem to fall into that bucket of still-raw, upper-level arms. He has a chance to pitch as a mid-rotation starter if the command comes, but he’s more likely to be a hard-throwing, above-average bullpen arm. He’s a 45 Future Value prospect.

Kiley McDaniel contributed to the scouting notes on Conner Greene.

Over the past two weeks, the response to our call for a full-time writer has been incredible. As a result, it’s taking us some additional time to give all the applications the attention they deserve.

If you have not yet applied and had any desire to do so, we will be accepting applications until Tuesday, January 23rd at 12:00 AM.

To apply, please follow the instructions in the original job posting.

Despite having failed to record more than 500 plate appearances in any of the past three seasons, outfielder Randal Grichuk has nevertheless produced a total of 6.8 WAR during that same interval — or just over two wins per season. Players who reliably produce two wins in a season are average players. One could make the case with some ease that Randal Grichuk is an average player.

For the St. Louis Cardinals, however, average isn’t sufficient to guarantee a place in the outfield. Dexter Fowler, Marcell Ozuna, and Tommy Pham will start for the club this year and all are superior to Grichuk. Jose Martinez is another outfield option, and he just authored a breakout season. Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill are loitering in the halls somewhere. That abundance of talent is what allowed the club to exchange Stephen Piscotty for a future MVP. And now the Cards have done a similar thing with another totally competent, but not sufficiently excellent, outfield piece.

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Every year in the middle of January, the arbitration process starts with teams and players exchanging contract proposals. And every year — since 2015, at least — we produce a nice little data visualization using arbitration contract data from MLB Trade Rumors.

For those unfamiliar with the arbitration process, here’s the succinct explanation from years past:

Teams and players file salary figures for one-year contracts, then an arbitration panel awards the player either with the contract offered by the team or the contract for which the player filed. More details of the arbitration process can be found here. Most players will sign a contract before numbers are exchanged or before the hearing, so only a handful of players actually go through the entire arbitration process each year.

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