Position: TruMedia Networks Client Support And Content Coordinator

Location: Boston (remote possible)

Description:
TruMedia is seeking a uniquely skilled talent to lead and contribute in multiple areas of our business as our Client Support and Content Coordinator.

One of the primary responsibilities of the role will be managing the content that TruMedia produces. This will include creating public-facing content for our web site, blog and social media accounts, as well producing highly targeted internal content for our current and prospective clients. Currently TruMedia focuses on football, baseball, soccer and cricket – so deep knowledge of any or all of these sports is ideal.

Beyond content, this role will also call for day-to-day interaction with our 50+ clients across professional sports teams and media in an account management setting – with a particular focus on our MLB clients. This person will be our front line support for teams when they have any questions related to our services.

Another responsibility will be as our functional QA lead across all of our products. This means you will provide constant feedback to our engineering team on features and functionality that will improve our offerings. It also means you will need to understand how teams can use our products to improve their processes and decision making.

And finally, we are looking for someone who understands the sports analytics landscape across multiple sports. You won’t necessarily need to build machine learning algorithms and code in JavaScript (though if you can, that doesn’t hurt!), but you do need to have an understanding of how to use data to both tell better stories in the media world, and help teams win more games.
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An early Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everyone. The Nippon-Ham Fighters are reportedly going to post Shohei Ohtani.

Now there’s still an obstacle to be cleared.

The Fighters want the old posting fee of $20 million to be grandfathered into the arrangement, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported there is a “tentative agreement” in place between the MLB and NPB to do just that. Now, the MLBPA simply must sign off. That appears to be the final hurdle.

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Roy Halladay died in a plane crash on Tuesday, in the Gulf of Mexico, near to the Florida coast. He was the only victim, and he was 40 years old. Halladay loved to fly — following his retirement from baseball in 2013, it became one of his major pursuits.

We know Halladay for his career, and it was an incredible one. He ran a four-digit ERA in 2000, and three years later, he won the AL Cy Young. Seven years later, he won the NL Cy Young, and along the way he threw a perfect game and a playoff no-hitter while making an All-Star roster eight times. Out of a career nearly sidetracked before it really began, Halladay fashioned a Hall-of-Fame-worthy record. Few pitchers have ever worked with such efficient tenacity. As an opponent, Halladay seemed something other than human. He seemed something better. Humans aren’t programmed with such laser-like focus.

Halladay was the model of a professional athlete, and, from the sounds of things, he was the model of a person. He made no enemies, even out of his rivals. Those who knew him have always spoken highly. Some baseball players are said to be the most driven. Halladay actually was. Some baseball players are said to be the hardest workers. Halladay actually was. Some baseball players are said to be worth the price of admission. Halladay actually was. Halladay was everything you could possibly want, and that wasn’t a feeling shared just among fans.

I wanted to be Roy Halladay. I’m heartbroken, rest easy Doc.

— dan haren (@ithrow88) November 7, 2017

Roy Halladay was your favorite player’s favorite player. He left the game better than it was, and the same could be said of his community. Halladay was one of the special ones. You mourn the special ones. You mourn everybody, every mother and father and daughter and son, but, you mourn the special ones.

Position: Seattle Mariners Baseball Analytics Intern

Location: Seattle

Description:
We are seeking an individual with a background in statistical analysis and a passion for baseball. The position will work directly alongside the analytics team on a wide range of projects, providing ample opportunity to directly impact front office decision-making. Start and end dates are flexible, and we will consider applicants who are available for only the summer of 2018, but preference for candidates that can start by Feb. 1.
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Position: St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Operations Fellowship

Location: Jupiter, Fla.

Description:
The St. Louis Cardinals baseball club is seeking candidates for a Baseball Operations Fellowship position to be based out of the Jupiter, FL complex. The Fellowship position runs from early 2018 through December 31, 2018. It is a full-time position eligible for insurance consistent with a typical Cardinals full-time employee. Fellows will be compensated based on an hourly rate of pay competitive with similar entry level positions in baseball. This Fellowship position will be a one-year opportunity – Fellows will not return in the same position in 2019. At the end of the Fellowship, the Cardinals and Fellow will jointly determine if there is an appropriate opportunity for full-time employment within the Cardinals.

The Fellowship position is designed to provide entry-level baseball executives with an opportunity to gain experience mainly in the International and Player Development departments at the home of the Cardinals’ Spring Training, Extended Spring Training, Gulf Coast, Florida State, and Instructional Leagues. While working at the direction of the Jupiter-based Directors of the International/Player Development departments, the Fellow will also provide occasional support to the St. Louis front office.

Responsibilities will be driven mostly by baseball activity taking place at the Jupiter complex and will be closely tied to interaction with Minor League players, many of which are international and require assistance in a foreign country. Native-level Spanish fluency is ideal with a high degree of proficiency as the minimum requirement. Duties will include, among others, serving as interpreter, translating documents, assisting on-field personnel with daily planning, supporting recently drafted players upon signing, organization of player immigration documents, and basic analysis of international scouting reports. Training will be provided for any scouting responsibilities associated with the role.

This is an exciting opportunity for entry-level individuals passionate about baseball and willing to start in a highly dynamic environment. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated a strong work ethic, deep enthusiasm for international baseball, and high intellect to quickly adapt and implement on the go. The Fellowship will provide such a candidate with a broad range of experiences across Baseball Operations and the possibility of full-time employment.
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Billy Eppler does not care about baseball writers. A year ago, the day after the World Series ended, he traded for Cameron Maybin to shore up his outfield. Today, the day after the World Series ended, he gave Justin Upton a new contract to convince him to not use his opt-out clause and become a free agent, once again improving his outfield.

The deal seems pretty straight forward; in addition to the $88 million he had remaining on his contract over the next four years if he didn’t opt-out, the Angels added an $18 million guarantee for a fifth year, pushing his new guaranteed total to $106 million over five years. Given what the market is paying for wins these days, this effectively values Upton as something like a +3 WAR player expected to age fairly normally.

Obviously, he was a lot better than that this year, putting up his second best season by WAR in his career, but since signing his last free agent contract, he’s totaled +6.3 WAR over two seasons, so a +3 WAR per year estimate seems about right. Upton might not be the steadiest performer around, but given his base of skills, a little over $100 million for five years seems about right.

The Angels just saw a division rival win the World Series, and the Astros are going to enjoy all the benefits that comes with that over the next few years, making them an even tougher opponent to overcome. But with Upton in the fold at a fair rate, they have a better shot at capitalizing on Mike Trout’s prime than they would have had Upton hit the open market.

Both the Effectively Wild podcast and community are marvelous. And with the help of that community, we have a new t-shirt for sale.

This is the first two-sided t-shirt in FanGraphs history, and it’s a doozy. As has become a FanGraphs custom, the t-shirt was designed by Aaron Gershman of Creative Sentencing, who you should absolutely hire for your next design project. But the cool part about this shirt is that it was made with input from the EW community. Let’s take a look at the broad strokes:

The back, as you can see, is a heat map. But it’s not just any heat map. It’s a heat map of all the things that are (or are not) discussed on the podcast. The items in the red boxes are discussed frequently, those in the white boxes are discussed rarely, and in the blue are things that are never discussed. Let’s take a closer look at the heat map, shall we?

Things like actual baseball games may never be discussed on the pod, but with plenty of Matt Albers and Ned Garver talk, you really can’t go wrong.

These wonderful t-shirts are now available for sale for $30. We have to charge a little more for these since they are two-sided, but we think it’s still a pretty great value. We hope you will too, and will continue to support Effectively Wild, which has been a great addition to the FanGraphs family!

(In other t-shirt news, the “Do You Go To FanGraphs At All?” t-shirts are also back in stock. Get ’em while they’re hot!)

Position: Quantitative Analyst – Sports Science and Sabermetrics, R&D Group

Location: Seattle

Description:
Driveline Baseball is looking for a highly-skilled quantitative analyst to join our growing Research and Development team in Seattle. Driveline Baseball secures contracts with multiple MLB teams year-round, providing external amateur draft reports, player development assistance, and on-site implementation of our physical products we manufacture and develop in-house. Driveline Baseball also trains hundreds of elite collegiate and professional hitters and pitchers in their three warehouse complexes in Kent, Wash. (20 minutes south of downtown Seattle).

The ideal candidate will have interest in both sports science and sabermetrics, with a desire to broaden their horizons into other fields we are pursuing, such as logistics, manufacturing, and rapid prototyping. Candidates will not be judged based on their formal education background, or lack thereof; the best candidates to come through Driveline Baseball have a varied and colorful history with a portfolio of failed, half-completed, and blocked sports projects of all types. Self-starters, initiative-takers, and those with a healthy skepticism of authority fit in well in the R&D department of Driveline Baseball.

Unlike MLB organizations, at Driveline Baseball the members of the R&D team work directly and regularly with minor and major league players. You will be communicating directly with big leaguers who will depend on your statistical and quantitative reports to improve their training methods and their pitch selection. You will also deal directly with front office executives and will be expected to take a managerial role in directing quantitative interns and organizing third-party vendors within months of joining our team.

This isn’t your average quantitative analyst position where you’d be siloed in the front office and seen but not heard – you’ll be on the lines of battle and you’ll be crushing R code at a standing desk. Read the rest of this entry »

George Springer hit the game-winning home run last night, and it was — well, look, these aren’t my words. I’ll let someone else express it.

George Springer just hit the biggest HR in Astros history.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) October 26, 2017

It held up. Unlike previous home runs, it held up, and the Astros won 7-6. And for Springer, it was a game of redemption, because he’d entered in a slump. The playoffs make it hard to figure out a player’s trajectory — when they began, Springer went 7-for-17 against the Red Sox. But he was 3-for-26 against the Yankees, and in Game 1 against the Dodgers, Springer was fitted for a golden sombrero. Springer was at least perceived to be in a rut, and one could argue he might’ve been over-swinging. Now, Springer often swings hard, but here’s a selection from his four Game 1 at-bats.

Fast-forward to Game 2’s 11th inning. This is all I really want to show you. Springer came up with a man on base, and the first two pitches he saw from Brandon McCarthy were balls. Then he saw the same pitch two times in a row. McCarthy threw sliders, sliders that were probably supposed to be further away than they were. But, in any case, at 2-and-0 and 2-and-1, McCarthy threw a couple of low sliders, and Springer swung at them both. Here are the locations, in case you thought I was exaggerating.

Same pitch. Two swings. The first one was a foul ball. The second one led to the decisive line-drive dinger. Let’s look at those swings. Here’s the first!

And here’s the second.

Of course, the swings look similar — hitters have their own hitting mechanics, just as pitchers have their own pitching mechanics. But the follow-through can be a reliable tell, and so, here’s the first, shown as a screenshot.

That’s Springer with, I don’t know, the full wrap. Springer has been a hard swinger since before he even emerged in the major leagues, so there’s nothing astonishing about seeing him swing with such force. But contrast that picture with the next one. Here’s the aftermath of Springer’s second swing at the same low-middle slider.

At 2-and-0, Springer tried to beat the crap out of the ball. At 2-and-1, he cut down on his swing and tried to go back up the middle. The count was obviously different, but it’s not like this was Springer’s two-strike approach, because he wasn’t there yet. You see in the upper image that Springer’s shoulders are completely rotated, and his lower body is turned to face left field. In the lower image, Springer’s lower body is turned more toward center-left, and his shoulders are stopped short of a full rotation. It’s not like Springer was just trying to slap at the pitch — slap swings don’t go for home runs to that area. But, between pitches, Springer changed his mindset, and took a different swing at the same pitch. The twist is that Springer cut down on his swing and wound up with the best possible result. That’s baseball in 2017 for you.

It’s not often baseball gives you virtually identical consecutive pitches. It makes for a convenient comparison, especially when you don’t have a two-strike count involved. George Springer came into the game in a slump, his powerful whack having failed to deliver its usual results. In extra innings, he cut down on that power a little bit. The ball sailed out of the yard. Funny sport.

Position: Colorado Rockies Baseball Research & Development Full Stack Developer

Location: Denver

Description:
The Colorado Rockies are currently seeking a full-time Full Stack Developer within the Baseball Research and Development Department. This individual will be a member of the Baseball Research and Development team and will assist in the continued development of the Rockies’ proprietary Web Application along with the maintenance and development of proprietary databases and APIs. This position requires strong development skills and experience as well as a demonstrated ability for independent curiosity and a commitment to excellence while working within a team.
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