Job Posting: St. Louis Cardinals – Assistant, Baseball Operations
Assistant, Baseball Operations
Location: St. Louis, MO, USA
Job Summary:
This position supports the Advisor to the President in preparation for, and then through, the upcoming transition to the President role at the end of the 2025 season. Prior to the transition, responsibilities may include research projects, presentation writing, meeting planning and summaries, note-taking and correspondence, and other tasks as assigned. Following Advisor’s transition to the President role, this Assistant will continue in a support role, working closely with the Sr. Executive Assistant to the President. The Assistant will have wide exposure to the baseball operations senior leadership team and all underlying sub-departments. The role will then help ensure top-notch communication and execution throughout baseball ops, provide strategic support for processes and decisions and for the President, and help with projects and research as appropriate.
Job Duties Beginning Immediately:
- Design and produce complex documents, reports, and presentations, for a variety of internal audiences.
- Conduct baseball research projects as directed by Advisor to the President.
- Compose memos and correspondence and assist with other writing and communication projects.
- Become a power user of internal systems and valuation materials. Assist in ongoing efforts to improve and streamline those systems and materials.
- Work to stay current on industry best practices and developments relevant to Cardinals current and future initiatives. Regularly summarize and communicate findings of note.
Job Duties Following the 2025 Season:
- Provide strategic support on various issues, including staffing and department administration, operational process improvements, and player personnel matters.
- Attend various baseball operations staff meetings, take notes, and monitor action items for proactive follow-up as appropriate.
- Work with Sr. Executive Assistant as appropriate to support President, including with scheduling and preparation for internal and external meetings and engagements. Anticipate needs in advance and attend meetings as requested, in a support/documentation role.
- Serve as conduit between and among President and department leaders, to ensure ongoing communication and alignment, and to monitor execution of strategic decisions and planned initiatives.
- Work to gain familiarity with all aspects of baseball operations, in particular to better support President’s oversight of those areas, to promote better communication across departments, and to improve efficiency and excellence of processes.
- Travel to spring training, winter meetings, and occasional other trips as appropriate.
Experience/Qualifications Required:
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, and Word) is required.
- Existing familiarity with data analysis and basic SQL knowledge is desirable, but candidates willing to learn are also encouraged to apply.
- Prior baseball experience is a plus but not required. Experience in other private or public sector jobs (e.g. sports, politics, management consulting, investment banking, technology and/or startups) with fast-paced environments requiring strong communication, organization, writing, and presentation skills is also helpful.
- Humility, curiosity, and ability to interact productively with others.
- Ability to work effectively with various stakeholders in a fast-paced team environment.
- Organized, detail-oriented, and observant.
- Solution-oriented and team-focused, with great ability to build relationships and collaborate.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to create effective presentations.
- Proactive in finding ways to improve existing processes and contribute to the organization’s success.
- Trustworthy; can handle sensitive/confidential info and conversations well.
- Great work ethic; available to work evening, weekend, and holiday hours.
To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.
The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the St. Louis Cardinals.
Let’s Imagine a Different Coby Mayo
by Ben Clemens
September 11, 2025
Every year, the Baltimore Orioles turn out a crop of strapping young hitters who just got done obliterating minor league pitching. You’ve probably heard of many of them. Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser, Jordan Westburg, Samuel Basallo, the list goes on. All six of those guys will be everyday regulars next year; the only reason they aren’t now is because Rutschman and Westburg are on the IL. But lost in that percolation of prospects is Coby Mayo, whose early major league career hasn’t quite gone as expected. I wondered why – and what Mayo could do to capitalize on his promise.
A year ago, Mayo was comprehensively dominating pitchers meaningfully older than him. He posted a 139 wRC+ in Triple-A at age 22, following up on an equally scintillating 2023 season. He was a preseason Top 100 prospect. His raw power was immediately evident to all observers. He looked like he’d be a key piece of the 2025 Orioles’ playoff run. But that run never materialized, and neither did Mayo’s thumping, mid-lineup offense. Instead, he’s hitting .184/.259/.327 and batting ninth for the last-place Birds.
If you watch Mayo play, one thing jumps off the page: his unconventional uppercut swing. I’m not even quite sure how to describe it, but here’s a video of it at its best:
Swing mechanics aren’t my area of expertise, so I’ll just say it has a little funk to it and move on. The point is that he uses that swing to clobber the ball, and he really does accomplish what he sets out to, bad season notwithstanding. He has elite bat speed, and even in this miserable season, he’s posted good raw power indicators; his EV90, barrel rate, and launch angle suggest that he’s going to be elevating and celebrating plenty over the years to come. Read the rest of this entry »
Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/11/25
September 11, 2025
| 12:01 |
 Dan Szymborski: mesdames et messieurs, bienvenue, nobles FanGraphiers et vénérables sabermétriciens!
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| 12:01 |
: Drake Baldwin has had a wonderful rookie season. What would you expect from the rest of his career? Brian McCann had a career year at 22 and never exceeded the numbers he posted that season; Big Dumper hit a stratospheric other level. Where do you see Baldwin going from here?
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| 12:02 |
Dan Szymborski: As I always tell everyone: catchers are weird
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| 12:02 |
Dan Szymborski: Sometimes they peak weirdly, sometimes they stop developing, sometimes they just blow up late somehow
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| 12:03 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure we know which weird way Baldwin will age, so just assume something fairly normal and prepared for Mets level tracknessy (tradgety + wackiness)
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| 12:03 |
: Grisham and Bellinger are both going to be free agents. Do you think the Yankees resign one, both, or neither?
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What Will the Brewers Do If There’s No MeatWaste?
With the NL playoff bracket basically settled (a statement I could live to regret if the Mets keep losing), I’ve started to think about how the various participants match up against each other. Not only did five of these six teams make the playoffs last year, all of those five have made it to October at least three times in the past four postseasons. The Cubs — a recidivist NLCS participant in the mid-2010s who last made the postseason in 2020 — are the closest thing we have to new blood.
Absent some shocking reversal of fortune in the next two weeks, we’re in for an October of sequels. But while there’s often at least one standout team in the bracket — usually the Dodgers, but not always — this year the top six teams in the NL seem fairly evenly matched. At least, every team has flaws.
The most interesting team, at least to me, is the presumptive no. 1 seed: the Milwaukee Brewers. As much of a postseason fixture as the Brewers have become, and as many early-round thrills as they’ve delivered, they’ve only bothered the NLCS once in the past decade, out of six trips to the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »
Braxton Ashcraft Is Angling Toward a Spot in the Pirates’ Rotation
Braxton Ashcraft is aiming to join the Pittsburgh Pirates rotation, hopefully as soon as next season. For now, the 25-year-old right-hander is putting up impressive numbers while being used prudently in his first taste of major league action. Since debuting in late May, Ashcraft has made 23 appearances — all but six of which have come out of the bullpen — while logging a 2.47 ERA and a 2.85 FIP over 58 1/3 innings. Moreover, he’s allowed just 49 hits, only two of which have left the yard.
His previous lack of durability is the reason behind the caution. When our 2025 Pirates Top Prospects list came out in the spring — Ashcraft was no. 2 with a 50 FV — Eric Longenhagen wrote that “injuries are an inescapable aspect of Ashcraft’s profile due to his history and the violent nature of his delivery.” Drafted 51st overall in 2018 out of Waco, Texas’ Robinson High School, the righty entered the year having thrown just 235 professional innings, including a career-high 73 frames a year ago. Counting his time in the minors, he is up to 106 2/3 in the current campaign.
His stuff is clearly plus, and not just because his heater averages 96.9 mph. The best of Ashcraft’s five pitches is his slider, which he’s thrown 32.6% of the time to the tune of a .202 batting average allowed and a 30.7% whiff rate. Delivered at 91.8 mph, it was aptly referred to by our lead prospect analyst as the talented young hurler’s bread and butter.
Ashcraft discussed his repertoire, including the angle that makes his pitches so effective, when the Pirates visited Fenway Park at the end of August.
———
David Laurila: When I talked to him back in February, Bubba Chandler said that you and he are similar in some respects. Do you agree?
Braxton Ashcraft: “In a lot of ways, yes. I think what drives a lot of our success is leveraging counts. His fastball is a lot different than mine in terms of the perception of hitters; his extension is longer than mine, and obviously the velo is a little bit higher. So is the vert. It’s just a different fastball, one that is pretty unique. Read the rest of this entry »
The New Cody Bellinger Has Been Here for a While Now
NEW YORK — It’s hard to stay under the radar when you play at Yankee Stadium, but Cody Bellinger is giving it his best shot.
Splitting time between all three outfield positions, the 30-year-old Bellinger is quietly putting up the second-best season of his entire career. With 4.6 WAR entering play Wednesday, he ranks 18th among all position players. Drafted out of high school in 2013, Bellinger debuted with the Dodgers at age 21 in 2017 and immediately looked like a star. He took home Rookie of the Year honors with a four-win campaign, won the MVP in 2019, and then saw his career derailed by a fractured fibula and multiple shoulder dislocations. The Dodgers non-tendered him after he ran a combined 69 wRC+ in 2021 and 2022, and he signed a pillow contract with the Cubs for 2023. He got back on track with a 136 wRC+ and 4.4 WAR, signed a three-year deal to stay in Chicago, and then got traded to New York after he took a step back in 2024. That step back is starting to look like a blip.
This season, Bellinger been the most valuable Yankee not named Aaron Judge. His 129 wRC+ ranks fifth among the team’s regulars, and he’s tied with Austin Wells for the lead with nine fielding runs. Bellinger’s 28 home runs are his most since his 2019 MVP season.
He is having an interesting year at the plate. In some ways, he looks the same as he has for the past three seasons. Deserved Runs Created Plus, a Baseball Prospectus metric that measures deserved performance rather than actual results, had him at 106 in 2023 and 111 in his down 2024 campaign. This season, he’s at 108. In other words, DRC+ thinks Bellinger has performed at pretty much the same level for the past three seasons, despite the dip in his actual performance and his xwOBA last season. That’s the first big piece of news here. DRC+ thought Bellinger’s step back last year was undeserved, and the fact that he’s returned to his 2023 performance level makes that easier to believe. As Dan Szymborski wrote earlier this week, Bellinger has put himself in position to decline his 2026 option and look for a new deal. The idea that, under the hood, he’s been this good for three years in a row makes him that much more attractive a target if he ends up hitting the open market come November. Read the rest of this entry »
Effectively Wild Episode 2373: The Ballpark Panopticon
September 11, 2025
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss and speculate about the percentage of major leaguers who’ve been inducted into some hall of fame and banter about Elly De La Cruz’s extended slump, Sean Murphy’s hip-to-be-tear revelation, and the perils of playing through injury, then assess where the line is when publicly shaming fans for ballpark behavior, and a pattern of Tigers executive misconduct (plus a postscript).
Audio intro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme 2”
Audio outro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to Poff induction
Link to Poff pod 1
Link to Poff pod 2
Link to Jones HoF comment
Link to Little League Hall
Link to Reds WAR leaders
Link to Elly 2025 splits
Link to Murphy 2023 splits
Link to Murphy story 1
Link to Murphy story 2
Link to Phillies fan summary
Link to dad interview
Link to Phillies fan video
Link to Phillies fan article
Link to Bader bat story
Link to US Open CEO apology
Link to CEO fake apology
Link to The Athletic Tigers report
Link to Ella Black series
Link to immaculate inning list
Link to Pereda vs. Ohtani
Link to Pereda pitches
Link to Kahle pitches
Link to sports-sounds doc
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Tuesday Ended Early for the Athletics
September 10, 2025
First impressions can prove to be fleeting in baseball, but it’s still better to make a good one than a poor one. And as first impressions go, Boston Red Sox rookie Connelly Early’s was absolutely dynamite. Throwing five innings in his debut, Early whiffed 11 A’s batters, with a single walk as a minor demerit, and exited the game with a 5-0 lead that was never threatened.
Even in a strikeout-happy era, striking out 11 of 21 batters faced is an impressive feat. In fact, 11 strikeouts tied Don Aase for the most by a Red Sox pitcher in a major league debut, and Early’s mark is the most ever in a five-inning rookie debut. And it wasn’t done in a particularly easy environment. The Red Sox are a probable playoff team fighting to win the AL East and grab an extremely valuable first-round bye, which would give injured players like Roman Anthony more time to return. And while the Athletics have one of the worst records in the American League, the responsibility for that plight falls mostly on the pitching staff, not the lineup Early faced. The A’s have a 105 wRC+ on the season, well short of elite, but in the solidly above-average range. Nor did Early benefit from a Bad Team September Lineup © situation, with the A’s playing all five of their full-timers who have an OPS above .800.
So how did he do it? Sometimes rookie pitchers simplify their repertoire somewhat while they’re getting adjusted to the majors, but Early threw five different pitches at least 10 times, and got at least three swings and misses on each of them, totaling 19 for the game. His most hittable pitch on Tuesday, his changeup, still had a respectable 70% contact rate, about league average for changeups (70.5%). And with the exception of his sinker, which he only offered up against lefties, he didn’t aggressively limit his toolset based on the platoon advantage, either. (For more on Early’s stuff, I can’t do better or find a more fitting piece for you to read than David Laurila’s May profile of the southpaw.) Read the rest of this entry »
The National League Has Just One .300 Hitter — and Now He’s Injured
Does anybody want to win the National League batting title? Granted, with all these statheads devaluing batting average and instead offering fancier stats that identify more productive hitters, batting titles ain’t what they used to be. Nonetheless, with less than three weeks to go in the regular season, it bears noting that just one NL qualifier has a batting average of .300 or better, namely Trea Turner — and he just landed on the injured list.
The 32-year-old Turner left Sunday’s game against the Marlins in the top of the seventh inning after running to first base, where he was safe on a throwing error by shortstop Otto Lopez. He felt his right hamstring “grabbing on me,” as he described it afterwards, and was replaced by a pinch-runner. An MRI on Monday showed that he’d suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain — thankfully not as serious as the Grade 2 left hamstring strain that knocked him out of action for six weeks last season; the Phillies think he could be back after just a 10-day IL stint. Even so, the move came on the same day that the team also placed third baseman Alec Bohm on the IL due to a cyst in his left shoulder; suddenly the Phillies are down half an infield. Luckily for them, they now own an nine-game lead in the NL East.
Thanks in large part to a 4-for-5 night on Friday, Turner is currently hitting .305/.356/.458 (125 wRC+). That’s the highest his batting average has been since June 17 (.308); he was as low as .281 as recently as August 13 but had been on fire over the past four weeks, batting .420/.448/.620 (197 wRC+) since then to overtake Will Smith (who at the time led the NL at .312), Xavier Edwards (.308), Freddie Freeman (.300) and everyone else vying for the title. Turner already has a batting title, having led the NL with a .328 mark in 2021. Read the rest of this entry »