Please note, this posting contains multiple positions.
Department: Baseball Research & Development
Reports to: Director, Baseball Research & Development
Status: Hourly Part-Time Seasonal
Position Overview:
The Phillies are seeking passionate and knowledgeable applicants for an entry-level baseball operations associate. This role will provide analytical and administrative support to their baseball operations group and will consist of opportunities to contribute throughout the many facets of the department, including close collaboration with their Research & Development team.
Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
Department: Baseball Research & Development
Reports to: Director, Baseball Research & Development
Status: Full-Time Salary Non-Exempt Intern
Position Overview:
The Phillies are seeking passionate and knowledgeable applicants for an entry-level baseball operations internship. This role will provide analytical and administrative support to their baseball operations group and will consist of opportunities to contribute throughout the many facets of the department, including close collaboration with their Research & Development team.
Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
To Apply:
Interested applicants for the Associate and Intern positions should submit both their resume and an answer to the following question:
Write a brief analysis of the top three starting pitchers expected to be free agents this offseason. How would you advise team decision makers to rank the pitchers for acquisition purposes and why? (max. 300 words)
Please submit your resume and question response to analytics@phillies.com no later than Sunday, October 13, 2019. Applications not sent to analytics@phillies.com will not be considered.
The Phillies is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Philadelphia Phillies.
Please note, this posting contains multiple positions.
The work of a Software Engineer (SWE) at The Phillies extends well beyond merely coding. As a SWE you contribute fresh ideas in a variety of areas, including information retrieval, networking and data storage, security, machine learning, natural language processing, UI design and mobile to shape the evolution of The Phillies baseball analytics systems.
The Phillies ideal engineers will have a versatile skill set, be enthusiastic to handle new challenges and demonstrate leadership qualities. You will work closely with end-users across Scouting, Player Development and the Major League Coaching Staff while building software tools from the ground up. By identifying appropriate design specifications through collaboration with those end-users, you will build applications that conform to user needs.
Specific areas of focus may include, but are not limited to, the draft, free-agency, player valuation, player development, in-game strategy, and injury prevention. As a SWE you will have the opportunity to use your technical expertise to create software solutions that impact decision making at The Phillies.
Department: Baseball Research & Development
Reports to: Director, Baseball Research & Development
Status: Regular Full-Time
Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
Department: Baseball Research & Development
Reports to: Director, Baseball Research & Development
Status: Hourly Part-Time Seasonal
Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
To Apply:
Interested applicants in the Software Engineer and Software Engineer Associate positions should submit both their resume and an answer to the following question:
What competitive advantages does having a great software engineering department provide to an MLB team? (250 word limit)
Tip: There’s no defined right or wrong answer. Responses are used to get some insight into your thoughts on what is important in software engineering.
To apply for either position, please submit your resume and question response to analytics@phillies.com no later than Sunday, October 13, 2019. Applications not sent to analytics@phillies.com will not be considered.
The Phillies is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Philadelphia Phillies.
| 2:00 |
: Hi all — welcome to the chat!
|
| 2:01 |
: Let’s get this bit of awfulness out of the way…
|
| 2:01 |
: Vazquez… Just… *sigh*… Please say he’s going to be out of baseball for good… Please.
|
| 2:01 |
: If you were in charge of the Pirates what would you do with Vazquez?
|
| 2:01 |
: So uhhh Felipe Velasquez eh?
|
| 2:01 |
: Felipe Vazquez 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬
|
NEW YORK — They’ve won back to back National League pennants and clinched their seventh straight NL West title on September 10. They have a four-game lead over the Braves for the senior circuit’s best record. And yet, even as they close in on 100 wins and the top NL seed for the playoffs, the 2019 Dodgers are still a squad very much in flux. Lineup, rotation, bullpen — everywhere, key roles up for grabs, as manager Dave Roberts and his staff spend the remainder of September hoping to find a route through October that will end differently than the last two.
This past weekend’s trip to Citi Field for a three-game series against the Mets, who had won four straight and nine out of their last 13, put all of that on display. Friday night’s 9-2 rout was keyed by a fourth-inning, three-run homer off Noah Syndergaard by rookie Gavin Lux, who despite having just 12 major league games under his belt at this writing is amid a successful audition for the starting second base job. Saturday’s lineup featured an outfield of familiar faces — A.J. Pollock, Cody Bellinger, and Joc Pederson — in a configuration that had been used on just two other occasions in the previous 149 games.
Saturday evening’s pitching matchup, though billed as as one between Cy Young hopefuls Jacob deGrom and Hyun-Jin Ryu, was in many ways a crucial test for the latter, who despite leading all major league starters in ERA had suddenly fallen into a four-start funk. He passed his test with flying colors, delivering seven shutout innings, but the bullpen that followed him did not, surrendering three eighth-inning runs that led to defeat. Sunday brought some familiar moving parts back into the mix, and the bullpen — particularly Kenley Jansen — fared much better in the team’s come-from-behind 3-2 victory.
To be clear, some of this was and will continue to be the usual September shufflings of a playoff-bound team trying to cover for injuries and rest some veterans before the postseason. With Justin Turner nursing a mild left ankle sprain, rookie Matt Beaty started on Friday and Saturday at third base, a position he hadn’t played at the major league level before September, though for as useful as he’s been off the bench, he’s no threat to unseat a healthy Turner. Ryu was starting on nine days of rest, while Walker Buehler, who started on Sunday, was pulled after 71 pitches (his fewest since his season debut on March 31) and five innings, pushing his season total to 171.1, 18 more than last year’s combined total in the minors and majors.
Of course, it helps to have expanded September rosters for such an endeavor, and with the Dodgers, Lux is no window dressing. By the time the team’s 2016 first-round pick made his major league debut on September 2, the Dodgers had already started six other players at second base, including July 31 acquisition Jedd Gyorko, who had debuted there on September 1. Led by Enrique Hernández (84 games, 63 starts) and Max Muncy (67 games, 59 starts) and limited somewhat by injuries to both, as well as to Chris Taylor (20 games, 13 starts), the group — including Lux — hasn’t fared badly, ranking ninth among all 30 teams in both WAR (2.9, led by Muncy’s 1.7 in that capacity) and wRC+ (104). But Lux’s torrid minor league season (.347/.421/.607 with 26 homers), his draft pedigree, and his prospect status (number nine on The Board, up from number 23 in February) earned him this shot, and Roberts has liked what he’s seen. “I see composure,” said the manager of the 21-old rookie prior to Saturday’s game. “There’s a confidence. It’s a really good skill set. I see him starting tomorrow against [Zack] Wheeler. And if he continues to play well, the at-bats will be there.” Read the rest of this entry »
It was never going to be a fun year to be a Detroit Tigers fan. The hundred losses could tell you that, or the fact that the team’s lone All-Star was reliever Shane Greene, who now plays for the Braves. The joy in Tigers fandom was concentrated in the minors this year; in top prospect Casey Mize’s polish, in Matt Manning’s production, in Isaac Paredes showing he was ready for Double-A.
But the major league team wasn’t without its bright spots. Greene performed well enough to net two interesting prospects in a trade, Niko Goodrum scratched out a 2-WAR season, and Matthew Boyd had a first half so nice that the Tigers asked for the world in trade (they didn’t get it). In addition to those major leaguers taking a step forward, there’s one other Tigers performance to get excited about: Spencer Turnbull has quietly been an above-average pitcher in his rookie season.
There were signs that Turnbull could hack it in the major leagues before this year, but nothing decisive. He used his sinker/slider starter kit well in Double-A in 2018, racking up a 25% strikeout rate and 3.16 FIP over 100 innings of work. That sounds excellent, but the hidden downside of performing well in Double-A is that you’re pitching in Double-A rather than the big leagues. Turnbull was 25 then, older than the average age for the league and way past when most top prospects move on.
Still, good pitching is good pitching, and the Tigers were desperate for whatever they could get. After a single dominant outing in Triple-A, where he struck out 7 of the 13 batters he faced, Turnbull was summoned back to the major leagues, where he had had a brief previous cameo as a September call-up. Read the rest of this entry »
In the final moments of the 2019 trade deadline, the Astros shocked the baseball world with their trade for Zack Greinke. As Dan Szymborski put it at the time, “In a league in which money and prospects are meekly handed out when a team has an opportunity to strike a critical blow, Houston keeps demonstrating why they’re one of the best, most focused organizations in baseball today.”
Since the trade, Greinke has been good. He’s pitched 49.1 innings for Houston thus far, posting a solid 3.10 ERA, 3.50 FIP, and 1.2 WAR. His strikeout numbers have dipped (24.0% to 19.5%) since moving from the Diamondbacks to the Astros, but even with this dropoff in performance, it’s hard to say that he hasn’t been worth the cost so far. With that said, of course, the Astros didn’t acquire Greinke to help them get to the playoffs; they acquired him to get through the playoffs. The evaluation of that trade — along with many others made at the deadline — is far from complete.
While Greinke has been solid since the trade, he hasn’t been the best pitcher of those moved in July. That distinction belongs to Kolby Allard, even if it is by a razor-thin margin:
| Rank | Player Name | Team | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kolby Allard | Rangers | 1.3 |
| 2 | Zack Greinke | Astros | 1.2 |
| 3 | Zac Gallen | Diamondbacks | 1.1 |
| 4 | Homer Bailey | Athletics | 1.0 |
| 5 | Nick Anderson | Rays | 0.9 |
| 6 | Jason Vargas | Phillies | 0.6 |
| 7 | Mark Melancon | Braves | 0.6 |
| 8 | Jordan Lyles | Brewers | 0.5 |
| 9 | Sergio Romo | Twins | 0.5 |
| 10 | Chris Martin | Braves | 0.4 |
Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the Twins’ missed opportunity for a mid-plate-appearance pitching change, more mind-boggling home run facts about the year of the dinger, fun facts about the Diamondbacks and Jarrod Dyson, Guy Fieri endorsing Spencer Torkelson and which celebrity character references might make them draft a player higher, and how to answer the Phillies’ interview question for a quantitative analyst position, then discuss Mike Trout’s season-ending injury and what his accumulating missed time might mean for his career.
Audio intro: Sonny & The Sunsets, "The Application"
Audio outro: The Only Ones, "Curtains for You"
Link to Ben on mid-PA pitching changes
Link to story on the one-baserunner Diamondbacks win
Link to video of Rich Aude’s bat flip
Link to 2018 Phillies interview question
Link to 2019 Phillies interview question
Link to Jay Jaffe on the end of Trout’s season
Link to order The MVP Machine
iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Facebook Group
Effectively Wild Wiki
Twitter Account
Get Our Merch!
Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Two years ago, 22-year-old Yoán Moncada, the White Sox’s much-heralded return for Chris Sale, put up a 105 wRC+ and 1.1 WAR in his debut season in Chicago. Eloy Jiménez, this year’s 22-year-old Southside rookie, has about a month left on the first year of his six year, $43 million contract. But his first year has looked familiar: His .259/.309/.489 line with 27 home runs translates to a 108 wRC+ and 1.3 WAR. Recurring hip injuries have limited his production, but it’s still been a mostly successful debut. A key part of Chicago’s future, Jiménez has played particularly well over the last month, and he just captured the AL Player of the Week award.
Long-time Jiménez watchers will recall that, as a prospect, he combined tremendous natural strength with unusually high contact rates, particularly during his years in the Cubs system. This year, he’s hit for plenty of power but his contact rate is just 70%, which is in the league’s 10th percentile among players with more than 450 plate appearances. It’s certainly possible to succeed with a low contact rate — Bryce Harper and Nelson Cruz each make less contact and have a wRC+ above 120 — but you either to need to walk a lot or hit for big power to pull it off; Harper walks 15% of the time, while Cruz has an ISO of .323. Jiménez, meanwhile has a .231 ISO and a 6.1% walk rate. He’s still a good hitter, if not yet a great one.
Fortunately, with his size and natural pop, he doesn’t have to sell out for power. Instead, he can focus on keeping his hands behind the ball and try to hit line drives. This more compact approach is an adjustment from his time in the Cubs’ minor-league system, where he used to hold his hands at helmet height and then need to torque his body violently around his upper half in order to reach pitches low away; typically, he’d either miss entirely or foul the ball off. Since coming to the South Side, Jiménez says he’s lowered his hands in an effort to make better contact on inside fastballs, and to get to pitches down and away from lefties. Read the rest of this entry »
Please note, this posting contains multiple positions.
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Responsibilities:
Requirements:
Time commitment: March 2020 through October 2020
Hours: 40 hrs/week
To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Responsibilities:
Requirements:
Time commitment: March 2020 through October 2020
Hours: 40 hrs/week
To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Responsibilities:
Requirements:
Time Commitment: January 2020 through October 2020
Hours: 40 hrs/week
To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Responsibilities:
Requirements
Time Commitment: January 2020 through December 2020
Hours: 20 hrs/week minimum during the school year, 40 hrs/week during the summer months
To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here.
The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Minnesota Twins.
For the first time in a while, the Mariners weren’t playoff-adjacent in 2019. Depending on your point-of-view, over the last decade the Mariners have either been the worst playoff contender or the greatest also-ran in baseball. Rarely a thoroughly dreadful team, the mid to late 2010s Mariners were a fringe playoff threat in most seasons, typically flirting with contender status before staying home to listen to old Morrissey albums. It’s now been 18 years since the last time Seattle played postseason baseball. Team executive VP/GM Jerry Dipoto is banking on the notion that the organization can remedy that state of affairs with a quick retooling, initiated before the team reached the direst of straits.
The 2018 Seattle Mariners played baseball quite adequately, winning 89 games, the team’s most since 2003. It wasn’t enough to punch a ticket to October, thanks to the Houston Astros winning 103 games and it taking a 97-win season merely to tie with the second wild card team, the Oakland A’s. The Mariners made it interesting and were able to stay close to the Astros for most of the year. The team’s divisional deficit didn’t permanently stretch to more than five games until late August. They scared Houston for a while, grabbing sole possession of first-place for part of June. Perhaps most impressively, the Mariners did it with bandaids and duct tape; former cornerstone players Félix Hernández and Kyle Seager were no longer stars, and second baseman Robinson Canó missed most of the midseason thanks to an 80-game suspension for a banned substance.
After the season, the Mariners made a rare decision for an 89-win team: they blew it up. The decision to enter a rebuild is a hard one, typically resulting in multiple years of struggle. But one of the advantages of going this route is that the Mariners were better able to control their destiny. Unlike the Orioles or the pre-Luhnow Astros, Seattle wasn’t forced to take a long view by having a system devoid of talent at the major and minor league levels.
For an extremely active executive like Jerry Dipoto, having a lot of options is important. The 2018-2019 Mariners were still able to find someone interested in Canó, and rather than treating a closer as a player you build around *coughRedscough*, they bundled Edwin Diaz with some cash and were able to land Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn. In addition to getting two of their top five prospects from the Mets — both ranked 50 or better by THE BOARD — the Mets picked up some spare baubles in Anthony Swarzak and Gerson Bautista. Even Jay Bruce, mostly brought in to make the cash work, has been occasionally useful in recent years. Read the rest of this entry »