This Week in SABR: November 20, 2015

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Welcome to “This Week in SABR!” Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web. Please note that the SABR office will be closed on November 26-27. The next edition of “This Week in SABR” will be sent on Wednesday, November 25. Here’s what we’ve been up to as of November 20, 2015:

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to speak at 2016 SABR Analytics Conference

We are pleased to announce that Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred will speak at the fifth annual SABR Analytics Conference in downtown Phoenix, Arizona.

Manfred is scheduled to join SABR President Vince Gennaro for a one-on-one session Thursday morning, March 10, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, prior to the start of the Diamond Dollars Case Competition. The conference is open to all baseball fans. Click here to register!

Manfred was elected as the 10th Commissioner in the history of Major League Baseball by a unanimous vote of the 30 Major League clubs, replacing Bud Selig in January 2015. He had previously served as MLB’s Chief Operating Officer, where he managed the Commissioner’s Office in New York and worked closely with club ownership and management executives. As COO, Manfred oversaw labor relations, baseball operations, baseball development, finance, administration, and other key areas.

From 1998-2012, he was MLB’s Executive Vice President for Economics & League Affairs, reporting directly to Commissioner Selig and responsible for major economic matters such as revenue sharing and the debt-service rule, as well as franchise-specific matters involving the 30 Major League clubs. He directed all issues related to collective bargaining with the Major League Baseball Players Association, including the successful renewals of the Basic Agreement in 2002, 2006 and 2011.

In its first four years, the SABR Analytics Conference has brought together many of the top minds of the baseball analytic community under one roof to discuss, debate and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball. Past speakers have included Hall of Famer Tony La Russa, San Francisco Giants President/CEO Larry Baer, Chicago Cubs GM Jed Hoyer, MLB Network host Brian Kenny, sabermetrics pioneers Bill James and Pete Palmer, and pitchers Curt Schilling and Brandon McCarthy. 

Stay tuned as we announce more featured speakers and panelists at the 2016 SABR Analytics Conference! Please note: All speakers are subject to change depending on availability.

For more information, visit SABR.org/analytics.

Kiermaier, Molina win 2015 Rawlings Platinum Glove Awards, presented by SABR

On Friday, November 13, SABR President Vince Gennaro presented the 2015 Rawlings Platinum Glove Awards to Tampa Bay center fielder Kevin Kiermaier and St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina (not pictured) as the “Finest in the Field” for their respective Leagues.

The winners were announced during the 2015 Rawlings Gold Glove Award Ceremony at The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, where the game’s defensive stars accepted their hardware from some of baseball’s greatest legends.

Molina’s win represents his fourth Rawlings Platinum Glove Award, presented by SABR, in the 5-year history of the award, which honors the best defensive player among the nine Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners. In 2014, Molina and Kansas City Royals™ left fielder Alex Gordon were the winners of the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award. Molina also won the NL award in 2011 and ’12.

Kiermaier celebrated his first Rawlings Gold Glove Award earlier this week and his 29.2 SABR Defensive Index™ ranking, tops among all players in 2015, helped him take home the American League™ trophy for the Platinum Glove Award.

The Rawlings Platinum Glove Award winners are determined by combining votes based on an adjusted SABR Defensive Index for each of the nine Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners in each League and the votes from baseball fans worldwide.

Voting began at the conclusion of the 2015 Rawlings Gold Glove Award Announcement Show on ESPN2’s “Baseball Tonight” on November 10 and ended 36 hours later. Fan discussion surrounding the Award on social media was fostered in part by some teams’ open campaigning for their respective nominees.

Read all articles from Fall 2015 Baseball Research Journal online

Good news! The Fall 2015 edition of the Baseball Research Journal has been mailed out to all SABR members.

Those of you who receive the print edition should find your BRJ arriving in the next two to four weeks, although we hear many have already arrived. For digital subscribers, the e-book edition was delivered to your inboxes on November 4.

As editor Cecilia M. Tan writes, this issue of the BRJ has our usual mix of history and statistics, including a group of several that are that SABR staple: articles which combine both. Whether analyzing unlikely pitching gems (J.G. Preston), trends in play like stolen bases (John McMurray), switch-hit homers (Cort Vitty), and postseason success (Stuart Shapiro), or records well known and obscure (Douglas Jordan), these authors are in relentless pursuit of understanding what has happened on the field.

The second group of articles all deal with baseball and its effects off the field. Baseball as a cultural force has been part of the history of television (Robert D. Warrington), popular culture (TV, movies, and music à la David Krell), and courtroom law (William Lamb). The author team of Warneke, Ogden, and Shorey return to the pages of the BRJ with a social psychology study about youth ballplayers and their choice of heroes among big league players. And Matthew Clifford tracks down a case of mistaken identity that persists in the baseball memorabilia biz.

Lastly we have some good old-fashioned history, telling the stories of memorable fans (Hilda Chester by Rob Edelman), performances (Brian Marshall), personalities (Colonel Ruppert and Miller Huggins by Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg), icons (Babe Ruth from two angles, by John McMurray and Michael Haupert, Connie Mack by Norman Macht), and seasons (1951 Hazard, Kentucky, by Sam Zygner).

To learn more about contributing to a future SABR publication, click here.

Having trouble downloading our e-books? To view PDF files on your computer, click here to download the free Adobe Reader software. Having trouble downloading e-books to your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader or iPad? Click here for additional help.

We hope you enjoy reading the Fall 2015 Baseball Research Journal!

Early registration now open for 2016 SABR Analytics Conference

SABR has a long and storied history with baseball statistical analysis, evidenced by the link between our name and sabermetrics. While SABR is a multi-faceted organization involved in virtually every aspect of baseball, we continue to build on our legacy by producing and hosting the fifth annual SABR Analytics Conference.

Once again, we’re bringing together the top minds of the baseball analytic community under one roof to discuss, debate and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball.

The schedule will consist of a combination of Guest Speakers, Panels and Research Presentations — plus the unique Diamond Dollars Case Competition, in which undergraduate, graduate, and law school students from across the country analyze and present a real baseball operations decision.

  • Conference registration is available now at the SABR Store. Click here to register! The conference is open to all baseball fans. The early registration rate is $395 for SABR members and $495 for nonmembers, or $350 for currently enrolled high school or college students (includes one-year membership to SABR).
  • Book your hotel room: The 2016 SABR Analytics Conference will be held Thursday, March 10 through Saturday, March 12 at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, 122 N. 2nd St., Phoenix, AZ 85004. Click here to book your hotel room at the special SABR group rate of $179/night (plus tax) for double occupancy. Or call (602) 252-1234 and mention that you’re with the SABR Analytics Conference.

Check back soon at SABR.org/analytics as we announce some of our featured speakers, panels and presentations for the 2016 SABR Analytics Conference!

Related links:

Barrier: The aesthetics and significance of re-created baseball broadcasting

Very few of us have heard an actual re-created baseball game on the radio, but game re-creation was the norm for away games for nearly every team broadcasting their games on radio from the dawn of broadcasting well into the 1950s.

But we perhaps don’t often close our eyes and imagine what a re-created baseball game would sound like, and the effort that went into making it sound like a real, live baseball game.

In a new post at SABRMedia.org, Bob Barrier’s article describes the aesthetics of re-creating a road ball game on the radio for a team’s fans to enjoy at home. While the whole idea of re-creating a baseball game from a telegraph wire might sound a bit like a silly exercise to undergo, sending broadcast equipment and an announcer on the road was prohibitively expensive at the time, and besides, teams usually had room to house only one broadcast team, obviously for the home team’s broadcast (which probably explains why the Brooklyn Dodgers re-created road games even at the New York Giants’ Polo Grounds, less than 15 miles away). But the fans still wanted and needed to hear their own team play even when they were playing on the road, and thus: the re-creation.

Read the full article here at SABRMedia.org: http://sabrmedia.org/2015/11/19/only-the-game-was-real-the-aesthetics-and-significance-of-re-created-baseball-broadcasting/

— Chuck Hildebrandt

Students: Apply for a Yoseloff Scholarship to attend 2016 SABR Analytics Conference

With generous funding from The Anthony A. Yoseloff Foundation, Inc., SABR will award up to four scholarships to high school and college students who wish to attend the 2016 SABR Analytics Conference on March 10-12, 2016, in Phoenix, Arizona. This scholarship will pay for registration, air transportation and lodging up to a total value of $1,250.

The objective of this scholarship fund is to encourage student engagement with baseball analytics, and to engender an active interest in baseball research and SABR. The Yoseloff scholarship is to assist young researchers who want to attend SABR’s Analytics Conference and to introduce them to fellow SABR members and professionals within the baseball community. Through this fund, SABR hopes to inspire future baseball research, expose students to high-quality research and build the research capability of interested students.

Students must be currently enrolled in a high school, college undergraduate or graduate program, and be between 18 and 29 years of age at the time of the conference. Some form of age verification (photocopy of driver’s license, passport, etc.) must be attached to your application. All applications must be postmarked or e-mailed to Jeff Schatzki at jschatzki@sabr.org no later than December 31, 2015.

Click here for complete details on eligibility requirements and submission details. Or Click here to download the PDF application.

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM is back — at a new time

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM, a new radio show hosted by SABR President Vince Gennaro, has returned from its postseason hiatus and we invite you to listen this Sunday at its new time — 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET — on MLB Network Radio.

This week’s show, with special guest Ben Jedlovec of Baseball Info Solutions, focuses on the Rawlings Gold Glove Awards and the SABR Defensive Index.

Baseball SABR Style focuses on examining and interpreting the statistical analysis that plays a critical role in baseball today. It airs weekly throughout the year on MLB Network Radio, available to subscribers nationwide on XM channel 89, Sirius channel 209, and on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App. (Recent shows are available afterward in the “on-demand” section of the SiriusXM app or website.)

For more information, click here.

Help us reach our 2015 donation-drive goal

This has been a banner year for SABR, and you can help us bring 2015 to an even more successful close by making a charitable contribution to our year-end donation drive.

SABR depends upon the volunteer work of members to mount our exciting events like the SABR Convention, the Analytics Conference, and the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference; to produce groundbreaking research through the SABR Digital Library e-book program, the Baseball Research Journal, and The National Pastime; and to expand the online resources of the research committees, regional chapters, the BioProject, the Games Project, and much more. SABR continues to offer unparalleled opportunities for involvement and benefits for members around the world.

As a 501(c)3 organization, tax-deductible donations allow SABR to expand member opportunities and to become an even larger voice in the baseball community. Many members have already become donors, and you can join them right now by making your gift online at SABR.org/donate. Please help us reach our donation drive goal!

You can also send your donation by check to: SABR, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004.

All of us at SABR appreciate your support of our great organization and the game we love.

To learn more, visit SABR.org/donate.

It’s almost time to renew your SABR membership

For those of you whose SABR memberships expire by December 31 — you can check your current membership status here — it’s almost time for you to renew! We’re excited about the upcoming year ahead of us and we hope you’ll take advantage of all the great membership benefits offered to SABR members in 2016. Here’s a short list:

http://sabr.org/member-benefits

You can renew your membership for 1 year or 3 years online at the SABR Store; by phone at (602) 496-1460; or by mailing this downloadable PDF form and your payment to the office at: SABR, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004.

Dues are the same as they have been in recent years: for this, you get two editions of the Baseball Research Journal, the expanded e-book edition of The National Pastime; 8-10 free e-books published by the SABR Digital Library; “This Week in SABR” every Friday; access to research resources such as Paper of Record (with complete archives of The Sporting News); discounts to all SABR conferences such as the National Convention (Miami 2016), the SABR Analytics Conference, the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference, and the Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Conference; discounts to MLB.TV; and much, much more.

We believe SABR has something for everyone, from the active researcher to someone passionate about baseball. We hope you’ll invite your friends, colleagues and family members to join at store.sabr.org.

  • Add a family member for $15: Any SABR member can add a family member in the same household for $15 per year; they will receive all electronic member benefits and access to the website, but no printed publications. To add a new family member, please contact Membership Director Deb Jayne. Note: In order to renew your existing family membership, you must log in to the SABR website under the family member’s username/e-mail address, not your own.

6 new biographies posted at SABR BioProject

Six new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 3,498 published biographies. Here are the new bios:

All new biographies can be found here: http://sabr.org/bioproj/recent

  • Help us write 2016 Hall of Fame biographies: SABR Director Emily Hawks has launched a new BioProject initiative for biographies of players who are on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot later this year, and a few players still need biographers. If you are interested in writing a SABR biography for one of these players, please contact Emily Hawks at emilyhawks@gmail.com: Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Jeff Kent, Jason Kendall, Jim Edmonds.
  • 1957 Milwaukee Braves bios posted online: In Thar’s Joy in Braveland! The 1957 Milwaukee Braves, edited by Gregory H. Wolf and published by SABR in 2014, we celebrated the Milwaukee Braves’ historic 1957 World Series championship season. The SABR BioProject biographies that appeared in that book can now be read online. Click here to read all 1957 Braves bios.

Call for SABR award nominations

  • Seymour Medal, due 12/31/2015: The Dr. Harold and Dorothy Seymour Medal honors the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year. The award is presented during the Seymour Medal Banquet at the NINE Spring Training Conference every March. If you have a book to nominate with a 2015 publication date, contact Michael Haupert at mhaupert@uwlax.edu by December 31, 2015.
  • Larry Ritter Award, due 12/31/2015: Each year, SABR’s Deadball Era Committee presents the Larry Ritter Book Award to recognize the best new book primarily set in the Deadball Era that was published during the previous calendar year. The award is presented during the committee’s meeting at the annual SABR convention. If you have a book to nominate with a 2015 publication date, contact Doug Skipper at theskippers1@hotmail.com by December 31, 2015.
  • Ron Gabriel Award, due 12/31/2015: The Ron Gabriel Award annually honors the author(s) of the best research, published or unpublished, on the subject of the Brooklyn Dodgers completed during the preceding calendar year. To submit a nomination for the 2016 awards, please send a copy of your work to Gary Sarnoff at runtowin89@hotmail.com by December 31, 2015.
  • SABR Baseball Research Award, due 1/31/2016: The SABR Baseball Research Award (formerly the Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award) honors those whose outstanding research projects completed during the preceding calendar year have significantly expanded our knowledge or understanding of baseball. To submit a nomination for the 2016 awards, please contact Bill Felber at bfelber@att.net.
  • McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, due 2/15/2016: The McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award honors the authors of the best articles on baseball history or biography completed or published during the preceding calendar year. To submit a nomination for the 2016 awards, please contact Len Levin at lenlevin5@hotmail.com.

Please note: Only ONE entry per nomination will be considered (do not submit multiple nominations for the same award). For more information on SABR Awards, click here.

ICYMI: Highlights from last week’s This Week in SABR

We’ve heard your feedback: Some of you have said you look forward to “This Week in SABR” every Friday, but sometimes there are just too many compelling articles and announcements to read every week. We’re not complaining — hey, keep up the great work! — but we know the feeling. So in an effort to make the length of this newsletter more manageable to read, we’ll summarize some of the repeating/recurring announcements in a special “In Case You Missed It (ICYMI)” section of “This Week in SABR”.

Here are some major headlines from recent weeks that we don’t want you to miss:

All previous editions of This Week in SABR can be found here: http://sabr.org/content/this-week-in-sabr-archives.

Welcome, new members!

We’d like to welcome all of our new SABR members who have joined this week. You can find all Members-Only resources at members.sabr.org and the New Member Handbook can be downloaded here.

Please give these new members a warm welcome and help them make the most of their membership by giving them the opportunity to get involved in their local chapter or a research committee.

You can find contact information for any SABR member in the online membership directory (SABR.org/directory).

Name Hometown     Name Hometown
Joseph Aiosa Plant City, FL     James McGowan Mahopac, NY
Albert Arrighi Dagsboro, DE     Missy Mikulecky San Francisco, CA
Yolo Bonilla Trieste, ITA     David Miles Pittsburgh, PA
Jeff Barrows Satellite Beach, FL     Mike Mitchell St. Louis, MO
Terrie Bloom Wellesley, MA     Mike Myers Castle Rock, CO
Blake Crosby Chandler, AZ     Ryan Storts Loveland, OH
Gordon Edes Newton, MA     Aaron Wiedeman Gilbert, AZ
Mary Finger Houston, TX     Brian Yuncker Issaquah, WA
Michael McCormick Los Angeles, CA        

 

Research Committee news

There were no new SABR research committee updates this week.

Find all SABR research committee newsletters at SABR.org/research.

Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

Visit SABR.org/chapters for more information on SABR regional chapters.

SABR Events Calendar

Here is a list of upcoming SABR events:

All SABR meetings and events are open to the public. Feel free to bring a baseball-loving friend … and make many new ones! Check out the SABR Events Calendar at SABR.org/events.

Around the Web

Here are some recent articles published by and about SABR members:

Read these articles and more at SABR.org/latest.

This Week in SABR is compiled by Jacob Pomrenke. If you would like us to include an upcoming event, article or any other information in “This Week in SABR,” e-mail jpomrenke@sabr.org.

Have trouble reading this e-mail? Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web.

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Originally published: November 20, 2015. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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