This Week in SABR: October 16, 2015

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Welcome to “This Week in SABR!” Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web. Here’s what we’ve been up to as of October 16, 2015:

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!

2016 SABR Analytics: Submit your research presentation abstract

The SABR Analytics Conference brings together the leading minds in baseball analytics to discuss and debate topics relevant to the quantitative analysis of the game of baseball, including aspects of innovation and technology. Past conferences have been attended by representatives from 27 MLB teams.

We are now accepting abstracts for oral presentations for the fifth annual SABR Analytics Conference Conference, scheduled for March 10-12, 2016, at the Hyatt Phoenix Downtown.

Abstracts of proposed research presentations should be no more than 500 words in length, and must include the abstract’s title, review of previous work on the subject, a summary of the research methodology and anticipated results, and the expected contribution to the field of baseball analytics offered by this work. Please send all abstracts to this e-mail address: 2016-analytics-presentations@sabr.org.

The submission deadline for 2016 SABR Analytics Conference presentation abstracts is 11:59 p.m. PST, Thursday, December 31, 2015. Please note: If your presentation abstract is accepted, you will be required to register for the conference in order to qualify for a presentation slot.

Nominate an article for 2016 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards

What are the best baseball analytics articles you’ve read in 2015?

We’re seeking nominations for the 2016 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards, which recognize baseball researchers who have completed the best work of original analysis or commentary during the preceding calendar year in the following categories:

  • Contemporary Baseball Analysis: Honoring the best analysis focusing on a subject related to the modern game(s), team(s) or player(s).
  • Contemporary Baseball Commentary: Honoring the best commentary focusing on a subject related to the modern game(s), team(s) or player(s). 
  • Historical Baseball Analysis/Commentary: Honoring the best original analysis or commentary focusing on a subject related to a game(s), team(s) or player(s) throughout baseball history.

Please send all nominations via e-mail to this address: 2016-analytics-awards@sabr.org. Include author, title, date of publication and a URL link (if applicable).

Voting for the winners will be conducted online in January 2016 at SABR.org, BaseballProspectus.com, FanGraphs.com, HardballTimes.com, and BeyondtheBoxScore.com, with results weighted equally at 20%.

Results will be announced and presented at the fifth annual SABR Analytics Conference, March 10-12, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more or register for the conference at SABR.org/analytics.

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.

Not too late to register for 2015 SABR Arizona Fall League Experience

We’re just a few weeks away from the seventh annual SABR Arizona Fall League Experience — a new name, but same great experience — on November 5-7, 2015, in Scottsdale, Arizona. We hope you’ll join us!

The event will feature four AFL games showcasing baseball’s top prospects, including games at Scottsdale Stadium and Camelback Ranch, our first trip to Glendale. We’ll also have dinner at Don and Charlie’s in Scottsdale, home to one of the great sports memorabilia collections you will ever see, and a ballpark dinner at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick with a special guest speaker.

On Saturday, November 7, attendees will join members of SABR’s Flame Delhi Chapter for their regional fall meeting, with research presentations and guest speakers. The conference will conclude with the nationally televised Fall Stars Game on Saturday evening at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick.

The Arizona Fall League (mlbfallball.com) is baseball’s premier player development league. In the first six years of the conference, attendees were treated to sneak peeks at Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Buster Posey, Starlin Castro, Stephen Strasburg, Nolan Arenado, and Billy Hamilton before they hit the big leagues.

Learn more about Arizona baseball history by downloading Mining Towns to Major Leagues: A History of Arizona Baseball, SABR’s 1999 convention journal that was recently republished as an e-book at the Flame Delhi Chapter’s website, SABRAZ.org.

All baseball fans are welcome to attend, so join us in November for the SABR Arizona Fall League Experience!

SABR Digital Library: A Pennant for the Twin Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins

Add a pennant-winning book to your collection with the newest title from the SABR Digital Library:

A Pennant for the Twin Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins
Edited by Gregory H. Wolf
Associate Editors: James Forr, Len Levin, and Bill Nowlin
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-943816-08-8, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-943816-09-5, $19.95
404 pages

This volume celebrates the 1965 Minnesota Twins, who captured the American League pennant in just their fifth season in the Twin Cities. Led by an All-Star cast, from Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles, and Mudcat Grant to Bob Allison, Jim Kaat, Earl Battey, and Jim Perry, the Twins won 102 games, but bowed to the Los Angeles Dodgers and a herculean performance by Sandy Koufax in Game Seven of the World Series.

Included are the life and baseball stories of all 35 roster players, the coaches, and manager of the 1965 Twins, plus team owner Calvin Griffith; broadcasters Herb Carneal, Halsey Hall, and Ray Scott; and sportswriters Dick Gordon and Max Nichols. A comprehensive summary of the regular season, as well as meticulous essays highlighting important games and the All-Star Game played in Minnesota, an overview of the 1965 Dodgers, and thorough summaries the World Series games are included. Chapters about how the Griffith family built its pennant winner, the fate of the Twins after 1965, Metropolitan Stadium, and the 1965 season “by the numbers” round out the book.

Contributors include Marc Z. Aaron, Mark Armour, Peter C. Bjarkman, Alan Cohen, Tracy J.R. Collins, Rory Costello, Jeff English, Greg Erion, Dan Fields, Jan Finkel, Chip Greene, Kevin Hennessy, Jack Herrman, Jimmy Keenan, Norm King, Ben Klein, Patrick Lethert, Daniel R. Levitt, Bill Nowlin, J.G. Preston, Joel Rippel, Frank Russo, Rick Schabowski, Steve Schmitt, Doug Skipper, John Swol, Stew Thornley, Tom Tomashek, Joseph Wancho, Steve West, and Gregory H. Wolf.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

Call for papers: 2016 The National Pastime convention journal

The 46th annual SABR national convention will take place July 27-31, 2016, in Miami, Florida.

To coincide with the convention, the summer 2016 issue of The National Pastime will focus on Florida and particularly Miami-area baseball. Florida has had a long relationship with Major League Baseball as the home of the Grapefruit League spring training, as well as various minor leagues, college baseball powerhouses, and two current major-league expansion franchises.

There’s plenty to explore and, ideally, we’d like a mix of topics that could encompass everything from fan studies to Little League. Research articles may be historical, biographical, or analytical, but please avoid personal narrative.

This issue of The National Pastime will be edited by publications director Cecilia Tan. She will be taking queries and abstracts until November 15, 2015, and will make assignments no later than December 1. First drafts of articles will be due no later than March 1, 2016, and rewrites (if needed) will be due by April 15.

Queries should be one to two paragraphs with a detailed encapsulation of the article idea, as well as a description of why you are interested in it or qualified to research it. Be specific about the sources you plan to use and what amount of your research is original. Please include an estimate of the article’s length, as well. Typical articles tend to run 2,000 to 5,000 words — the size of a midterm paper, not a Master’s thesis. The absolute upper limit on papers for the TNP is around 6,500 words. 

To query, send an e-mail to ctan@sabr.org with the subject line “TNP Query” and a key word or two on your subject. (For example: “TNP Query: Jeffrey Loria in Historical Perspective.”) Some suggested topics could be:

  • Florida Marlins World Series teams of 1997 and 2003
  • University of Miami baseball
  • The influence of Cuban and Latin-American baseball
  • Notable players from South Florida, including Alex Rodriguez, Steve Carlton, Andre Dawson
  • Grapefruit League spring training
  • Florida State League, Florida International League, minor-league Miami Marlins, etc.
  • The short-lived Senior Professional Baseball Association

Remember that every article must include proper citation of sources and present a clear thesis, and to be published in a SABR journal, your SABR membership must be current.

Click here to learn more about SABR’s Publications Guidelines.

Note also that the TNP will have both a print edition (given out to SABR 46 convention attendees) and an expanded e-book version that will be sent to all SABR members. Some, but not all, of the articles will be selected to appear in the print edition, while more will appear in the electronic edition.

Call for papers: 2016 Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference

All SABR members are invited and encouraged to submit a Research Presentation Proposal Abstract for the 2016 Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference.

The eighth annual 19th Century Conference will be held April 15-16, 2016, at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Abstracts of 200-500 words are being accepted through October 31, 2015, for a 20- to 25-minute oral research presentation on any topic about 19th-century baseball. Please include title and contact information. Proposals must be part of an e-mail or in the form of a Word or PDF document sent to Peter Mancuso at peterplus4@earthlink.net.

Details on conference registration will be available at SABR.org/ivor-campbell19c in early 2016.

To view coverage of the 2015 Ivor-Campbell 19th Century conference, click here.

9 new biographies posted at SABR BioProject

Nine new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 3,429 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 likely to be 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.

1 new story published by the SABR Games Project

One new game story was posted this week as part of the SABR Games Project. Here is the new game story:

All new Games Project stories can be found here: http://sabr.org/gamesproject/recent

September 27 Board minutes posted

Minutes from the Board of Directors conference call on September 27, 2015, have now been posted on the SABR website.

You can view all past minutes of SABR Board meetings by going to the page below:

http://sabr.org/content/sabr-board-minutes

Or you can go to the Members’ Info page and click on “Org. files”, then “Board Minutes” to view the minutes.

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
Jeff Wentzel Chalfont, PA     JB Moore Waterloo, ON
Jim Kahn New York, NY     Robert Tacher Coral Springs, FL
Bill VanderStelt Shedd, OR     Jason Foster Stallings, NC
Howard Ogden St. Georges     Luke Epplin Astoria, NY
Jean-Philippe Bourgeois Halifax, NS     James Pursley Okemos, MI
Mark Metcalf Independence, KS     Tim Reid Boca Raton, FL
Dario Ghersi Omaha, NE        

 

Research Committee news

Here are the new SABR research committee updates this week:

  • Baseball and the Media: SABR’s Baseball and the Media Committee is undertaking the formation of a new database: a comprehensive listing of historical baseball writers. The goal is to catalog the baseball writers for every team as far back as we can possibly manage. This is an important first step toward the creation of the Committee’s first publication, in conjunction with the SABR BioProject Committee, featuring the history of major-league baseball writing through the years, as well as biographies of the great baseball writers in big-league history. But first things first: We need your help in putting together the database itself. Thanks to several generous SABR members, we have obtained access to every Baseball Blue Book from 1910 through the mid-2000s, all of which feature lists of baseball writers by city and team through the years. We have digitized these Blue Books into PDF form and we will make these available to any SABR member who is interested in helping us flesh out the database. Click here for complete details.

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

Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

  • Rocky Mountain Chapter annual banquet: The Rocky Mountain Chapter is pleased to announce that our 18th annual chapter banquet will be held on Saturday, November 14, 2015. It will be staged at a new location, the Super Suites at Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies! All baseball fans are welcome to attend. Master of Ceremonies: Jason Hirsh, former MLB pitcher and now with ROOT Sports. Keynote Speaker: Sam Fuld, outfielder with the Oakland Athletics. Featured speaker: Dan Evans, former GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers, now a scout with the Toronto Blue Jays. To register, go to rmsabr.org and click on “Banquet”. Registration is $60 per person. Click here for more details.
  • Magnolia Chapter annual banquet: The Magnolia/Georgia Chapter will hold its annual fall banquet at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 14, 2015, at the Holiday Inn-Atlanta Northlake (2158 Ranchwood Drive, Atlanta, GA 30345). Space is limited, so reserve your spot now. Featured speaker: SABR member Robert K. Fitts (pictured at right), whose book Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, & Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan earned him SABR’s 2013 Seymour Medal for the best book on baseball history or biography that year. Other surprise guests are expected. Cost: $27 per person (includes dinner, tax, and gratuity). You do not have to be a SABR member to attend. Click here for more details.

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: October 16, 2015. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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