2024 Diamond Dollars Case Competition
The 2024 Diamond Dollars Case Competition winners were announced Friday, March 8 during the SABR Analytics Conference.
The winning teams selected were from Syracuse University, Rice University, and The Branson School.
The Syracuse University team — which was picked to deliver an encore presentation in front of the full SABR Analytics Conference on Saturday — included Danny Baris, Caitlin Kohlmeier, Alex Oppel, Aaron Rofe, and Jonah Soos.
The Rice University team (pictured above) included Calvin Aberg, Nathaniel Ascher, Grayson Elyaderani, Jacob Hahn, and Marco Stine.
The Branson School team (pictured above) included Kaden Gustafson, Audrey Knowles, Cooper Tenney, Wilson Wendt, and Charlie Zwibelman.
In the Diamond Dollars Case Competition, high school and college students from schools across the country compete against each other by preparing an analysis and presentation of a baseball operations decision — the type of decision a team’s GM and his staff is faced with over the course of a season. The cases are developed by former SABR Board President Vince Gennaro, co-founder of the SABR Analytics Conference, author of Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball, and consultant to MLB teams. The Diamond Dollars Case Competition is the first national competition to be based solely on baseball operations issues.
Four- to five-person student teams are asked to evaluate a baseball operations case problem. The student team presents their analysis and recommendations to a panel of judges that includes MLB front office executives.
In this year’s case, students were asked to determine if a given foul ball might be more valuable to a hitter or a pitcher.
This year’s judges included Adam Brodie (Houston Astros), Cody Callahan (Arizona Diamondbacks), Tani Cohen (MLB), Connor Kurcon (Houston Astros), Diego Martinez (Houston Astros), Max Phillips (Arizona Diamondbacks), Sarah Thompson (Sports Info Solutions), Zoe Torok (Pittsburgh Pirates), and Keith Woolner (Cleveland Guardians).
Callahan is a former winner of the Diamond Dollars Case Competition at the SABR Analytics Conference.
Other participating schools were: College of William & Mary; Elon University; Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School; NYU-Tisch Institute for Global Sport; St. Norbert College; and Tufts University.
For more coverage of the 2024 SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics.
More than 120 alumni from the 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 Diamond Dollars Case Competitions have secured internships or permanent positions within Major League Baseball.