Featured Speakers
The SABR Analytics Conference was held on March 8-10, 2024, in Phoenix, Arizona, as we brought together the top minds in the baseball analytics community to discuss, debate, and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball.
Learn more about our featured speakers and panelists on this page.
Arnel Aguinaldo is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Director of the Biomechanics and Pitching laboratories at Point Loma Nazarene University. He has earned an undergraduate degree in Bioengineering and a Ph.D. in Health and Human Performance and is a board-certified athletic trainer. Dr. Aguinaldo currently serves on the board of directors of the American Baseball Biomechanics Society and as a scientific advisor to Major League Baseball. His research aims to understand the biomechanical implications of injury risk and player performance in baseball pitching and hitting.
Jason Bernard is a Senior Manager, Baseball Research & Development at Major League Baseball, where he has worked since 2015. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the NYU-Tisch Institute for Global Sport. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sports management from St. John’s University and a master’s degree in sports business from New York University.
Christopher Bitetto is a Manager, Replay Administration & Data at Major League Baseball, where he has worked since 2015. He also teaches a continuing education course on Baseball Analytics as an adjunct professor at New York University. He was selected as class valedictorian while earning a bachelor’s degree in communications from the College of Staten Island and completed his master’s degree in sports business from NYU.
Dr. James Buffi is the CEO of Reboot Motion. He previously spent four-plus years as a senior analyst for the Los Angeles Dodgers, building out the team’s pitching biomechanics. Prior to the Dodgers, he spent time at Stanford University, Mass General Hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and as a Biomechanics Consultant for Driveline Baseball. He has a Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.
Will Carroll has been writing regular Under the Knife columns and newsletters about sports science, sports medicine, and sports for two decades. He is the author of The Science of Baseball: The Math, Technology, and Data Behind the Great American Pastime and two other award-winning sports books, Saving The Pitcher and The Juice. He also consults with several professional teams and players on sports science. His work can be found at ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Baseball Prospectus, and the New York Times. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Clay Davenport is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus who has been writing about baseball statistics for more than three decades. He previously worked as a software contractor with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Satellite and Information Service. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia.
Jonah Gardner is the Product Marketing Manager at Sports Reference, where he’s responsible for coordinating marketing campaigns for Stathead, Sports Reference’s suite of advanced research tools. Before that, he worked as Social Media Manager for Sports Reference, providing live coverage and up to the minute statistical research for the biggest games of the season from Baseball Reference’s social media accounts. Jonah lives in Philadelphia with his dog, Berman, and roots for the Atlanta Braves.
Vince Gennaro is the former President of SABR’s Board of Directors, author of Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball, and host of a weekly national radio show, Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM. He is also the Associate Dean and Clinical Associate Professor of NYU’s Preston Robert Tisch Institute for Global Sport. He is a consultant to MLB teams and appears regularly on MLB Network. He is also the architect of the Diamond Dollars Case Competition series, which brings together students and MLB team and league executives and serves as a unique learning experience, as well as a networking opportunity for aspiring sports executives.
Graham Goldbeck is a Product Manager, Baseball Data Platform, for Major League Baseball. Before joining MLB in 2018, he spent seven years managing data and analytics for Sportvision. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from the University of California at San Diego.
Javy Guerra pitched for 11 seasons in Major League Baseball, making 272 appearances with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Nationals, and four other teams. He helped the Nationals win the 2019 World Series, allowing just one run in his three innings of work in the fall classic. He was drafted by the Dodgers in the fourth round of the 2004 amateur draft and made his MLB debut in 2011.
Brian Hall is the Founder of AlphaPlay, an innovative artificial intelligence system used by professional sports teams around the world. He regularly speaks on applied, groundbreaking uses of AI in industry, from sports to defense. He teaches courses at New York University on analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. He is also the founder and co-chair of SABR’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Research Committee.
Gary Huckabay is the founder of Baseball Prospectus. Known for his irreverent wit and brutal insight, he gathered and nurtured talented data analysts and sports writers who collectively changed the landscape of baseball. An early combatant on rec.sport.baseball, Huckabay served in a number of roles in his career in the corporate world, ranging from performance analysis, forecasting, and finance. He has been a frequent college lecturer at Stanford University and elsewhere on the business of baseball.
David Hyland is a professor at Xavier University’s Williams College of Business in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he has worked since 2004. He also developed a course on sabermetrics, “Teaching Statistics with Baseball Data,” at Xavier. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Florence Y’alls club in the independent Frontier League. His research has been published in journals such as Financial Management and Financial Analyst Journal. He earned his Ph.D. from Ohio State University, a master’s degree from Purdue University, and a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University.
Rany Jazayerli is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributing author to more than a dozen books. His work has been published at the New York Times, Washington Post, ESPN.com, The Ringer, The Athletic, and many other outlets. In his day job, he is a board-certified dermatologist based in the Chicago area, with degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan.
Christina Kahrl is a founding member and former Executive Editor at Baseball Prospectus. She has been the sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle since 2021. Previously, she spent 10 years at ESPN.com as a senior editor for MLB coverage and on the night desk. She has been elected to two Halls of Fame as a sports journalist, a third for her work for the transgender community in Chicago, and was the 2023 recipient of the Jeanne Córdova Award from NLGJA for her career as an LGBTQ woman in journalism.
Brian Kenny is a host at MLB Network, where he appears across the network’s studio programming, including “MLB Now” and “MLB Tonight.” He is also the author of Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution. A 25-year national TV and radio veteran, Brian joined MLB Network from ESPN, where he was a “SportsCenter” anchor, host of the “Brian Kenny Show” on ESPN Radio and an Emmy Award-winning anchor for “Baseball Tonight.”
Sean Lahman is SABR’s Data Projects Manager and the creator of the Lahman Baseball Database, an open-source collection of baseball statistics. He has edited or contributed to more than a dozen sports reference books, including Total Baseball and the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia. He spent many years as an award-winning investigative journalist for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He currently works in communications for Monroe County in New York.
Adam Nebel is a Graduate Assistant of Sports Science with Auburn University’s baseball program, where he uses KinaTrax motion capture technology to work collaboratively with the coaching, strength and conditioning, and athletic training staffs. He previously worked as a student athletic trainer and researcher with the University of Arkansas baseball program from 2020 to 2022. He is working toward his Ph.D. in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Biomechanics and is expected to graduate from Auburn in 2025. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology from Boise State University in 2020 and master’s in Athletic Training from Arkansas in 2022.
Clay Nunnally is a Baseball Scientist at Major League Baseball, where he has worked since 2018. Previously, he served as the Chief Operating Officer at Applied Physical Electronics. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Abilene Christian University, a master’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri.
Mike Petriello is a Stats Analyst for Major League Baseball and host of the Statcast podcast. He partnered with Jason Benetti and Eduardo Pérez on the popular “Nerdcast” TV broadcasts for ESPN. He can regularly be seen on MLB Network and across all MLB platforms. Prior to joining MLB, he wrote for FanGraphs and ESPN.
Nick Riccardi is an Adjunct Professor and Research & Program Assistant of Sport Analytics at Syracuse University’s Falk College. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sport analytics and a master’s degree in applied data science from Syracuse University.
Joe Rosales is the Director of Baseball Analytics at Sports Info Solutions. He has worked for SIS in a full-time role since 2013. He was named a co-winner of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Research Competition for the development of SIS’s Strike Zone Runs Saved pitch framing methodology. He has also previously taught a course in Baseball Analytics at Columbia University’s M.S. in Sports Management program.
Meg Rowley is the managing editor of FanGraphs and co-host of the Effectively Wild podcast. Previously, she served as managing editor of The Hardball Times and wrote for Baseball Prospectus, where she won the 2017 SABR Analytics Conference Research Award for Contemporary Baseball Commentary. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Bryn Mawr College and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin.
Amod Sahasrabudhe is a Machine Learning Engineer at Gemini Sports Analytics, where he focuses on researching, designing and building predictive models to help sports organizations make better decisions with their data. He has worked at the United States Soccer Federation as an Al engineer in Sports Analytics. At US Soccer, he published a paper titled “A Graph Neural Network deep-dive into successful counterattacks” which was presented at the 2023 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Eno Sarris is a senior writer at The Athletic covering baseball analytics. He takes the best public analytics findings to the players in the clubhouse to get their reactions. He has also been a contributor to FanGraphs, ESPN, MLB.com, Fox Sports, SB Nation, The Hardball Times, and others.
Bobby Scales is the Vice President of Baseball at Sports Info Solutions, where he is responsible for advancing the future product, research and strategic direction in the baseball division. After he was drafted out of the University of Michigan, he played professional baseball for 14 years and spent parts of two seasons with the Chicago Cubs in 2009 and 2010. He also played in the Padres, Red Sox, and Phillies organizations, and in Japan for two seasons. He worked in the player development departments for the Los Angeles Angels and Pittsburgh Pirates before joining Sports Info Solutions in 2022.
Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus who has been a contributor to The Athletic, FanGraphs, Sports Illustrated, Baseball America, and many other publications. He publishes the popular daily subscription Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter and has written extensively about baseball for the last 25 years.
Shanna Shi is an Associate Data Quality Analyst at Major League Baseball, where she has worked since 2021. She previously worked with the Toronto Blue Jays as a Baseball Operations Fellow and as a research assistant at McMaster University. She holds a master’s degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, from Emory University and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Union College.
Mark Simon is an Editorial Operations Lead and Staff Writer at Sports Info Solutions. He is also a contributor to The Athletic and multiple SABR publications. He is the author of The Yankees Index and he hosts The Journalism Salute podcast. Previously, he was a digital publishing specialist for ESPN Stats & Information from 2002 to 2018.
Michael Sonne is a Baseball Scientist with the Chicago Cubs, where he has worked since 2022. Previously, he was the Chief Scientist at ProPlayAI, overseeing the research and development of markerless motion capture systems. He holds a Ph.D. in Kinesiology from McMaster University and a master’s degree in Ergonomics from the University of Windsor.
Ethan Stewart is the Lead Sport Scientist and Biomechanist with the Oakland A’s. Previously, he spent time with the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, and Tampa Bay Rays. He is a founding member and board member for the American Baseball Biomechanics Society. He completed both his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Kentucky in Kinesiology and Biomechanics, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Mississippi State University studying Biomechanics/Neuromechanics.
Zoe Surma is a Software Engineer at Sports Reference. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Computer Engineering. She is a Cubs, Fighting Irish and Formula One fan.
Nick Wan is the Director of Analytics for the Cincinnati Reds, where he has worked since 2017. In this role, he oversees the day-to-day analytics operations for the Major League team, Player Development, Health & Performance, Professional Scouting, and Amateur Scouting. He previously spent three years as a Data Scientist with the Reds. He earned his Ph.D in Psychology from Utah State University and earned his B.S. in Psychology from Saint Mary’s College of California. He is also the game show host for SLICED, a competitive data science competition which is streamed on his Twitch channel.
For more information on the 2024 SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics.