SABR 54: Poster Presentations
Here is the list of SABR 54 poster presentations that will be on display throughout the convention on July 29–August 2, 2026, at the Hilton Cleveland Downtown Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Abstracts and presenter bios are available below.
P1: Ben Alter, “The Changing Baseball Player: A Demographic Study”
Alter explores the changing demographics of the over 23,000 players in Major League Baseball history, tracking trends from the 19th century to today. The poster highlights long-term shifts in player height, weight, and the growing influx of talent from the Sunbelt and Latin America. Alter also dives into interesting historical patterns, like the early dominance of New York City birthplaces and the slow integration of players from the Old South despite the prominence of its minor leagues . By mapping these demographic changes, the research reveals how the evolving makeup of American-born ballplayers closely mirrors the broader demographic shifts of the nation itself.
Ben Alter (makegneiss@gmail.com) has been an active member of SABR since 2020 and a life-long suffering Mets fan. He has published several articles in the Baseball Research Journal and is a regular contributor to the Elysian Fields Chapter newsletter, the Eleventh Street Eagle. He was a co-presenter at the 2022 Jerry Malloy Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, and presented a paper at the 2026 Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference in Cooperstown. He moderated a panel of baseball book authors in 2025 in Morristown, New Jersey. He also wrote a textbook on environmental consulting, which is going into its third edition.
P2: Theo Au-Yeung, “Arsenal+: Quantifying the Effects of Pitch Arsenal Diversity”
Ever wonder how a pitcher’s curveball impacts the effectiveness of their fastball? Traditional stats tend to judge each pitch completely on its own, but Au-Yeung is introducing a brand-new way to look at a pitcher’s full collection of weapons. Using 2024 Statcast data, this poster introduces Blend+, which uses a two-part framework to investigate the impact of pitch repertoire interaction on pitching performance. Pitchers who lack the arm talent to produce elite stuff rely on the breadth and depth of their pitch mix to generate positive outcomes against batters. Through the integration of pitch arsenal structure in the pitch evaluation process, this poster disentangles intrinsic pitch quality from interaction-driven value, offering a more complete framework for understanding how pitchers convert pitch traits into run prevention. To isolate the marginal contribution of arsenal effects, an ArsenalFX metric is computed that captures the model-estimated contextual value generated by a pitcher’s arsenal.
Theo Au-Yeung (theoauyeung@gmail.com) is a senior at Rice University majoring in Sport Analytics and Statistics with a minor in Data Science. He serves as the Lead Baseball Analyst for Rice University Baseball (NCAA D1), where he directs R&D efforts and translates tracking data into coaching insights. Recently, he presented at the 2026 ASA Virtual Sports Analytics Conference (Rising Stars) and received the Best Online Presentation award at the Ohio State Sports Analytics Conference. His current research focuses on evolving pitch evaluation through the Arsenal+ and Blend+ frameworks. He is also a former Diamond Dollars Case Competition participant at the SABR Analytics Conference.
P3: Ed Baranoski, “Why are Batters Evaluated by Plate Appearance and Pitchers by Inning?”
With today’s heavy dependence on relievers, the current pitching metrics have become ill-suited to capturing pitching performance related to situational effects of inherited runners and other leverage-related scenarios. Baranoski proposes a fresh approach to evaluating pitching performance by looking at it per plate appearance instead of per inning. By comparing the run expectancy of every plate appearance to the league average, this new metric factors in game situations like inherited runners, batter strength, park effects, and team defense. Using the Retrosheet database, his poster compares this new method to traditional metrics and breaks down how well it predicts future performance.
Ed Baranoski (ed.baranoski@gmail.com) has been a member of SABR for six years, and is the current Vice President of the Bob Davids Chapter in Washington, DC. In that role, he has helped other board members across the range of chapter activities including development of by-laws, event planning, and other aspects of leadership. He has published frequently in his field and has presented prior baseball research at SABR 53 and at local chapter meetings. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and was an IEEE Fellow, working in signal processing before his retirement.
P4: Brendan Bingham, “The Path to H3k: a Career Arc Focused Analysis of Accumulating 3000 Hits”
Only 33 Major League players have amassed 3,000 base hits. Reaching this milestone requires a rare combination of performance and opportunity. Bingham dives into the exclusive 3,000-hit club, analyzing the career arcs of the 15 modern-era players who reached the milestone over the past thirty years. By comparing this elite group to players who stalled between 2,600 and 2,999 hits, Bingham uncovers what truly drives a player to 3,000. Breaking careers down into early, middle, and late phases, the poster reveals that while performance metrics are similar, opportunity and longevity in the later years are the true difference-makers. Bingham also highlights fascinating outliers like Ichiro Suzuki and Ken Griffey Jr., whose unique paths challenge the typical milestone trajectory.
Brendan Bingham (brendanbingham@verizon.net) is a retired research scientist who has been a SABR member since 2009. He has contributed to SABR publications, authoring two papers for The National Pastime and a chapter for a book on the 1947 New York Yankees.
P5: Alan Cohen, “Integration at the Denver Post Tournament”
Cohen takes us back to the 1930s to explore the Denver Post Tournament, a premier regional semi-pro competition that notably welcomed integrated play long before the major leagues. The poster focuses on the incredible 1936 Negro National League All-Star team, featuring future Hall of Famers such as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Buck Leonard. Cohen chronicles the team’s dominant run through the tournament, shutting out opponents and taking home the championship along with over $5,000 in prize money. From Paige’s dominant pitching to the explosive bats of Gibson and Leonard, Cohen highlights the sheer talent of the NNL stars as they barnstormed through the West, offering a thrilling look at one of Black baseball’s most triumphant road trips.
Alan Cohen (adc0317@comcast.net) has been a SABR member since 2011. He chairs the BioProject fact-checking committee, serves as Vice President-Treasurer of the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter, and is a datacaster (MiLB stringer) with the Eastern League Hartford Yard Goats, the Class AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. He also works with the Retrosheet Negro Leagues project and has served on SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee. His biographies, game stories, and essays have appeared in more than 80 baseball-related publications. He has four children, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, and resides in Connecticut with wife Frances, their cats Zoe and Ava, and their dog Buddy.
P6: Adam Darowski and Von Spalding, “The Road to 400 Wins Runs Through Cleveland”
Following up on last year’s presentation on the 4,000 Professional Hit Club, Darowski and Spalding turn the spotlight on pitchers who have achieved the incredible milestone of 400 professional wins. While only two pitchers have reached this mark solely in the major leagues, expanding the scope to include the minors, Latin America, Asia, and postseason play reveals a fascinating list of at least sixteen legends. Darowski and Spalding explore the unique journeys of these dominant pitchers, many of whom — like Cy Young, Luis Tiant, and Satchel Paige — have deep ties to Cleveland baseball history. By taking a global perspective, this poster highlights pitching excellence that transcends the traditional major league record book, offering a fresh look at some of the sport’s most enduring and widely traveled stars.
Adam Darowski (ad@sports-reference.com) joined SABR in 2013 and specializes in the Negro Leagues and Latin American baseball. Based in Massachusetts, he serves as a Senior Design Director for Sports Reference, the organization behind Baseball Reference, Stathead, Immaculate Grid, and more.
Von Spalding (von.spalding@gmail.com) is an independent baseball researcher based in Georgia. He began compiling global professional leaderboards in 2023 and joined SABR in 2025.
P7: Clem Hamilton, “How to Achieve Segregation-Era Racial Parity in Baseball’s Hall of Fame”
Many historians who conduct research on Jim-Crow-era Black baseball regard the Hall of Fame’s inclusion of Black ball players as a work in progress. The denial of admission to Dick Redding in 2023 confirmed that the present selection process, combining white and Black ball candidates, is unlikely to yield rational, well-informed results. Hamilton tackles the ongoing challenge of achieving true racial parity in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, specifically focusing on the four chronologically defined stages of the Negro Leagues era. Hamilton proposes a comprehensive, statistically-driven method to fairly evaluate Black baseball players from the segregated era. By normalizing statistics to a 154-game season and adjusting for competitive strength, the presentation offers a clear way to compare Negro League stars with their white peers. Hamilton estimates that around 40 additional Black players deserve induction and outlines a practical process to evaluate and induct them over the next decade. It’s a compelling blueprint for how Cooperstown can finally fully honor the legends of Black baseball.
A recently retired botanic garden chief executive and professor of botany and horticulture, Clem Hamilton (clemwhamilton@gmail.com) focuses his baseball research (1) on the first Negro National League, the St. Louis Stars in particular; (2) on promoting induction of more Black ball personnel into the Hall of Fame; and (3) on urban Black communities as context for major-league-caliber baseball during the Jim Crow era. In 2022 he won the Jim Rygelski Research Award from SABR’s Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter, and currently serves as the chapter’s president.
P8: Chuck Hildebrandt, “Nepo Babies: Father-Son Duos Throughout Major League History”
Ever notice how it seems like every time you watch a game, there’s yet another player who’s the son of a former big leaguer? In an era of high-visibility professions, we have come to call those following in their parents’ footsteps “nepo babies,” and baseball certainly has its share of those. Hildebrandt’s poster explores the phenomenon of nepo babies in baseball: who they are, how common the phenomenon has been throughout history, and why the game has become more “family-oriented” today than ever before. You will also learn, among other things, the story of the first-ever nepo baby in baseball; who are generally better, the fathers or the sons; who the best and worst father-son combinations have been throughout history; who was the “most nepo” nepo baby of all time (it’s probably not who you think it is), and more. You will also thrill to the inaugural (and probably final) all-time Nepo Baby All-Star Team.
Chuck Hildebrandt (chuck.sabr@gmail.com) is a previous winner of the SABR Convention Poster Presentation Award for his 2023 poster, “Long-Tenured Teammates on Big League Teams.” He has authored three articles for the Baseball Research Journal, including the Spring 2015 cover story, “The Retroactive All-Star Game Project,” as well as a handful of SABR Games Project articles. He also founded the Baseball and the Media Committee in 2013 and currently serves as its chair emeritus. A Detroit native who is a proud Tigers fan, he lives with his lovely wife Terrie in Chicago, still playing in a rec softball league while hoping to avoid adding to his record of three knee surgeries.
P9: Fr. Humbert Kilanowski, “Catching the Stars of Tomorrow”
The Cape Cod Baseball League, a prestigious summer league for collegiate players, has been a rich source of talent for the major league draft, ever since the draft began and the league became affiliated with the NCAA in the 1960s. Fr. Kilanowski explores the vital role of the Cape Cod Baseball League in shaping the future of the major league draft. With over a fifth of major leaguers having spent time on the Cape, this presentation looks at how both traditional scouts and modern analysts evaluate these collegiate stars. The poster shares how augmenting a custom WAR model with advanced tracking data has improved the ability to predict a player’s future draft position based on their summer league performance.As the landscape of the amateur draft changes, with teams relying more on choosing proven college talent, fewer rounds in the draft, and the new rules of the transfer portal, the roles of scouts and analysts continue to evolve, yet people in both roles work together for the common goal of identifying and choosing the players that best fit their teams’ needs. The poster provides an insightful look at how human scouting and machine learning models are working together to identify baseball’s next generation of talent.
Fr. Humbert Kilanowski (kilanowskiop@gmail.com) is a Catholic priest of the Dominican order and an associate professor of mathematics at Providence College in Rhode Island. He began his work in sabermetrics as the statistician for his high school baseball team in 1997 and completed his doctoral studies at The Ohio State University. Since the 2019 season, his primary area of mathematical research has involved evaluating collegiate players in the Cape Cod Baseball League with the methods of data science. A member of the Lajoie-Start Southern New England SABR Chapter, he considers it a lifetime penance to live as a Yankee fan in the midst of Red Sox Nation.
P10: Allison Levin, “Changing Times: From Generational Fandom to Technological Fandom”
One of the stories that appears every year in the baseball narrative surrounds the idea that baseball fandom is somehow dying. Levin’s poster will look at how that narrative is built upon the fallacy that to be fans young people must enjoy the game in the same way that older fans do. Levin explores the colorful evolution of dugout home run celebrations, tracing the phenomenon from the reserved high-fives of the 1950s to the elaborate, prop-heavy routines of today. Using rhetorical and visual analysis, the poster breaks down distinct eras of celebration, including the silent treatment trend of the 2010s and the current craze of team-specific props like the Mariners’ trident or the Blue Jays’ home run jacket. She exposes the origins of these routines and explains how they reflect broader sociological changes in sports fandom and culture, offering a fun and educational look at how players express joy on the diamond.
Allison Levin (allison.levin@gmail.com) is Professor of Sports Communication at Webster University. Her work explores social/cultural issues of sports fandom, particularly in baseball. Allison serves as Vice President of the SABR Board of Directors. She has presented on many topics at SABR conventions over the years and enjoys finding the topics that have little research and digging into them. She is a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, but her favorite player is Clayton Kershaw.
P11: Bill Marston, “Streaking — Baseball Style”
We have seen teams that go on a long winning streak and quickly elevate themselves into a pennant race. Likewise, a significant cold streak can eliminate a team from contention. Marston investigates the true impact of long winning and losing streaks on a team’s season. The poster mines historical data to find the most extreme streaks and analyzes how they ultimately altered the standings. Marston also explores whether World Series champions typically rely on lengthy win streaks, how often teams overcome devastating losing skids, and if certain months are more prone to streaky play. It’s a fun look at the unpredictable momentum swings of a baseball season.
Bill Marston (BillM2126@gmail.com) is a retired high school mathematics teacher and baseball coach. A lifelong fan of the game, he enjoys all aspects of baseball. He knows of nothing that thrills him more than playing catch with his grandkids. Since joining SABR, his interest in the history of the game has increased ten-fold. His main areas of interest are the World Series and unassisted triple plays. Because of his love of mathematics, he looks for ways to connect numbers with baseball. Finding trends and patterns in baseball data is one way that he does that.
P12: Timothy Patrick Murphy, “The Fields of Europe”
Murphy traveled to Western Europe in November to photograph four baseball fields in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Italy. Driven by a lifelong passion for ballparks and a desire to learn more about the international game, Murphy provides in-person observations on the unique characteristics of each field. The poster features photos and highlights distinct elements like the world’s tallest church steeple visible from the German field and the rustic grandstand of the Italian ballpark, home of the 1964 European baseball championship. Murphy also shares conclusions on how field design, like an overemphasis on fencing, affects the intimacy of the fan experience, enriching our understanding of European baseball culture.
Timothy Patrick Murphy (tpm451@yahoo.com), who has been practicing law for 31 years, is a member of the Appellate Unit of Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Western District of New York in Buffalo. He has lectured statewide on NYS Court of Appeals case law for the NYS Defenders Association. He is the former Chief Attorney of the Appeals and Post-Conviction Unit of the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo, Inc. He previously worked at Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria LLP, in Buffalo, where he represented criminal and civil clients in state and federal courts across the country. He is a former prosecutor with the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office, and a former Town Justice in the Town of Pendleton, where he served for eight years.
P13: Phil Rosenzweig, “Cleveland’s League Park Through the Lens of Louis Van Oeyen”
Cleveland’s League Park, a concrete and steel stadium opened in 1910, was the site of many photos taken by Louis Van Oeyen of the Cleveland Press. Rosenzweig takes us on a visual journey back to Cleveland’s League Park, using the stunning photography of Van Oeyen, who captured more images at this concrete and steel stadium than anyone else, with many of his photos featured in the 1912 T202 Hassan Triplefolder baseball card set. By blending these high-resolution cards, commercial postcards, and Van Oeyen’s other work, the poster provides a vivid look at the stadium’s unique dimensions, its distinctive outfield wall, and the surrounding neighborhood, offering a rich glimpse into the Deadball Era and Cleveland’s baseball history.
Phil Rosenzweig (phil.rosenzweig@imd.org) is the author of One Splendid Season: Baseball and America in 1912, Told with the Words and Images of the Hassan Triplefolder Set, which won the 2026 Larry Ritter Award from SABR’s Deadball Era Committee. A native of Northern California, he was a business school professor and is an award-winning author.
P14: Bob Sawyer, “Shohei Ohtani and Jack Smith?”
Sawyer celebrates the incredible base-running prowess of Jack Smith, a St. Louis Cardinals outfielder from the early 1920s who consistently scored over 50% of the time he reached first base. To put that in perspective, even modern superstars like Shohei Ohtani have only reached that mark in a single season. Sawyer’s poster examines the data to explore how Smith achieved such an astronomical scoring rate, looking at his batting order position, extra-base taking ability, and the performance of the hitters behind him. It’s a fascinating deep dive into a forgotten player who mastered the art of crossing the plate.
Bob Sawyer (baseballnut570@hotmail.com) has been a SABR member since 2007. It is his obsession to utilize his experience as a player and designer of historically-based tabletop simulations for sabermetric advancement. He authored a biography of super-scout Gene Bennett for the SABR book Can He Play? A Look at Baseball Scouts and Their Profession, and helped create SABR’s Games and Simulations Committee. He still uses a family website created in 1988. He answers any inquiry from SABR members that he does not accidentally delete.
P15: Jason A. Schwartz, “What the T206 Cleveland Naps Reveal About the Larger Set”
Schwartz dives into the iconic 1909-1911 American Tobacco Company “White Borders” baseball card set, commonly known as the T206. With a massive checklist of over 500 cards, the set is often viewed by collectors as too complex to easily understand its evolution. However, building on the Print Group concept most widely popularized by researcher Scot Reader, Schwartz has uncovered significant patterns within the print groups that reveal a surprisingly simple and elegant blueprint for how the set was put together. To celebrate SABR 54 being in Cleveland, his poster uses the Cleveland Naps cards from the set to clearly illustrate this new framework, while also providing visuals for the other fifteen major league teams.
Jason A. Schwartz (jason.1969@yahoo.com) is secretary of the SABR Chicago Emil Rothe Chapter and co-chair of the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee. He is the winner of the 2025 SABR Doug Pappas Award and a nationally recognized expert on collectibles. His unique, baseball-themed artwork is currently on display at PNC Park and the Honus Wagner Museum.
P16: Jonah Weiss, “From the Eagles to the Indians: Larry Doby’s New Jersey Path to Cleveland and Cooperstown”
Weiss explores the early life and developmental career of Larry Doby, focusing on his roots in Paterson, New Jersey. The presentation highlights how Doby’s multi-sport excellence at Eastside High School and his early Negro League days with the Newark Eagles shaped the Hall of Famer who integrated the American League with Cleveland in 1947. Using archival materials and contemporary newspaper accounts, the poster traces Doby’s journey from Hinchliffe Stadium to the major leagues. He highlights how local regions and New Jersey’s Black baseball culture are both crucial elements when discussing Doby’s legacy and the pressures he would face in Cleveland. The poster demonstrates how local baseball history and New Jersey’s vibrant Black baseball culture are essential to fully understanding Doby’s legendary legacy and his incredible path to breaking barriers in Cleveland.
Jonah Weiss (jonahw6@icloud.com) is a 17-year-old rising senior at Livingston High School in New Jersey and an active member of the SABR Elysian Fields Chapter of Northern New Jersey. An avid baseball fan with a deep interest in the game’s history, he regularly contributes to his local chapter newsletter and volunteers at the Charles J. Muth Museum of Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, helping preserve and interpret the history of one of the few surviving Negro League ballparks.
For more information on the SABR 54 convention, visit SABR.org/convention.