This Week in SABR: March 9, 2012

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Here’s what we’ve been up to as of March 9, 2012:

All set for the SABR Analytics Conference

We’re just about ready for the inaugural SABR Analytics Conference, presented by Bloomberg Sports and Major League Baseball. Never before have as many of the top minds of the baseball analytic community come under one roof to discuss, debate and share learnings of insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball. The conference runs Thursday, March 15 through Saturday, March 17 at the Hilton Phoenix/East in Mesa, Arizona.

Last week, we announced the list of Research Presentations. A full schedule for the Analytics Conference can be found here: http://sabr.org/analytics/topics.

This week, we take a look at a couple more panels on the schedule:

Bloomberg Sports—Next Generation of Team Analytics: Bill Squadron, head of Bloomberg Sports, will demonstrate the most advanced and integrated system for baseball operations ever developed and now being used by almost all MLB clubs. The system is a one-stop shop that allows teams to address all of their baseball needs in a single unit. Bill will be joined by Shiraz Rehman, who will talk about the relationship established between the Chicago Cubs and Bloomberg Sports. Scheduled for Thursday, March 15.

  • Bill Squadron, Bloomberg Sports: Bill is head of Bloomberg Sports, which provides data, statistical analysis and visualizations for sports professionals and fans. From 1997 to 2003, he was co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Sportvision, pushing for television innovations such as the yellow first down marker in football, NASCAR Race f/x and the “K Zone” baseball tracking system.
  • Shiraz Rehman, Chicago Cubs: Shiraz is Assistant to the General Manager of the Chicago Cubs. He spent six seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, serving as the director of player personnel and previously as director of baseball operations.

Digital World Meets Baseball Information Panel: Website, mobile and television producers and developers are continually pushing the envelope and upgrading the way in which baseball fans are provided with more timely, cutting edge, informative and interactive analytic information. What will be the next innovative ways in which baseball fans consume statistical content? What are baseball content providers going to be developing next? How are content providers going to incorporate this information and implement these new innovations? Scheduled for Saturday, March 17.

  • Jeff Bennett, ESPN: Jeff is a Senior Director with ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. Bennett has won four Sports Emmy Awards for his role as the lead researcher on ESPN’s SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight studio shows from 1996-2003.
  • Rob Shaw, Bloomberg Sports: Rob is the Head of Broadcast/Executive Producer of Bloomberg Sports. He appears on Bloomberg TV in Fantasy Sports Reports, as well as USAToday.com and MLB.com.
  • Ryan Zander, Sportvision: Ryan is General Manager of SportVision’s baseball products. He oversees the direction and strategy of SV’s baseball products including Pitch f/x, Hit f/x, Field f/x.
  • Moderator: Michele Steele, ESPN: Michele is a cross-platform anchor/reporter for ESPN. She has reported live from the Super Bowl, the Masters, the Final Four and the Kentucky Derby. Before joining ESPN in 2011, she worked at Bloomberg Television as the network’s only sports business reporter. Steele was also a senior reporter for Forbes video on-demand service.

Featured speakers for the SABR Analytics Conference include: Tom Ricketts, Chairman, Chicago Cubs; Derrick Hall, President/CEO, Arizona Diamondbacks; Mark Shapiro, President, Cleveland Indians; Chris Antonetti, Executive Vice President/General Manager, Cleveland Indians; Jerry Dipoto, Senior Vice President/General Manager, Los Angeles Angels; Doug Melvin, Executive Vice President/General Manager, Milwaukee Brewers; and more. Click here for a complete list of speakers, panelists and moderators.

In addition, SABR member Sean Forman, president of Sports Reference, LLC, will be holding a Baseball-Reference Open Forum on Friday and Saturday. Sean will be available for two hours each morning to provide tips, suggestions and answer user questions. In addition to a rundown of popular features and tools, Sean will show you how to embed B-R content within your blogs or websites, quickly link from your articles to Baseball-Reference.com player pages, and promote your content directly to Baseball-Reference.com users. Stop by our forum or stop Sean in the hallway and receive a free 15-day trial to the Baseball Reference Play Index!

Check out our website at SABR.org/analytics for the most up-to-date SABR Analytics Conference information.

There’s still time to sign up and join us at the:

SABR Analytics Conference, presented by Bloomberg Sports and Major League Baseball
When: March 15-17, 2012
Where: Hilton Phoenix East/Mesa, 1011 West Holmes Avenue, Mesa, AZ 85210

The SABR Analytics Conference will begin on Thursday, March 15 and conclude on Saturday, March 17 at the Hilton Phoenix East/Mesa in Arizona. The schedule will consist of a combination of Guest Speakers, Panels and Research Presentations — plus the inaugural SABR Case Competition, in which undergraduate and graduate students will analyze and present a real baseball operations decision, and be judged by MLB front office executives.

Here are the brackets for the Case Competition:

Bracket 1 (11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Friday, March 16)

  • Tufts University (Medford, MA). Team captain: Benjamin Limoges.
  • Siena College (Loudonville, NY). Team captain: Hudson Belinsky.
  • University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC). Team captain: Patrick Dornan.
  • Yale University (New Haven, CT). Team captain: Adam Holzman.
  • Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ). Team captain: Justin Magner.

Bracket 2 (1:00-4:00 p.m. Friday, March 16)

  • University of Portland (Portland, OR). Team captain: Chris Siegfried.
  • New York University (New York, NY). Team captain: Ricky Benichak.
  • Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY). Team captain: Chris Hangen.
  • University of Florida (Gainesville, FL). Team captain: Matt Redinger.
  • University of Waterloo (Waterloo, ON, Canada). Team captain: Jay Ryu.

Bracket 3 (2:15-4:35 p.m. Friday, March 16)

  • University of California (Berkeley, CA). Team captain: John Holgate.
  • Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). Team captain: Sunil Dave.
  • University of Chicago (Chicago, IL). Team captain: Ryan Lamb.
  • Elon University (Elon, NC). Team captain: Benjamin Tario.

Conference registration is available now at the SABR Store and the conference is open to all baseball fans. The full rate of $495 includes the Networking Reception on Thursday and lunch on Friday and Saturday. At the Hilton Phoenix East/Mesa, the SABR group rate of $139/night (plus tax) has sold out for the conference nights of March 15-17. However, there may still be some rooms available on those nights at the regular hotel room rate. Call (800) 544-5866 for reservations and mention that you are attending the SABR Analytics Conference. The hotel’s website is phoenixeastmesa.hilton.com.

To register for the SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics.

For more information on the Case Competition, visit SABR.org/analytics/case or contact SABR President Vince Gennaro.

Register now for SABR 42

We have a great convention coming up in 2012! From June 27-July 1, SABR’s 42nd annual convention will be held at the Marriott City Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Halsey Hall Chapter of SABR will be hosting the event and we’ve been busy for many years planning for a great event. A full schedule and speakers will be announced soon.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR SABR 42: http://sabr.org/convention/sabr42-registration

We’re offering two options for registration this year:

1) All-inclusive rate
Special for 2012: We’re offering an all-inclusive rate for SABR 42. From now until May 1, SABR members can pay $199 and nonmembers can pay $249 to receive:

  • Full registration to SABR 42 in Minneapolis (regular price: $129 for SABR members or $179 for nonmembers)
  • 1 ticket to the Awards Banquet (regular price: $45)
  • 1 Skyline Deck ticket to the Twins vs. Royals game on Friday, June 29 (regular price: $44)

Please note: Skyline Deck tickets are only available to the first 250 people who select the all-inclusive rate. Those who select the all-inclusive rate after Skyline Deck tickets are sold out will receive a Home Plate View ticket (regular price: $38) instead.

After May 1, the all-inclusive rate will be available at $219 for SABR members and $269 for non-members.

2) Regular rate
SABR members and non-members who wish to purchase registration, banquet tickets and game tickets separately can do so at the following rates:

Registration
includes access to all panel discussions, research presentations, committee meetings and other on-site events.

  • SABR members: $129
  • Non-members: $179

Awards Banquet on Friday, June 29

  • Awards Banquet: $45

Meal includes salad, chicken entree and dessert. (If you have special dietary considerations, please contact Deb Jayne at djayne@sabr.org.)

Twins vs. Royals game on Friday, June 29
SABR has reserved a block of tickets in the Skyline Deck and Home Plate View sections. (The Skyline Deck section is normally available only to season-ticket holders and special groups.) Click here for a seating chart at TwinsBaseball.com. 

  • Skyline Deck: $44
  • Home Plate View: $38

You will be able to redeem your game ticket at the registration desk using the chit system. If you do not care with whom you sit, you should turn your chit into your game ticket right away at the hotel. But if you want to sit with a friend, wait to turn in your chits at the registration desk at the same time, thereby getting tickets next to one another.

We hope you’ll join us in Minneapolis this summer!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR SABR 42: http://sabr.org/convention/sabr42-registration

Seymour Medal presentation at NINE: Glenn Stout, Fenway 1912

Glenn Stout, author of Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway’s Remarkable First Year (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), will receive his Seymour Medal tomorrow night at the banquet of the 19th annual NINE Spring Training conference, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 10 at the Fiesta Resort Conference Center in Tempe, Arizona. Banquet tickets are $40.

The banquet includes the Seymour Medal ceremony with Dorothy Seymour Mills, dinner and the NINE Keynote address by SABR member Rob Fitts, author of Banzai Babe Ruth, Wally Yonamine, and Remembering Japanese Baseball. To register for the NINE conference, visit http://nineregistration.com. For a list of speakers and presenters, visit http://nine.iweb.bsu.edu/2012conferenceschedule.htm.

The SABR Seymour Medal honors the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year. Stout is the author of Red Sox Century, Yankees Century, Nine Months at Ground Zero and The Cubs: The Complete Story of Chicago Cubs Baseball among his more than 80 books.

To see a list of past Seymour Medal winners, click here. 

Download your free copy of the Emerald Guide to Baseball 2012

The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2012, edited by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer with Rod Nelson and Ted Turocy, is the most comprehensive record of the 2012 baseball season.

Historically, the primary purpose of annual baseball guides has been the publication of the official league standings plus the official team and individual statistics for both Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball. Our new Emerald Guide follows faithfully in that tradition, containing the official batting, pitching, and fielding statistics for every team and every player in the Major Leagues plus extensive lists of league leaders.

The Emerald Guide to Baseball is our attempt to fill the gap in the historical record created by the recent demise of The Sporting News Baseball Guide. First published in 1942, The Sporting News Guide was truly the annual book of record for our National Pastime. It is our great privilege to document for posterity a slice of recent baseball history in our new book.

The 2012 edition of the Emerald Guide runs nearly 600 pages and covers the 2011 season; it also includes a 2012 directory of Major League Baseball. The Emerald Guide is available in both a printed version and in a downloadable PDF format.

A softcover print edition will be available for purchase soon.

Download the PDF: SABR members can download the Emerald Guide on the Research Resources page. All others can download it here.

SABR BioProject surpasses 1,800 biographies

Three new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project and the 1947 Dodgers book edited by Lyle Spatz is now available for pre-order. The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America: The 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers is the first book in SABR’s “Memorable Teams” series with University of Nebraska Press. To pre-order your copy from UNP, click here.

That brings us to a total of 1,846 published biographies! Here are the new bios:

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

We recently relaunched the BioProject at its new home page: SABR.org/BioProject.  The new BioProject fully integrates its design with SABR.org and upgrades the back-end platform, making it easier for us to post and edit new bios and eliminating some formatting problems with the original software. All of your old URLs should still work (and if you find one that doesn’t, please contact jpomrenke@sabr.org.)

The upgraded BioProject also gives you the ability to search the full text of any biography we’ve published. Use the search bar that appears atop every biography to find any name or phrase that appears in the BioProject. And just click the words “SABR Baseball Biography Project” in the search bar to get back to the home page.

Writing a biography for the BioProject is an easy way to get involved as a SABR member. Find out how by visiting our BioProject Resources page or reading the FAQs section.

Register for Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Conference

  • Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference, April 20-21, Cooperstown, New York: Registration is now open for the Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference at SABR.org/ivor-campbell19c. Conference registration is open to all SABR members and up to two non-SABR family members or friends (18 years or older). There are also “Welcoming Dinner”, “Luncheon Only” and “Post Conference Gathering” registration options. Registration will continue until April 10, 2012, or space is filled, whichever comes first. Click here to download a Registration Form in the Nineteenth Century Committee’s Winter 2012 newsletter. Registrations can be accepted by mail only. Research presentation abstracts were due by February 15, 2012. Conference attendees who are baseball authors will have an opportunity to submit their books when registering so that the Hall of Fame bookstore can stock their book for purchase and for signing.
  • Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, July 19-21, Cleveland, Ohio: Registration is now open for the 15th annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference at SABR.org/malloy. The Malloy Conference, hosted by SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee, promotes activities to enhance scholarly, educational, and literary objectives. For the past 14 years, the event has been the only symposium dedicated exclusively to the examination and promotion of black baseball history. The conference is open to baseball and history fans of all ages. Each year, monies are targeted to donate books to schools or libraries; raise funds for the Grave Marker Project; and award scholarships to high school seniors in a nationwide essay contest and a nationwide art contest. Submit your research presentation abstracts by March 19, 2012.  A complete information packet with schedule, mail-in registration form and program advertising opportunities can be downloaded here (PDF) or on the website.

Chapter meeting recaps

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

Upcoming SABR events:

Visit SABR.org/events for details on all upcoming SABR events.

In other recent SABR news:

All previous editions of This Week in SABR can be found here: http://sabr.org/content/this-week-in-sabr-archives. If you would like us to include an upcoming event, article or any other information in “This Week in SABR”, e-mail Jacob Pomrenke at jpomrenke@sabr.org.

Find exclusive Members’ Only resources and information here: http://sabr.org/about/members-info

Did you know you can renew your membership at any time? 1- and 3-year SABR memberships are available at http://store.sabr.org

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Originally published: March 9, 2012. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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