SABR 35 Convention Summary

Chris recaps the people, the places, and the presentations of his trip to Toronto for the SABR 35 Convention

SABR 35

From August 4 to August 7, 2005 SABR held their annual convention in Toronto, Ontario.  That’s in Canada, according to Dan Werr.

About two dozen Primates were present among the 450 or so attendees, representing about 6% of the contingent.  It was a lively bunch, and included three presenters, Anthony Giacalone (not the one that killed Jimmy Hoffa), Mike Emeigh and Chris Jaffe.  It could have been four, but that’s another story.

Toronto had a bit of a scare Wednesday morning when a plane over-ran the over-run and careened into a ravine.  This delayed and cancelled flights all over the country.  This is preventable.  My flight was scheduled for 7 pm out of Raleigh-Durham and was delayed due to the fact the plane couldn’t leave Toronto to come get me.  There had been an earlier flight scheduled at 11:30 that morning that was cancelled altogether (I think Mike Emeigh and his lovely wife were scheduled on that plane).  This, curiously, delayed my arrival into Toronto by an hour and a half.

A cab to the hotel was $45 Canadian, so I took the $15 bus shuttle.  As I boarded, the first face I saw was The Hardball Times’ Aaron Gleeman.  I plopped down in the seat next to him, and the baseball talk began to flow.

It actually started while waiting for the bus when I met a few other SABRites waiting for the shuttle – Francis Kinlaw, also from NC, and the Boxermans (or is that Boxermen)?

I arrived at my hotel around midnight, checked in and called Anthony.  He had driven up earlier in the day, and he told me where he and other assorted SABRites were, uh, discussing baseball.

Most of the festivities for the Primates began on Wednesday night, with a pre-meeting Meet-up at Wayne Gretzky’s bar and “museum” on John Street.  We drank there until closing and then made our way to Gabby’s and drank there until closing.  Aaron, Will Young (NSFW) and I then went back to the nice hotel to crash.

It was just 3:30 AM, but we decided to crash anyway.

At the convention in the morning, there were handshakes all around and we started in on the talks.

The first talk I went to see was eventual “Best in Show” winner, Peter Morris’ titled “The Origin of the Pitching Rotation.”  Evidently, Cap Anson has been credited with starting it, but several people did it – Anson was just the most famous.  There were two interesting points from this talk in particular: Teams used to rotate batteries.  Teams used to select the starting pitcher based on how he generally fared against the opponent.  I think the Mets should skip Glavine in the rotation against the Braves, and that’s been true in baseball since the 1880s (Chris Jaffe’s outstanding work has shown this as well coughwesferrellcough).

Morris’ work was very interesting, but offered the null set as the answer to his research result.

Then, what seemed to be everyone at the conference piled into the other room to hear Cory Schwartz, the Director of Stats for MLB Advanced Media.  Schwartz talked about what mlb.com offers, what they plan to offer and how involved they are with some teams (19 of 30, he said).  Specifically, Schwartz said they provided data to teams for arbitration hearings – of which there were only three this season; who knew that.  He added that teams are interested in hit spray charts to help defensive positioning.  One of the post-presentation questions was whether or not the mlb.com stats department would provide data to a player for his arbitration case.  The answer was “I don’t know.”  Schwartz seemed nervous, but the information was nice.

Next was the Statistical Analysis Committee meeting.  I went last year and I answered about every question tended to be “Where can I get a certain stat?”  Things were the same, and invariably, my answers were the same as last year: Retrosheet, the Lahman database, The Baseball Cube, Baseball Reference, The Hardball Times, Tangotiger.net and rec.sport.baseball. 

I’m pretty sure that’ll be the answer next year as well. 

Someone did ask about publishers being interested in publishing statistically bent books, and I said, “sure, The Hardball Times has a good one, but I’ll let Aaron Gleeman tell you about it.”  Aaron, properly goaded, stood and talked about the THT stuff.

I like that meeting because it is loaded down with good people to meet and talk about statistics and analysis.

Then a liquid lunch.

The afternoon session (for me) started with Norman Macht’s talk on “Say it Ain’t So: DebunkingBaseball Myths.”  Macht is a storyteller, and provided humor into a modicum of research.  Mostly his talk was about “don’t believe everything you read or hear.”  He playfully scolded the media for repeating stories that were pure legend – Germany Schaefer didn’t steal first base, for example.  Macht had researched the story and found the plays that did happen.  It was a fun talk, but nothing too exciting.

Immediately, we all switched rooms to hear Phil Birnbaum’s presentation of teams that were lucky, but not necessarily good.  The presentation, “Were the 1994 Expos Just Lucky?”, was very interesting.  He laid out criteria for factors a team could and could not control, and then followed the trail of which team varied from the expected values the most (like allowing runs beyond component ERA, under-performing Runs Created on offense, players having career years, etc).  Phil had five categories and ran the numbers for everyone.  Not surprisingly, the 2001 Seattle Mariners were the luckiest team.  Phil also looked at the inverse – which were simply the best teams – teams that differed from their expected production the least.  Phil has posted the piece here, but let’s just say Sam Hutcheson will puff up his chest and say, “I told you so.”  To this point, this was the best presentation.

There wasn’t a presentation immediately following Phil’s, so we stood around, and chatted with Phil, other Primates, just took in the other attendees.

There was a piece on the Green Monster from some Tufts students, but I skipped it.  Tufts offers a class on Sabermetrics, and the prof Andy Andres of BaseballHQ also presented a paper.

Next up for me was “Age versus Offensive Performance” by Ken Cherven, analyzing peak age.  Cherven wanted to look at whether or not players were peaking later than the Bill James-established age 27.  Cherven’s presentation was very professional.  I’m not sure what he does for a living, but he was smooth, had graphs that would make Dave Studeman proud and treated his data properly for the investigation (park and season adjusted).  There were few questions afterward that weren’t already answered.  Ken’s data indicated the peak age had gone (roughly) from 27 in the 1960s to nearly 30 today.  But Ken also showed things like the percentage of plate appearances from players over age 34 and the percentage of PAs from players that were 21.  Cherven didn’t really “debunk” anything because he didn’t maintain James’ criteria because he used a 300 PA cut-off.  There also appeared to be a clear bias in high offensive eras.  The 1930s and 1950s were higher than the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s, and only the 1990s and 2000s were higher.  The 12940s also showed a high age, but that was most likely related to the older players used during WWII. 

Cherven gave a good presentation, but I feel his study didn’t address what he opened with, and the bias in his data could mean much more.  It was still a good presentation. 

Afterwards, we stood around in the foyer and talked to people, and then went out for dinner and drinking.

The first day I saw five talks – two on stats, one on mlb.com, and two on the history of baseball.

The trivia contest started at 7 PM, and Dan Szymborski, Chris Jaffe, Vinay Kumar and me gathered for the test.  Here’s a free hint: many of the questions will center on the local team(s).  We should have studied.

I think we did better than last year, but it wasn’t pretty.  I’m fairly certain we came in last. 

Who are the three Canadian born players with 1000 hits?  Hint: not Dee Fondy.
What three non-pitchers played the most seasons with the Jays?
What Kansas City A’s managers won World Series (obviously with other teams)?
Who is the only Hall of Famer to die in Canada (undisputedly)?

This is a nice sample of questions we didn’t know the answer to. 

On the individual side, Primate Joe Kowal placed first in the opening round of the individual portion. Kowal went on to win the Trivia Contest.

Afterward, we went to eat dinner with Joe, and he proceeded to wow us with some silly knowledge.

When we got back to the hotel, Joe Dimino had gotten the poker tournament together.  I came in fifth.  Then went and got my own damn beer.  I then proceeded to school everyone in Seinfeld trivia.  Dan did stump me with - In The Opera episode (with Crazy Joe Divola), what did George say his Chinese friend’s name was?  See Aaron’s review for poker talk. 

Then we went out drinking some more.

Friday morning opened early with Anthony Giacalone’s paper on the 1974 White Sox, with Dick Allen and Ron Santo.  Anthony had the best pictures for his powerpoint, mostly baseball cards and whatnot.  He also made the funniest jokes.  He had too much material, so he got tightened up on the time, but it was interesting to hear how Dick Allen wasn’t always the bad guy that you hear from Bill James (once upon a time) or even by some posters here.  Evidently, Ron Santo had a massive ego.

The most interesting baseball fact I learned over the weekend was not that on the 1988 Orioles some pitcher I never heard of did not get 20 decisions.  It was that Ron Santo was the first player to invoke the 10-5 veteran “no-trade” rule.  As Anthony told us, it became known as “The Santo Clause”.  Yes, Tony was there all week, and I had the veal.

Anthony’s presentation was flawed largely in that he had too much to say.  The post-presentation questions, in my opinion, showed that people were more passionate about this subject than any other presentation at the convention.  I mean, sure, I get pumped up about Mike Emeigh’s DIPS work, but almost everyone at SABR has an opinion on Dick Allen, whether you are a stathead or a historian, and people really wanted to talk to Anthony after his presentation.  Even STATS originator Don Zminda had a comment. 

After that, we went to see the Retrosheet master, David Smith.  Smith presents at practically every convention and is generally the favorite presentation.  Smith also is a huge Dodger fan and has a man-crush on Sandy Koufax, but then don’t we all?

This year’s presentation focused on the changes in baseball and the Dodgers from the 1955 Dodger team to the 1965 Dodger team.  He examined how many lineups were used.  He also examined the leads and how they got them.  The 1955 Dodgers opened and ran, while the 1965 Dodgers went 15-1 down the stretch to come back from 4 games behind (see, that’s why I never give up on the Mets season).  The dominance the Dodgers’ rotation laid on the rest of the National League was brutal.  In those 16 games, the Dodgers allowed just 17 runs.  Only two other teams have done that, and they were both early teams (the 1906 White Sox, I think was one).  No team has done it since.

It’s hard to criticize Smith’s work because of its thoroughness.  As President of Retrosheet, he has the best access to the best data, and he has Clem Comly and Tom Ruane to help with the work.  I’m pretty sure Ruane is recognized as the best with the data.

Getting to hear Smith’s presentations and talking with him, Tom and Clem is one of the things I like best about the convention.  They are accessible and truly excited about the work they do.  And they have a sense of humor about baseball and, more importantly, themselves.

I stood around and talked to Smith after his talk and missed “The Leo Mazzone Effect” presentation by a pair of Tufts students.  Thanks to Baseball Primer, I had read most of it from JC Bradbury’s work.  I was told the presentation recognized JC’s work, which was fantastic work.

After lunch, Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer presented their latest work on generating a statistic for evaluating relievers based on Win Probability.  No sooner had those words come out of Gillette’s mouth then I said “Isn’t that Doug Drinen’s work from about a decade ago?”  I believe it is.  Palmer and Gillette’s idea is slightly different.  Drinen’s work is precise, and Palmer and Gillette wanted to create a stat for the fans.  The bad news was that the powerpoint equipment broke down and so the presentation consisted of Gillette reading about it.

As much as I admire the work they did in The Hidden Game of Baseball and everything before and since, this work was in bad need of researching what was already out there.  I’m not sure dancing girls could have made the presentation good, though.

Chris Jaffe presented his work on pitching aging patterns next.  As near as I could tell, Jaffe used to work at a fast food drive-through, because he held the microphone too close to his mouth, making everyone wince as he spoke.

His data was very interesting.  He showed interesting peak patterns for varying eras of pitchers, based on when they were born (1890s – 1960s).  Today’s pitchers were born in the 1960s or later.  He showed that knuckleballers had odd peak years and that a high strikeout rate predicted a better decline.  That doesn’t seem much like news, but Jaffe found that the next to worst strikeout rate pitchers had peculiarly better decline rates than other groups.  That was very interesting.

Jaffe’s research was good, but it could have been presented better.  It wasn’t as stunning as his work last year with RSI, but a very good bunch of data in Jaffe’s work. 

The next talk I saw was Mike Emeigh’s work on DIPS.  Mike gave the most professional presentation I saw (but there were two dozen I didn’t see).  Mike referenced all the other known research about his work, citing Voros McCracken, Tom Tippett and Clay Davenport.  Mike’s work focused on the “pre-screening effect”.  He plans to publish the work here soon enough, so I won’t go into it too much.  Mike did come upon an interesting tidbit – closers appear to have better BABIP than expected and lower line drive percentages.  There’s some interesting research to be done on that regarding whether teams ar naturally good at selecting closers or if pitchers change their approach when they become closers.  It is generally taken for granted that a closer is the 9th inning pitcher and that can be handled by many, but Mike opened a window that may indicate otherwise, and in a demonstrable manner.

After that, we all went to the ballgame.  Anthony, Vinay and I got separate tickets from the SABR crowd at the game – about 20 rows up from the visitors dugout.  I got to mark Skydome off my list of stadiums.  It was a really beautiful stadium in the seats.  The concourse was pretty antiseptic and felt “indoors”, but the seats were great.

There were a million Yankee fans.  There were definitely more Yankee fans than Blue Jays fans, and probably by a solid margin.  It was loud and pinstriped.

However, the game opened with a dance team.  And then every half inning was some “host”.  It was like being at a minor league game.  I was surprised there was no “dizzy bat” race.  The Yankees clobbered Chacin.

The discussion during the game was fantastic.  One thing I hate about going to the minor league games is the ignorance of the fans around me most of the time.  Talking to Vinay and Anthony made the game fly by.  For instance – have you ever noticed how infielders play their positions?  At third base, the third baseman tends to stand with his feet even, whereas the shortstop stands with one foot in back of the other and “walks into” the pitch.  Alex Rodriguez, however, plays third like a shortstop.  Corey Koskie started with his feet even.

We also counted flyballs versus groundballs.  Joe Dimino had observed before the game that it was difficult, and I have argued before that it isn’t.  So we called the ball in play, and I admit that we differed more times than I thought we would.  I suppose an up-front definition would have helped, but that’s a tale for another day. 

The game was fun, and they sold beer through the 8th inning, I think.  Going to a ballgame with people like Vinay and Anthony make going to a ballgame even more enjoyable.

After the game, the evening was thoroughly enjoyed with drinks at the Duke of Argyle.  The three of us got out ahead and arrived first.  The other guys wanted to have a poker tourney.  Vinay, Anthony and I went on for drinks and baseball talk.  As players were eliminated from the poker game, they would arrive at the bar.  The night ran long and as the Duke closed around 1 AM, we moved to our adopted home, Gabby’s.  By the third night there we had developed a strong routine and good rapport with the lovely bartenderess.  She did a good job recognizing what good service could get from a bunch of heavily drinking dorks.  And we appreciated it.

The Primer crowd had grown significantly – Dial, Szym, Furtado, Daly, Giacalone, Vinay, Dimino, Rauseo, Murphy, fra paolo, Ben Jacobs, Craig Burley, Joe Kowal, Will Young, Gleeman, deJesus Freak, Thomas Ayers, Neal Traven, Jaffe, Max Parkinson, Mike Emeigh all were out socializing together at one point or another.  Dan Levine and Phil Birnbaum joined in for poker.

On Saturday, Ron Johnson, one of my USENET heroes, showed up.  That was a really great moment for me.  Oh, I met Bill James that day as well and chatted briefly.  He was very nice.  I chased Rob Neyer down right before he got on the elevator to introduce myself and say “hi”, but he generally looked busy at the conference.  When I introduced myself, Rob did say “Oh, your name has come up in conversation” (or something like that.)  I walked away wondering if something nice was said or “Hey, stay away from that loud jackass, Chris Dial.”

Meeting those three and chatting more with David Smith and Tom Ruane made the weekend worth both thousand dollars.

I skipped the luncheon to spend the time with Ron talking baseball and life.  After 10 years of Internet discussions, it was superlative to meet him. 

At lunch, Ron, Furtado, Anthony and Craig Burley and I went to Dunn’s for a smoked meat sandwich and more discussion, but it turned into a discussion on the advancement of civilization before and after WWII.  Did you know that in Canada, they don’t carry champagne splits in the bars and don’t know what a mimosa is?  That was disappointing.  I did get to drink a Keith’s IPA, and it was excellent.

Then we went to the Saturday game – a mid-afternoon start.  We bought 15 tickets together and took over an entire section of the Dome.  We drank an enormous amount of beer at the game.  We were loud, and remarkably non-profane as a dad and four kids sat in front of us.  He was a braver man than I would be.

Randy Johnson proceeded to get shelled, which left far more time for chatting – and drinking. 

I tell you, it was just what you love in life – all day talking baseball – with people who understand on the same level you do.  The kind of friends that don’t get mad when you completely disagree with what they said – Tim Raines is the best player you have ever seen?  I don’t think you know what you are talking about.  Or you poked your eyes out in 1987.

After a large group meal at SwissChalet, where I did the waitering, and Anthony ran pitchers, we gathered at Gabby’s.  I called it a relatively early evening, going back to the hotel around 11:45 PM so I could catch up on some work. 

The plan was to leave early Sunday, driving back with Anthony to North Carolina.  It was only about a 12-13 hour ride, but we stopped in Niagara Falls and I got the see them (Anthony had been before). 

I thought we were going to have trouble at the border when Anthony presented the guard with an Illinois driver’s license, driving a car with Maryland tags and claiming he lived in North Carolina.  He made a joke about going to a nerd conference, but she wasn’t laughing.  She let us go, and 11 hours later, Anthony dropped me off at my parents’ house, where my wife and daughter were waiting to give me a ride back home.

Next year the SABR convention is in Seattle.  My wife has a good friend in the area, so we’re likely to be going.  Hopefully, I’ll get a paper accepted for presentation.  Moreover, I hope to continue the friendships I’ve made with Primer guys that show up, the Primer guys who will show up and the regular SABRites that I love to chat with so often.  With Neal Traven as a host, you can be sure it will rock.

I hope each of you that isn’t a SABR member, and that would even be at this site, will reconsider the value of joining – at a minimum, you support research and publication of baseball history, even if you don’t like the benefits for yourself.  It’s a charitable donation to the sport you love. 

Oh, and tell them Chris Dial sent you.