The 2013 SABR Analytics Conference will be held Thursday, March 7 through Saturday, March 9, 2013, in downtown Phoenix, Arizona.

Thursday’s programming will be held at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, 555 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85004.

Friday and Saturday’s programming will be held at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, 340 North 3rd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004.

Joe Posnanski and Bill James are among the featured speakers, and there ...

The third incarnation of the MLB Fan Cave is about to get under way! Any closet Primates here?

The MLB Fan Cave 2013 contest has been narrowed down to 50 finalists. Watch and vote for your favorite contestant videos below. From now until February 13, you can vote for as many of your favorite videos as you want and spread the word by sharing on social media. Thirty contestants will be invited to Spring Training to audition to be the 2013 Fan Cave Dwellers.

About time!

Hotel reservation link is also accessible through the convention site.

The new Greg Spira Baseball Research Award (www.SpiraAward.org) will be given annually in recognition of the best published article or paper containing original baseball research by a person 30 years old or younger.

Working with the Spira family, the creators of the Greg Spira Award include Sean Forman of Baseball- Reference.com, Joe Hamrahi and Dave Pease of Baseball Prospectus, Sean Lahman of Baseball1.com, and Gary Gillette of 24-7 Baseball, L.L.C.

The winner of the Greg Spira Baseball ...

Want to be the next Gleeman or Calcaterra?

We’re searching for the next sports social media personality to be a voice of XFINITY behind-the-scenes at the biggest nationwide sporting events this year. Submit your video to show us if you have what it takes for the job.

Posted on behalf of Scott Fischthal and Neal Traven.

SABR invites all members to present their research findings to their colleagues attending SABR42 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Oral presentations are expected to last 20 minutes, followed by a five minute question-and-answer period.  Posters will be presented, with the author on-hand to discuss the work, during a poster session of 90 or so minutes, and will probably remain on display throughout the convention. Abstracts covering all aspects of ...

Creative Commons by Gregg Regula

Happy New Year, BBTF!

All images are Creative Commons by Keith Allison (who I used yesterday, but the guy is probably the best photographer on flickr who puts his stuff up under Creative Commons)

Caption this image:

Creative Commons by Keith Allison

Greg Spira, fellow Primate and long-time friend to many of us, passed away today. Will pass along details as I get them.

Creative Commons by Paul Hadsall

For the final days of 2011, a look at some of the best (creative commons licensed) photos on Flickr.

Today’s photo is of a rocket (not sure of what, probably a satellite) going through the sky during a early March night… and visible from the spring training stadium of the Washington Nationals. Talk about local color.

Creative Commons license, photo by tbridge.

So as what not to annoy the people in the “no, no, the fact that we exploit our players and refuse to cut them in on the cash except for dirty booster money makes us amateur and pristine!” thread.

BBTF is now a worthy topic for pop culture quizbowl. The entire tournament is here.

18. Answer the following related to various running jokes at the Baseball ThinkFactory website, for 10 points each:
[10] One recurring poster uses this name of the protagonist from Ring Lardner’s You Know Me Al. The poster imitates this character’s semi-literate style to comment on the baseball issues of the day.
[10] A hilarious running joke involved the phrase, “Sure, I’d listen if [blank] called,” ...

Just a reminder that BTF’s IRC chat room is open for people who want to live chat during the playoffs.

Dan Werr’s directions after the break.

Let’s smash all the game 162 game chatters into one thread, shall we? There is a full slate of games, but as far as playoff races are concerned, these are the games that matter (although if you want to talk about any of the other games for any reason, feel free).

Red Sox (Lester) vs. Orioles (Simon) at 7:05 PM
Yankees (TBD- no, seriously, TBD) vs. Rays (Price) at 7:10 PM
Phillies (Blanton) vs. Braves (Hudson) at 7:10 PM
Cardinals (Carpenter) vs. Astros (Myers) at 8:05 PM

Given that, we were taken aback when Federal Express delivered a letter…

The revolution is over. Well, that one, anyway. The new ideas earned a place at the table on merit, by being good ideas that contribute to winning baseball games. While I’m no capital-S stathead, I was fortunate enough to work at Baseball Prospectus for a dozen years alongside some of the best in the field, from Clay Davenport and Gary Huckabay, through Rany Jazayerli and Keith Woolner, through Dan Fox and Nate Silver.

...

Amity Hall? Wuh…you guys too good for John’s Pizza? (chomp…I’ll probably be heading over…chomp)

On Sunday, September 25th, we’ll blow the horn for FanGraphs East and announce happy hour drinks and our own private space for our particular brand of nerdery. Come to Amity Hall any time after one PM eastern, and we’ll be hanging out, talking baseball and enjoying happy hour prices. And there will be a ton of togetherness because really how much can you hate a Mets fan right now. Oh! Also, come ...

Our next national convention will be held June 27-July 1, 2012, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins are scheduled to play host to the Kansas City Royals in a weekend series at Target Field, which opened in 2010. In addition, a trip is tentatively planned to see a St. Paul Saints minor league game.

There was the Swine Flu thread, so why not the Hurricane thread. Isn’t that right, New York Mets and the rest of the Northeast teams?

The New York Mets say they have postponed Saturday and Sunday’s games against the Atlanta Braves because of Hurricane Irene.

Both games will be rescheduled as a single-admission doubleheader on Sept. 8 beginning at 4:10 p.m.

Major League Baseball already had moved Sunday’s games at Philadelphia and Boston to Saturday to make them part of day-night ...

“accuracy - not flakiness” Handles for sale! Get your red hot handles!

Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA)

Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average estimates ERA through walk rate, strikeout rate and ground ball rate, eliminating the effects of park, defense and luck.  How is it calculated you ask?

SIERA = 6.145 – 16.986*(SO/PA) + 11.434*(BB/PA) – 1.858*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) + 7.653*((SO/PA)^2) +/– 6.664*(((GB-FB-PU)/PA)^2) + 10.130*(SO/PA)*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) – ...