Summer San Diego SABR Meeting TOMORROW

Hey Gang -

Tomorrow the San Diego SABR Chapter will be holding it's Summer meeting at the Mission Valley Branch of the San Diego Public Library.  The Library opens at 0930 and we'll start shortly after that.

On the docket for tomorrow's meeting are:

- Jane Mitchell, author of the book One on One - My Journey with Hall of Famers, Fan Favorites and Rising Stars.  Jane hosts the local television show 'One on One' which can normally be viewed on Channel 4.

- Jack Murray, official scorer for the San Diego Padres.  Jack has been scoring Padres games in an official capacity for most of the past 30 years.  Ever wanted to ask the scorer how he arrived at a particular decision on a play?  Here's your chance.

- Luke Yoder, Director of Field and Landscape Maintenance for the Padres.  No one comments when the field looks great, but everyone notices when the field has a blemsish.  Luke ensures there are no blemishes.

- John Green, who will discuss former NL pitcher Joe Oeschger.  John is a SABR member who is heavily involved in the SABR Bio Project.

The Mission Valley Library is located at 2123 Fenton Parkway.  Hope you have a chance to stop in and say hello.

Ted Williams Chapter SABR Day Recap

My wife and I attended yesterday's Ted Williams Chapter SABR meeting.  It was, as always, a great forum and there was a lively discussion.  The meeting started at 0900 and ran until at least 1300; she and I had to leave to relieve our baby sitter, otherwise we would have stayed for the entire program.

John Ingham gave a talk on an article he recently wrote about the 1967 Pirates.  The 1966 Pittsburgh team finished 22 games over .500 and 3 games behind the Dodgers for the NL title.  Many pundits thought all the Pirates needed was improvement at third and in the rotation, which they thought they achieved through trade in the off-season, most notably by acquiring Maury Wills from Los Angeles.

That 1967 edition didn't fare nearly as well as expected, finishing at .500, 20 1/2 games behind the Cardinals.  Mr. Ingham went on to say the team was reported by contemporary press as 'wracked with dissention' in the clubhouse, which likely contributed to their poor performance on the field, and what he thought contributed to that dissention.  I will not give away his thoughts - the article is under consideration for publication at NINE, a journal of baseball history and culture published by the University of Nebraska Press - but I will tell you his thesis centers around three large personalities.  Roberto Clemente, Wills, and manager Harry 'The Hat' Walker.  It was quite interesting.

On an unrelated subject, I finally got some insight why Joe Morgan was traded from Houston to Cincinnati (Walker landed as manager there after being fired by Pittsburgh during the 1967 season), and I look at the famous Juan Marichal/Johnny Roseboro brawl in a new way.

Next we heard from David Nuffer, a Ernest Hemingway buff.  One might wonder what place a Hemingway discussion has in a baseball forum.  Aside from this being a learned group (yes, shameless intellectual promotion there), Hemingway was a bit of a baseball fan.  According to Nuffer, he played baseball in high school, and while living in Cuba built a makeshift baseball field on his estate for the local boys to use.  In fact, one of those boys became his majordomo, and eventually published a memoir of those days titled Hemingway's Cuban Son.

Nuffer is a man of some local fame; apparently he held up signs behind the first base dugout back in the Jack Murphy days.  He is a character, pulling out a card which had a herald piece on it, and saying after it finished "I need a proper introduction."  I would have liked to have known him when he was younger and not wheelchair bound.

Anyway he talked about The Old Man and The Sea, one of Hemingway's great works.  In the pages of that novel there are 7 references to baseball, and embedded in those passages are 9 references to Joe DiMaggio - 'the Great Dimaggio', as the old man calls him.  Finally he concluded by reading from the only poem Hemingway is known to have written, called 'The Opening Game' (1912).  A great presentation; it was worth making the drive to Petco just to hear him speak.

After the break,

Odds and Ends on a Friday

A quick post for you:

1.  Reminder the second June San Diego SABR mini-regional meeting is Saturday - which happens to be tomorrow.  9:30 AM, La Jolla/Riford Library, 7555 Draper Ave La Jolla 92037.  12-year and current MLB umpire Joe Cuzzi will be speaking to the group.

2.  Good luck to the US Soccer team against Slovenia this morning.

3.  The Padres are putting on a blood drive at the Hall of Champions today from 10-4.  From 1-2, Clayton Richard and Luke Gregerson are scheduled to be at the drive and signing autographs.

Finally, Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.  In many ways, fatherhood is the most thankless and yet rewarding job a man can have.  Here's to you trying to raise your children right.

5 June San Diego SABR meeting Wrap-up

As I promoted last week, the San Diego SABR Chapter hosted the first of two mini-regionals on June 5.  The focus of the meeting was Andy Strasburg's Fantography project, his effort to preserve for posterity those great baseball photos we all have that may never be seen outside our families or Vacation slide shows.

Yes I realize many of you have never sat through Vacation photos at someone else's house, and have never seen a slide projector.  Ah for the days when all you needed was a light bulb and a blank wall to look at photos, instead of an HD TV or a $200 photo frame a memory stick plugged into.  But I digress.

Thirty-two baseball enthusiasts made their way to La Jolla for the meeting. That's slightly above average for a San Diego SABR event, and many thanks to all who attended.  Andy presented some of the photos he has collected during the project, and back story for many of them.  After Andy's remarks, a couple of folks who had contributed their photos talked about the ones they had donated.

David Nuffer speaks to the group (Photo:  Andy Strasburg)

Howard Frank tells his story (Photo:  Andy Strasburg)

Bret Moutow.  Yes even Cubs fans are welcome here (Photo: Andy Strasburg)

I make the Cub crack tongue-in-cheek.  As you know from attending Cub games, they have a large and vocal following in these here parts.  Some of them attend our SABR meetings regularly, and they contribute a lot to the chapter and the discussion.

At any rate, the meeting ran about 60 minutes, with a lot of discussion after it broke up among the attendees and Andy.  Sounds like a great event, I'm sorry I missed it.

Our next mini-regional meeting will be 19 June with current MLB Umpire Joe Cuzzi.  Grab you Dad and head to the La Jolla library.

(Thanks to Tom Larwin for providing the photos in this post.)

Podcast time shift and San Diego SABR meetings

What a scintillating win for the Padres to close out a 9-game homestand - an Adrian Gonzalez walk-off Grand Slam.  The Padres went 6-3 over those nine games.  On May 24, these were the standings:

• Padres
• Dodgers 1 game back
• Giants 3.5 games back
• Rockies 4 games back
• D'backs 6.5 games back.

Here they are today:

• Padres
• Dodgers 1 game back
• Giants 3.5 games back
• Rockies 4 games back
• D'backs 12.5 games back.

It sucks when a team plays .667 ball and picks up no ground at all on their division.  Except the Diamondbacks, who might be the worst team in the NL right now.  It tells me the NL West is a much better division than I thought it would be coming into the season.  San Diego continues to have the best record in the league.

Two items for you today.  First, the Padres Trail Podcast is moving to 9pm Pacific starting tonight (that's 2100 for those of you in the military).  Although I'd like to say it's due to fan requests, it's actually because Burn Notice returns to USA tonight... at 10pm.  Three guesses where I'll be at 10:00.

Second item:  the San Diego SABR chapter has decided to start hosting 'mini-regional' meetings, in addition to our two semi-annual meetings.  The first of these two mini-regionals will be this Saturday, 5 June, at 10am, and will feature Andy Strasburg.  Andy is the Chapter Vice President, but he is two other things as well:  the creator of Fantography, currently on display at the SD Public Library Main Branch, and Roger Maris' biggest fan.

The second mini-regional will be 19 June at 9:30 am, and will feature current umpire Joe Cuzzi,  12-year MLB veteran.  Here's a unique opportunity to talk to one of the game's arbiters that may never pass your way again.  You can ask him about Jim Joyce if you want.

Both events will be held at the La Jolla/Riford Library, 7555 Draper Avenue, La Jolla, CA, 92037.  Admission and parking are free.

I most likely won't make the 5 June meeting due to a previous engagement, but I'm going to move heaven and earth to be at the 19 June one.  If you go to either, PLEASE tell the man at the door you heard about it at Padres Trail!

SABR Day in America - Recap

The San Diego (Ted Williams) Chapter of SABR met Saturday at Petco Park. In case you've wondered why the San Diego Chapter is named for a famous Boston Red Sock, Ted Williams was a San Diego native and broke into professional baseball with the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League. So the local connection is why we honor him in our chapter name. There's also a Ted Williams Parkway in North County, for the same reason.

At any rate, about two dozen people participated in the day's discussion. The room we previously had access to at the Park is accessible from the street, but isn't the best room for meetings or presentations requiring a movie screen. Today the Club allowed us access to one of their conference rooms on the fourth floor - a much nicer venue to be sure. The room overlooked the concourse between sections 109-119, with the first base line visible from about halfway up the line from home plate to the foul pole. Thank you, San Diego Padres, for the upgrade.

There were four topics on the agenda. David Kinney led us off with a quick review/summary of the latest baseball books in print. Rather than touch on every book he discussed, which numbered about 10, here are the ones I found intriguing:

- "But Didn't We Have Fun, by Peter Morris. It covers the period from 1843-1870, before the first professional leagues became economically viable. There's an awful lot of information in there as to where certain baseball sayings come from, like 'knocked out of the box'. The original pitcher's mound was not raised at all, but marked off by a box, and the pitcher was not allowed to leave it. So, if he had to move out of the way of a batted ball, and left the box as a result, he was 'knocked out of the box'.

- "The Art of Catching" by Brett Mayne. Written for men (and I guess women too) playing the catcher position. For the baseball fan/student, it contains lots of insight as to how catchers play the position, which can enhance understanding of the action on the field.

- "Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story" by Curt Smith. One sees a lot of autobiographies by broadcasters and baseball announcers, but not too many biographies. This takes a look at how Vinny got into broadcasting. Smith makes the point (as David related) that Vinny was incredibly lucky - fortune favors the prepared? Scully came along just as Red Barber was looking for someone to mentor. Red Barber was the voice of the Dodgers before Scully took over the reins.

The oft-repeated anecdote about being able to walk down any street in Brooklyn while the Dodgers were playing, and not miss a pitch because everyone had the game on, is repeated in this story. Imagine the pressure on Scully to perform, at such a young age, given that kind of fan loyalty.

One more item from the book: Smith describes LA Dodger fans bringing their transistor radios to the stadium when watching the Dodgers play. Dodger games were at the LA Coliseum the first 3 years they were in LA, because Dodger stadium was being built. Well, since the Coliseum seats 91,000+ fans, most couldn't see the action; so to better understand what was going on, they brought their radios and listened to Scully. Chavez Ravine opened in 1962, but I can attest that, 15 years later, Dodger fans were still bringing radios to the ballpark to listen to Scully.

- "Lords of the Realm" (John Helyar) and "Juicing the Game" (Howard Bryant) describe the behind-the-scenes stories, controversies, personalities, and infighting amongst players, umpires, and owners, from expansion until the 1995 strike (Helyar) and from the strike until about 2004 or so (Bryant). It is almost essential reading.

Batting second, Eric Hanauer presented a photo presentation called 'shooting the Cubs'. Eric is a professional photographer, and had collected a lot of images during his time working for the Cubs he thought might be interesting. Cub presentations at our SABR meetings have become something of a running joke in my family - seems like there's a Cub presentation at every meeting. All are well-intentioned, but some aren't very good.

Eric's presentation was not only good, it blew me away. First, his real field of expertise is in underwater photography of marine life, and he got things off on the right foot with some photos of schools of fish, a great white shark, and humpback whales. From there he showed us all manner of field photos, from spring training relaxed shots of players warming up and signing autographs, to game images of action on the mound, at second, in the outfield, at the plate, in the stands at Wrigley, and so on. He talked about the "golden hour", that hour before sunset when the light gives off a warm glow and leads to well-lit photos of players. And he shared some of his stories of on the field incidents, including his getting clipped by a foul ball (which required 5 stitches). I was disappointed when he finished. Making the meeting was worth it just to see that presentation. Eric has a website where his photos can be purchased, if you're interested. The Cub photos are here.

After the break, and a trivia contest which I ended up winning (got 6 of 8 right), we had a 'Hot Stove Session' with the membership. Essentially the moderator (in this case, Chapter President Dan Boyle) would throw out a topic for everyone to offer an opinion on. The discussion started with whether or not to keep Adrian Gonzalez, Mark McGwire and steroids in baseball (specifically whether or not proven steroid users should get into the Hall of Fame), and so on. We actually talked about stuff like this for an hour or so.

But the highlight of the meeting had to be our question and answer period with Josh Stein (Director of Baseball Operations) and Chris Long (Senior Quantitative Analyst). We had warmed up for this discussion by revisiting opinions on trading Adrian Gonzalez, which boiled down to ‘don’t trade him’, ‘trade him, but when’. They spoke to us for a little more than an hour, and one of the first things they mentioned revolved around that second Gonzalez debate, for which they had been in the room. Basically Stein stated it was exactly the kind of discussion they have in the front office regarding Gonzalez. One expected that kind of discussion occurred in baseball front offices, not just by fans online or over the radio air waves; even so, it was cool to hear that suspicion confirmed. Rather than post a word-for-word recap of the discussion, I wanted to hit some of the highlights. In no particular order, that follows below.

All of baseball is on board with statistical analysis, and teams use data collected over the course of seasons/careers to evaluate their players and their ballparks. We are all familiar with Pitch F/X data, and what it can tell us about the trajectory of a pitched ball from the time it leaves the pitcher’s hand until it crosses the plate or is put in play. Development is under way to create a similar system for batted balls in play, and for defense. It sounded like enough cameras would be present in major league ball parks to track the ball from contact through landing, whether it lands as a hit or an out. It also sounded like enough cameras would be present to track a player’s route to a fly ball, and arm strength on his throws in, as opposed to using UZR or Dewan plus/minus for defense, and looking at ‘runners held/thrown out’ for arm strength.

Evaluating players with respect to Petco has been important in the past, and is being emphasized even more heavily now. As you know Petco plays big; it is the best pitchers park in the League. As such, it presents unique problems for scoring runs and for defending the open spaces. Who the Padres acquire, either through trade, free agency, or draft, has to be done through the prism of their ballpark. As an aside, Stein mentioned Mike Cameron as an outfielder who was a great fit at Petco specifically because of his defense.

Speaking of defense, Stein and Long mentioned that 66% of games at Petco have been decided by 3 runs or less. The ML average is about 60%. Run prevention has to be a big part of the strategy for putting teams together at Petco, because of the difficulty in scoring runs in bunches at that ballpark. The team tries to fold in defensive statistics from the minor leagues when evaluating prospects, although they admit that data has it limits based on the quality of the official scoring and the propensity of young kids in the lower minor leagues to make errors (which complicates the statistical analysis).

There was some time spent talking about Adrian Gonzalez’s future, as follow-up to what we were talking about when they walked into the room. Again, suffice it to say the Padres would love to keep him, but are keeping their options open. Quote from Stein: “We recognize what a special player he is on both sides of the ball.”

A question came up on the ballpark, and moving the fences. Seems this topic will never go away. Stein and Long did say analysis was done on where balls land out in RC/RF before the fences were moved in 12 feet a couple of years ago. Long mentioned the major factor making Petco play big is the weather, and they both described how the wind acts on structures around the ballpark much like water acts on a rock or obstruction in a river – it goes around the obstruction. So, since the prevailing wind is from left to right, and the Western Metal building is the first structure wind encounters in left, the wind goes around the building on either side, around the scoreboard above the LC bleachers, banks off the façade in RF, and swirls around the ballpark. This would explain why, if you sit in the nosebleed seats down the first base line, the wind blows from your right to your left, towards home plate. It also explains why it’s always really breezy up there.

We talked about potential other markets for finding players. One question was about looking in India based on how many men play cricket, and because the Pirates recently signed two Indian prospects. Based on the reaction (Chris Long: “I was just talking about that. We should hang out! (NB: I didn’t ask this question)) it has been considered. Not just looking at India, however, because every country has great athletes who could play baseball competently and well. What prevents clubs from mining these elite athletes for baseball purposes lies in working with that raw athletic talent, because the player would have to learn the game from scratch, which brings along with it its own set of problems.

A specific question about Latos and Blanks was asked vis-à-vis their performance last year. Latos’ decline after 7 or 8 starts has been attributed to fatigue by the Padres; he hadn’t thrown more than 60 innings in a professional season before last year. Blanks’ numbers as a starter were significantly better than as a bench player. In fact, as a hitter he has always performed, and at a younger than expected age, in his rise through the minors. Stein and Long are high on Blanks’ ability and potential, and are excited about watching him play in 2010 at the Major League level.

Finally, they talked a little bit about pitcher evaluation (strikeout and walk rates are a good measure of the quality of a pitcher, but aren’t the whole story), and pitcher injuries (there still aren’t good metrics or ways to evaluate when a pitcher will get hurt). Stein and Long evinced a lack of belief in the 100 pitch count, but didn’t completely discount it; they did say the level of effort inning to inning (and the subsequent fatigue high effort brings, with perhaps not enough recovery time between innings) is much more of a consideration on how long to leave a starter in the game.

To a man the Chapter was very appreciative of Josh Stein and Chris Long’s remarks, and the time they spent with us on a Saturday afternoon. Personally I hope they can become regulars at our meetings, because the amount of insight they gave us was well worth the short time we got to spend with them.