the 2006 SABR National Convention in Seattle, late June

he was managing
the portland mavericks then,
just said 'no way kid'

then i read 'ball four'
where he gets on someone's ass
for doing the same!

http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,1449,17,0

...FOR THE OPTIONAL Vintage Base Ball event at the 36th convention of the Society, to be held in Seattle. Interested parties, whether artists or muffins, should contact the organizer, Mr. Robert Tholkes, veteran manager of the Quicksteps, crack nine of the Society’s Halsey Hall Chapter (Minnesota), by telegraph. Further information will be provided. Persons who, when at base ball matches are accustomed to spitting, swearing, drunkenness, or gambling on the outcome, should not respond.

ALSO WANTED, an UMPIRE, a Gentleman or Lady, possessing suitable attire for the honor, conversant with the rules and capable of commanding the respect of the Players.

ROBERT THOLKES, MGR.

!!!! i mean, sure banning the last item makes sense, but the others?!? :(

Is A-Rod Overpaid?

Jonah Keri

Don’t be too quick to answer the provocative question raised by this presentation’s title. The value of a player can be defined in many ways, and different conceptual models may lead to different answers. Jonah Keri offers a peek into the newest book from the Baseball Prospectus team with this discussion of Alex Rodriguez, his contract, and his on-field performance. Value, he argues, can be defined in many ways, and whether you’re thinking in terms of revenue streams or contribution to the offense or increasing the number of games your team wins, many models with varying assumptions (and producing varying answers) can be applied to the problem. Reviewing pertinent literature and developing the sorts of deep analytic methods for which BP has become so well known, he aims toward creating a more robust, effective model of player valuation.

Before Ichiro?: Major League Position-Player Prospects from Japan Prior to 2000 (S09)

Robert Fitts

Until Ichiro Suzuki exploded on the Safeco scene in 2001, all Japanese major leaguers were pitchers. In the half-decade since Ichiro, at least four more Japanese position players (Hideki and Kazuo Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, Kenji Johjima) have found fulltime jobs in MLB. In this presentation, Robert Fitts looks into whether pre-Ichiro Japanese players could have made the grade on this side of the Pacific. Critically analyzing previous efforts to develop conversion formulas, usually based on major leaguers who went to Japan, he then proposes to add the results of MLB tours (303 games since the 1930s) to the comparison databases. Based on this expanded dataset, he profiles the pre-2000 players who could have made the grade, and also describes changes in Japanese baseball revealed by this analysis.

The Private Journals of Red Rolfe: Getting Inside the Mind of a Big League Manager

Bill Anderson

Most of what we know, or think we know, about managers in MLB comes from some combination of interviews, press statements, and their won-lost records. Detroit Tigers researcher Bill Anderson has unearthed a fount of new information - the daily journals of Red Rolfe, who skippered the Bengals between 1949 and 1952. Using Rolfe's own words, written to himself while the events were fresh and without the filtering required for public statements, Anderson shows us one man's managerial style, player assessments (his own team and opponents), strategies and tactics. Bill James, aware that Rolfe had penned these journals, once wrote "Somewhere, if they haven't been destroyed, there are hundreds of pages of typewritten notes about American League players of that era, notes which I would love to get my hands on."

Will Carroll, The Juice (Ivan R. Dee)

Robert K. Fitts, Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game (Southern Illinois University Press)

Steven R. Hoffbeck, Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press)

Dr. Mike Marshall (NL Cy Young '74) says he knows how to prevent sore arms; alas, I missed his appearance at the Science & Baseball Committee at 8 a.m.

Got to schmooze with Jay Jaffe of Prospectus a little last night, and Rob Neyer expressed jealousy at my faux-Mr Met/Yo La Tengo shirt.

One of the poster presentations IDs Tris Speaker, Willie Mays and Dom DiMaggio (I think) as the greatest all-time defensive CFs. In Career, Prime and Peak, Paul Blair outranks Joe DiMaggio.

One Phil Birnbaum concludes that players do not outperform in their "contract year."

Never thought the M's and Rockies would be a combined 3 games outta first going into tonight's game. Perhaps I'll eat an Ichi-roll. More later...

Does Marshall still suggest that one should pitch every day in order to avoid a sore arm?

WHOA, WELL I STAND CORRECTED!

I went to the vintage game they played at a field uptown Thursday, and I see in the Post-Intelligencer that Bouton was there and I never even noticed him. Doh.

Marshall didn't discuss his training theories at the labor or Pilots panels. He did say that player salaries should be a Bell curve, and that the mega-earners are taking their salaries from the low-end players.

Fun game in Tacoma last night, they came back to beat Fresno on an 8th-inning inside-the-park grandslam.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5274

Did I mention I got Moyer AND Guardado t-shirts in my goody bag?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/276165_pilots01.html

http://futilityinfielder.com/blog/2006/07/rattling-sabrs-in-seattle-part-ii.shtml