July Meeting : Visitors from the North and Baseball

For our July meeting, we are going to welcome a group of approximately 14 fellow SABR members from the Chicago area who will be in town to take in some games between the Round Rock Express and the Iowa Cubs, the AAA farm club of the Chicago Cubs.

On Saturday, July 20, we will meet our visitors from the north at the Salt Lick BBQ across the parking lot from the Dell Diamond.  Since that night’s game has an early, 6:05 p.m. starting time, we are going to meet correspondingly early at the Salt Lick.  I will make a reservation for 4:00 p.m.

I will also be purchasing game tickets for those that want them approximately one week prior to the game, in particular, on Friday, July 12.   I will be using my stash of Express "flex plan" tickets that cost $11 each.

For anyone that wishes to attend, I need to hear from you before July 12 with (1) the number of game tickets you would like and (2) the number of people in your party that will be attending the pre-game dinner at the Salt Lick.

Please email me privately at jan.a.larson@gmail.com with your ticket and dinner numbers.

Baseball Prospectus – Extra Innings book review

 Baseball Prospectus – Extra Innings

More Baseball Between the Numbers from
the Team at Baseball Prospectus
 
Edited by Steven Goldman
 
A Baseball Book Review
Monte Cely
(512) 310-9777
                                               
            Extra Innings is a sequel, of sorts, to Baseball Between the Numbers (the 2006 Baseball Prospectus book edited by Jonah Keri).  The book is a compilation of essays on various baseball topics, generally seeking to provide more insight via the use of statistical/sabermetric analyses.  Just a few of the topics addressed are:
 
“What Really Happened in the Juiced Era?” by Jay Jaffe – an insightful look at factors, including but not limited to PEDs, that led to the 1990-2005 power surge in MLB.
 
“How Should the Hall of Fame Respond to the Steroids Era?” by Jay Jaffe – a thoughtful treatment of this hot-button topic.
 
“How Does Age Affect the Amateur Draft?” by Rany Jazayerli – an analysis of the age of top draft picks as it affects their future WAR.
 
“How Can We Evaluate Managers?” by Steven Goldman – explores several statistical approaches to evaluating the effect that managers have on team results.
 
“When Does a Hot Start Become Real?” by Derek Carty – uses a correlation-based approach to determine a team’s final W/L% based upon its early start.
 
            … and many more.  There are twenty-two essays in total, organized into chapters on PEDs/Player Enhancement, Team-Building, Pitching, Fielding, Offense, and Futures.  Generally the essays are of good quality and I found most to be insightful.  This book will be interesting to SABR members.
 
Here are the key statistics:
Book:  Baseball Prospectus – Extra Innings
Editor:  Steven Goldman
Authors:  Derek Carty, Corey Dawkins, Mike Fast, Rebecca Glass, Steven Goldman, Kevin Goldstein, Jay Jaffe, Rany Jazayerli, Christina Kahrl, Ben Lindbergh,  Jason Parks, Dan Turkenhopf, Colin Wyers
Published:  2012, Basic Books; ISBN 978-0-465-02403-2            Length:  446 pages
Price:  Retail list – $27.99; Online – from $1.49 (used) + shipping.

June Meeting Wrap-Up

A group of 13 members and guests gathered at Iron Works BBQ in Austin to discuss baseball and eat meat.  Both were accomplished in mass quantities.

Topics included the surprising performances thus far in the 2013 season by the Houston Astros (positive surprise), Los Angeles Angels (negative), Washington Nationals (negative), Pittsburgh Pirates (positive) and a few other clubs.  This ties into the results recorded thus far in Jim Baker’s on-going "predicatron" contest in which the person that most accurately predicts the season records for each club is the winner.  Tom Thayer is the current leader in the Hornsby Chapter predictatron contest.

Another topic that was discussed in depth was the recent on-field brawl between the Diamondbacks and Dodgers.

Bill Gilbert presented a relatively benign sounding quiz, "Home Run Leaders by Franchise" that ultimately confounded more than a few attendees.  Jim Baker was the winner correctly naming 21 of the 30 players.

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, July 20.  We are welcoming SABR members from the Chicago area to Austin and will be joining them for a game at the Dell Diamond between the Round Rock Express and the Iowa Cubs following dinner at the Salt Lick BBQ in Round Rock.  Details will be forthcoming.

Home Run Leaders by Franchise

Home Run Leaders by Franchise

by Bill Gilbert

(Presented at chapter meeting on June 13, 2013)

(Move the mouse over the blank space to see the answer)
1. Baltimore Orioles*

Cal Ripken, Jr.
2. Boston Red Sox Ted Williams
3. New York Yankees Babe Ruth
4.

Tampa Bay Rays

 Carlos Pena
5. Toronto Blue Jays Carlos Delgado
     
6. Chicago White Sox Frank Thomas
7. Cleveland Indians Jim Thome
8. Detroit Tigers Al Kaline
9. Kansas City Royals George Brett
10. Minnesota Twins* Harmon Killebrew
     
11.

Houston Astros

 Jeff Bagwell
12. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
 Tim Salmon
13. Oakland A’s*
 Mark McGwire
14.

Seattle Mariners

 Ken Griffey, Jr.
15. Texas Rangers*
 Juan Gonzalez
     
16.

Atlanta Braves*

 Henry Aaron
17.

Miami Marlins

 Dan Uggla
18.

New York Mets

 Darryl Strawberry
19.

Philadelphia Phillies

 Mike Schmidt
20.

Washington Nationals*

 Vladimir Guererro
     
21.

Chicago Cubs

 Sammy Sosa
22.

Cincinnati Reds

 Johnny Bench
23.

Milwaukee Brewers*

 Robin Yount
24.

Pittsburgh Pirates

 Willie Stargell
25. St. Louis Cardinals
 Stan Musial
     
26.

Arizona Diamondbacks

 Luis Gonzalez
27.

Colorado Rockies

 Todd Helton
28. Los Angeles Dodgers* Duke Snider
29. San Diego Padres Nate Colbert
30. San Francisco Giants Willie Mays

 

 *Includes years in other locations.

June Meeting

We will be gathering at Iron Works BBQ located at 100 Red River in downtown Austin on Thursday, June 13 starting at 6:00 p.m.

There is a small parking lot on-site, a larger lot on the south side of Cesar Chavez plus large pay lots across the street to the east.  Please RSVP to Jan Larson at jan.a.larson@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

Rogers Hornsby Chapter Annual Report (January 2012 to May 2013)

Society for American Baseball Research

Rogers Hornsby Chapter

Central and South Texas

 

Annual Report for January 2012 to May 2013

 

The Rogers Hornsby Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research continued its long streak of consecutive months with a meeting, hosted its largest winter meeting thus far, recognized SABR day and organized outings to minor and major league baseball games.

In January 2013, more than 50 members and guests attended the Seventh Annual Winter Meeting in historic Old Main on the Texas State University-San Marcos campus. Featured speakers included Bill Brown, the longtime Astros broadcaster, Tom Kayser, president of the Texas League (AA), Mike Capps, radio broadcaster for the Round Rock Express and Norman Macht, Connie Mack biographer and former SABR board member. In addition, Aaron Baggett, professor of psychology at the University of Mary Hardin Baylor in Belton, presented research examining umpires’ objective and subjective tendencies when calling balls and strikes. Also, Bob Tholkes, a longtime SABR member active in the Halsey Hall Chapter in Minneapolis, shared his research about the New York Knickerbockers rules of baseball from the 1840s.

Through May 2013, the Hornsby Chapter has met for 78 consecutive months, a streak dating to December 2006.

The chapter organized outings to watch the Houston Astros play at Minute Maid Park in August 2012. We also had a group outing to watch the Round Rock Express play in June 2012 and a match between the Texas Rangers and the Express in March 2012.

In 2012, the chapter held their Sixth Annual Winter Meeting, which included presentations by Branch Rickey III, president of the Pacific Coast League; Frank Coffland, a retired minor league umpire; Norman Macht, baseball historian, former SABR board member and author of the multi-volume biography of Connie Mack; and Scott Barzilla, author of “The Hall of Fame Index.”

Another 2012 chapter highlight was the book signing by Macht of his newly published “Connie Mack: The Turbulent & Triumphant Years, 1915-1931,” the second volume of his biography of the great manager.

For the third consecutive year in 2013, Hornsby Chapter member Monte Cely covered the Caribbean World Series. Cely posted updates, summaries and photos on the Hornsby Chapter website, chronicling Mexico’s championship in 2013. In 2012, Cely covered the Dominican Republic’s win in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

May meeting summary

Six enthusiastic and dedicated chapter members met on Thursday, May 16, to catch up on recent umpire (mis)rulings and judgment calls, the change in Astros leadership, the resiliency of Rick Ankiel and an update on SABR 44, which will be co-hosted by the Larry Dierker Chapter and our chapter in summer 2014 in Houston.

I thought that the Reid Ryan hiring as the new Astros president was a good move, though Monte Cely suggested I may be overly optimistic about what impact the hiring will have. Indeed, Jan Larson wondered what, exactly, does a team president do? The hope is that the team president will address and prevent some of the very bad instances of public relations by the Astros front office in recent months. Perhaps the first order of business is taking care of the ongoing diaster involving getting the Astros on cable television in Houston and around Texas.

I gave an update on the national SABR conference. I attended a meeting in Houston earlier this week with Marc Appleman, SABR executive director and Deb Jayne, SABR membership and events manager, along with the leadership in the Dierker Chapter. Appleman and Jayne toured several hotels in downtown Houston as potential sites for the convention. We won’t have a date for the convention until late August after the 2014 MLB schedule is known. The plan is to pick a weekend in which the Astros are in town. Organizers also hope to include an outing to see the independent-league Sugar Land Skeeters.

Dierker and Hornsby Chapter members will be needed as volunteers, mostly as room monitors for research presentations throughout the conference. If you are interested in serving as a volunteer, please speak to me.

The next chapter meeting will be on Thursday, June 13.

May Meeting

We will be gathering at Iron Works BBQ located at 100 Red River in downtown Austin on Thursday, May 16 starting at 6:00 p.m.

There is a small parking lot on-site, a larger lot on the south side of Cesar Chavez plus large pay lots across the street to the east.  Please RSVP to Jan Larson at jan.a.larson@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

April Meeting Wrap-up

Nine members and spouses met at Bill and Evelyn Gilbert’s home in Lakeway for the April chapter meeting.

Among the appetizers, delicious dinner and sumptous dessert, we did manage to talk some baseball.  Topics of conversation were:  the recent release of the movie 42 (which several chapter members had viewed the preceeding weekend), early-season surprises among MLB teams’ performance, the status of the Astros’ TV contract and personnel issues, and much more.

A date will be determined for the May chapter meeting and a general announcement will be forthcoming.

A big "Thank You" to Bill and Evelyn for hosting the meeting at their beautiful home.