BtB Sabermetric Writing Awards: Nominations for Best Researcher or Writer
by JinAZ on Jan 7, 2010 3:00 PM EST
in Awards & Honors
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The original post describing this project can be found here.
Please use the comments of this post to nominate articles for the "Best Sabermetric Researcher or Writer" award. Here is the description for this category:
The best sabermetric writer and/or researcher of the year. Define as you wish, though the individual should be nominated based on sabermetric writing and/or research contributions this year.
I expect that this will be a difficult category, because we have so many excellent writers/researchers that are part of our community. And there are many different types of writers--those who simply take a sabermetric slant to the day's events, and those who dig deep into databases to find new insights. Who do you think are the best in the business (be they professional or amateur)? Nominate them below by replying, and please use the following format for clarity:
Nominee: [in reply subject line]
Link: [do what you can, but the best link would be to a page that contains links to many of the author's works]
Comment: [one sentence description of why you think this individual should be considered]
You may nominate more than one individual (including yourself), but please try to be somewhat selective (i.e. don't post links to three-dozen people you think were good...pick you favorite two or three). Also, please make a separate reply for each nomination.
Finally, please remember that all nominations must be "seconded" to advance to the next stage. Therefore, even if you can't think of someone to nominate off-hand, please look through the comments and see if there are recommendations that you would endorse. If so, just reply and write "seconded!" Discussion of a nomination's merits are also very welcome.
Thanks for taking the time to nominate someone!
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Seconded
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
Jeremy Greenhouse
Again, Jeremy pretty much sets the standard for quality and quantity.
Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.
Devil Fingers aka Matt Klaasen
Fan Graphs
I don’t know anyone that has done more in his first year of writing. Would be a great ROY candidate.
Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.
R.J. Anderson
FanGraphs/DRaysBay/BtB
He’s a machine; literally.
www.draysbay.com, www.beyondtheboxscore.com, Twitter @trancel
by Tommy Rancel on Jan 7, 2010 3:19 PM EST via mobile reply actions
seconded
He even owns his own basement. How cool is that?
Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.
by Jeff Zimmerman on Jan 7, 2010 3:24 PM EST up reply actions
Tommy Bennett
His daily box scores were a must-read.
Greg F.
http://pendingpinstripes.net
seconded
www.draysbay.com, www.beyondtheboxscore.com, Twitter @trancel
by Tommy Rancel on Jan 7, 2010 3:22 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Tom Tango
I don’t know if I need to mention why.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
another fanboy here
thirded, although I guess it’s redundant
can’t believe he doesn’t mock my dumb questions
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jan 7, 2010 11:49 PM EST up reply actions
Maybe we should have a non-Tango category?
Because he’ll probably win hands down…
Aaron King is still my homeboy... iffy mechanics and all
McFAQ for all you newcomers out there.
GET THAT VORP AND WHIP SH!T OUTTA HERE!!!
Whomever Sabean signs this off-season will make a good platoon partner with Ryan Gark-ohh... nevermind...
Ya never know...
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Dave Allen
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/fx_visualizatio_1/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php?author=14
Lots of good insights into baseball through PITCHf/x data and innovative graphical presentation.
Seconded. Some of my favorite pieces of the year were his visualizations.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
Side Note: I feel like a lot of people are going to get on here. It'll be tough to narrow down the field.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
Agreed.
We’re basically listing all of my favorite authors.
See Data Differently.
beyondtheboxscore.com | Twitter: @ justinbopp
I think I'm looking forward to the voting on this one the least of all the categories.
I’ll probably just approval all and let someone else decide. Don’t make me choose amongst my heroes!
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Dave Cameron
Fangraphs/USSM
Like everyone else, I could list a bunch more.
www.draysbay.com, www.beyondtheboxscore.com, Twitter @trancel
by Tommy Rancel on Jan 7, 2010 3:37 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Seconded
He actually has me considering paying for BPro.
by Steven Ellingson on Jan 7, 2010 4:01 PM EST up reply actions
thirded
I guess I could do that for everyone here
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jan 7, 2010 11:33 PM EST up reply actions
no brainer
Colin makes me feel like I’m playing with tinker toys when I compare my knowledge to his, but he’s bringing us all up to his level if we’ll let him take us there.
godfather of futureredbirds.net
Brittany Ghiroli
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/?author=167
She seamlessly combined reporting and analysis, outlasting many other quality writers in BP Idol (like Wyers). Her research on Babip should be an immediate staple of SABR 101.
I think her first BP Idol entry was on BABIP
and she stated that if a player’s BABIP is higher than his batting average, you would expect his batting average to decrease. Of course this makes no sense since a league average hitter will have a .300 BABIP and a .270 BA.
So I think the above post is sarcastic.
by Alex Krolewski on Jan 7, 2010 10:42 PM EST up reply actions
Carson Cistulli
He may not make numbers dance like some of the guys at Fangraphs and THT do, but the guy writes extraordinarily well in a field that, frankly, features mostly bland writing. He’s genuinely funny, and it’s great to see articles on Fangraphs where the bulk of the content isn’t stats, graphs, or scouting reports. His “Etherview” series of interviews with leading sabermetricians are fascinating and legitimately entertaining. A few of his articles have been misses, but there’s no byline that excites me more than his.
seconded
awesome writer, fun ideas
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jan 7, 2010 11:33 PM EST up reply actions
He definitely has a lot of enemies on Fangraphs
But I suppose that’s to be expected when an English professor with a very active sense of humor starts writing for one of the most numbers-based sites out there. He’s undoubtedly a square peg in the round holes of Sabermetrics, but I think that’s part of his appeal. As Pedro Martinez would tell you, sometimes a change of pace is the most effective thing to throw at someone.
Too many to list... I'll go with Justin Inaz
The 2008 Total Value was 2008, but it still predated any other public WAR offering out there. The Power Rankings this season were f—ing awesome, another idea I wish I was smart enough to think up on my own. Awesome stuff that is even more useful than people think. Also, he graciously didn’t point out that my catcher defense stuff is basically just a slightly tweaked version of his. I said it at the time, but I feel like people need to know it.
And, no, i can’t count to one.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
Also, he answered a couple of my incredibly long and poorly-written emails
and there might be a couple more in a row
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jan 7, 2010 11:37 PM EST up reply actions
Jeff Zimmerman aka Tucson Royal
Again, I have no idea where he writes
Jeff is funny (a sense of humor is required for a guy with his team loyalties), but just does whatever the heck strikes him as interesting, whic his something I really value. Some of this is well-done versions of stuff like WAR, very valuable UZR projections, and innovations in Hall-of-Fame graphs. But he also has done novel stuff on climate and park effects and marginal spending on wins.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
Sky Kalkman
Emeritus?
Sky’s done some great writing, and I don’t want to minimize what he’s done in that regard. Maybe he needs his own category. I’m not totally sure, but I think he took this site, which had been in the doldrums, and turned it into one of the top saberemetric blogs on the web in very little time. . He did a good job of showing how to use, e.g., Justin’s WAR numbers pre-FanGraphs, made the WAR Graph cool, estbalished many community WAR projects, etc. Moreover, he’s “discovered,” encouraged, and given a platform to many, many writers. Sure, he showed extremely questionable judgment by answering my own endless queries about sabermetric concepts andmaking me feel like the web needed to hear my nonsense, but for myself, without Sky (and again, this is my perception), I doubt I would have ever found or had the opportunity to read writers like Justin Inaz, Tommy Bennett, Jeff Zimmerman, Justin Bopp, and others. I’m not saying he necessarily “discovered” them (I have no idea), but he turned me and others on to them and so on….
Sorry, that’s way over one sentence. And Sky really does need his own category. Beyond his own writings (and kudos on ESPN Insider, by the way, although I couldn’t read it…), one could make an argument that by education, encouragement, and networking, Sky might be the most influential guy in the sabermetric blogosphere over the last couple of years.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jan 7, 2010 11:48 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
seconded
Sky makes sabermetrics accessible for the common fan. You gotta love some of his nifty Exel toys, such as his Trade Value Calculator and the User-Friendly WAR spreadsheet.
godfather of futureredbirds.net
Thirded
I don’t know what category you give him, but he deserves something. As someone somewhat privy to what Sky has done behind the scenes to pull off everything that he did—it’s incredible. His ability to inspire, encourage, and cultivate informed discussion that often lead to illuminating revelations deserves recognition. Simply put, Sky, I feel, has brought about the best of a lot of people at time in the field of sabermetrics when it was kind of hard to figure out what to do and how to go about it.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 8, 2010 12:07 AM EST up reply actions
Fourthed.
And we really should have a category for him.
See Data Differently.
beyondtheboxscore.com | Twitter: @ justinbopp
Seconding this idea and sixthing the nomination
"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it" ~ Mae West
Here's the seconded list as of right now, in order nominated:
Sky Andrecheck
Jeremy Greenhouse
Matt Klaassen
R.J. Anderson
Tommy Bennett
Tom Tango
Dave Allen
Colin Wyers
Erik Manning
Carson Cistulli
Jeff Zimmerman
Justin Inaz asked out of the running given his involvement in the project. Handicapping that list of all stars would be very difficult. And there’s still a few people who deserve an additional look.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
Yeah
That’ll be a fun vote. Can we just have an 11 way tie?
by stevesommer05 on Jan 8, 2010 10:09 PM EST up reply actions
This is a major reason why we're going to do approval voting.
That way, you don’t have to choose just one person.
I may well vote for everyone. :)
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
You forgot Dave Cameron
Just wanted to point that out.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 1:36 PM EST up reply actions
Also, Sky Kalkman
:)
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Rob Neyer
This may be a little idiosyncratic, but Rob is still one of the absolute best writers around and one of the best at communicating to a more casual audience sabermetric principles, so he really deserves to still be nominated.
--
Dan Szymborski
dan@baseballprimer.com
Seconded
I would also include Dave Studeman under that description, but he hasn’t done as much this year as in recent years.
by vivaelpujols on Jan 10, 2010 10:58 PM EST up reply actions
Max Marchi
Hardball Times
Max has done some legitimately great work with fielding positioning and Pitch f/x.
Why so many people think my name is Dave.
In all honesty, I’m not sure that I’m really qualified – I tend to write general topics which utilize sabermetrics more than really being a sabermetric writer. Unless, of course, the nomination’s for the historical minor league translations I released last year.
--
Dan Szymborski
dan@baseballprimer.com
by D.Szymborski on Jan 11, 2010 1:37 PM EST up reply actions
Sorry Dan.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
It's funnier because you just had a comment like 2 posts up
by vivaelpujols on Jan 11, 2010 8:05 PM EST up reply actions
Believe it or not, this is the 3rd time I’ve been Dave Szymborski in like a month and I’m pretty sure all 3 sources are unique!
Maybe somewhere out there, there’s a Dave Szymborski, quietly doing analysis on his private blog and I’ve been stealing all his credit!
--
Dan Szymborski
dan@baseballprimer.com
by D.Szymborski on Jan 12, 2010 6:00 PM EST up reply actions
Second
--
Dan Szymborski
dan@baseballprimer.com
by D.Szymborski on Jan 11, 2010 1:38 PM EST up reply actions
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