Posted by Matt Sisson on Monday, March 9, 2009 at 12:51 pm

So this Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the 2009 MIT Sports Analytics conference. The event, which was attended by 400 students, sports analytic fans, a host of others was a great success. Here’s a little run down of the day.

When I arrived, I was greeted by the event’s hosts and was given my name tag, agenda, a 2009 Sloan Sport Analytics Conference duffel bag and t-shirt that I’ll never wear due to it being the wrong size (too big, believe it or not). The day started off a little unexpected since I was a few minutes late. As I entered the crowded conference room, the presenters had already begun their introductions. I was told there was plenty of room down in the front by the ushers so I made my way down to the first row and didn’t really see the reserved seating signs posted on the handrails. I sat down and looked to my right and saw, not only Jeff Van Gundy, but sitting to my immediate left were Bill Simmons and Houston Rocket’s General Manager Daryl Morey. It was a little too late, but I realized I shouldn’t really be sitting where I was.

I hadn’t really noticed that I was sitting in the reserved section mostly because the first person I saw down there was Sean O’Brien. Sean O’Brien works for EA Sports and is the producer of NBA Live 10. He looked pretty much what you’d expect a video game producer to look like combined with a guy who likes to drink draft beer and eat chicken wings. As expected, he had little to say during the panel. O’Brien had also failed to notice that his shirt was mis-buttoned. There he sat next to Brian Burke, President and GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mark Donovan, Senior VP of Business Operations for the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeff Van Gundy ESPN Aanlyst and former NBA Head Coach, Bill Simmons and Daryl Morey. He was there in front of 400 people with one side of his collar higher than the other on the top and one side of the bottom part of his shirt shorter than the other. It only made him looking out of place that much worse.

The theme of the first panel was Evolution of the Fan Experience. Brian Burke was by far the best speaker of the group and really said it how it was in a manner that made you not only laugh out loud (LOL) but also thank whoever it is you thank that you don’t work for him. Jeff Van Gundy also did a great job making light of the fact that Daryl Morey had fired him by responding to one of his questions that asked his opinion with, “Well what do you think Daryl, you’re the one who fired me.” Surprisingly enough, Bill Simmons did little to self promote during the panel and referenced his dad only one time. He also referenced a time back in ‘82 once, his daughter twice and the LA Clippers a few more times than the rest. Not bad…for Bill Simmons at least. In the midst of all this, Simmons did say that he thinks that MLB ticket sales will be largely affected by the economy, more so than anyone thinks. Worse than the NBA. I agree but not really to the extant he was talking about. I think the decline will be similiar to that of the NBA, largely because MLB plays more games and has a longer season. I also think that some cities and teams will be feeling it worse than others.

On the advice I’d got from David Laurila from Baseball Prospectus, I didn’t really dig in too deep for the next series of panels in hope that I wouldn’t become burnt out by the end of the day. There’s just too much information. Slated for round 2 was the Talent Identification panel which was way too crowded so I sat in on the Globalization of Sports panel for a little while. I was there mostly just to hear what Jonathan Kraft had to say which wasn’t too much. The panel was moderated by Mike Gorman of the Boston Celtics, and he did a great job moving the conversation along. The only bad thing about it was that a majority of conversation was about basketball and soccer…kinda booring if you ask me. One interesting thing I did hear was from the Yao Ming’s agent. He stated that about 1 million people watched his clients debut in the US while there were more people watching in China than there were in the entire United States of America. Pretty amazing and it goes to show you how small the US is in comparison.

I left that panel before it ended and ventured over to room 155 where the Baseball Analytics panel was to start after the 15 min break. The panel was moderated by none other than John Dewan and its participants included Shiraz Rehamn, Director of Baseball Operations for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Christina Kahrl, Co-Founder and Managing Editor for Baseball Prospectus, David Pinto, Owner and Author of Baseball Musings, and Tim Purpura, Executive VP of and COO of Minor League Baseball. The group was excellent and gave amazing insight into how analytics are used by, not only people who write about them, but also by the teams themselves. Rehman lead off the discussion by talking about how many of the players today have a great understanding of analytics and cited Max Scherzer as a player on his team that came in really knowing his stuff. Rehman also stated that like Billy Beane, he and Josh Byrnes, having been brought up by Theo Epstein, are big readers of what’s available from Baseball Info Solutions as well as BP and a number of other publications. He said they use that information available to do a significant amount of game planning for every series.

There was also a significant discussion about the use of the shift on player like David Ortiz. Rehman spoke about the Diamondbacks being one of the most aggressive teams to implement things like a shift on player who hits a ton of balls to right field. Rehman said that the press hadn’t been kind in instances where the player was able to get a 16 bounce ground ball into left but defended it by saying that over the course of a season they’re able to take away a significant number of would be hits. Dewan chimed in by asking why you never see a shift on a right handed hitter. Some players like Youkilis and Ben Francisco are 90% pull hitters. It makes sense so listen to him.

The conversation then spilled over to how there is a growing tendency among clubs to shy away from aging players, and its largely due to the return on investment above replacement. Teams are able to get the same production above replacement from their farm system at a deep discount over what it would cost them to sign an aging player. The panel agreed that the economics have caught up to the game and that these aging players no longer have as much value to clubs…due to them becoming increasingly more exclusive in the decisions they make. The panel also agreed that once other teams see this working, they’ll begin to implore the same strategy, and we’ll see the clubs who aren’t yet on board with this to jump on the bandwagon on shortly. One big reason for this is the draft picks associated with signing a type A or B free agent. Christina Kahrl stated that for a team that drafts well, that could equate to a total of 12 years of service time between those two draft picks wasted to sign a player for more than he’s worth.

All in all the conference was awesome. The collection of the best and brightest that MIT and the sports world had to offer was an eye opening experience and gave a great insight into just how hard these people work to be innovative. I definitely learned a lot from the people I heard and look forward to going again next year.