{"id":1462,"date":"2009-08-01T05:54:28","date_gmt":"2009-08-01T12:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/01\/kahrl-highlights-sabr-39\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T12:26:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T19:26:27","slug":"kahrl-highlights-sabr-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/01\/kahrl-highlights-sabr-39\/","title":{"rendered":"Kahrl Highlights SABR 39"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus was the highlighted speaker for SABR 39 held in DC this week.\u00c2\u00a0 There were great sessions.\u00c2\u00a0 There was enough trivia and analysis to\u00c2\u00a0sate the\u00c2\u00a0hungriest baseball appetite,\u00c2\u00a0but for inspiration it was all\u00c2\u00a0Christina Kahrl–an iconoclast with\u00c2\u00a0shiny new BBWAA keys to baseball’s executive washroom.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SABR 39 is my first convention and I must admit I was surprised how good the presentations were.\u00c2\u00a0 It was fascinating to learn that Babe Ruth batted cleanup and started on the mound in the same game for Boston, going 5-for-5 in the bargain.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I thank Eric Weiss and the other presenters who did the work to make the conference fun and informative.<\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/p>\n

The Library of Congress presentations were invaluable to researchers and I sold some books–along with a few other McFarland authors (Mitchem, Leavengood, Outland in the photo, l-r), so it was all good.<\/p>\n

But pumping us up, giving us something that at the end of the day\u00c2\u00a0keeps us wanting to do this stuff–that belonged to Christina Kahrl.<\/p>\n

There is a wonderful edge to Christina and I would bet a beer or two that she has always had it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It all comes out so fast, like a very well-ordered, analytic stream of consciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 You just grab hold of the opinions and information\u00c2\u00a0flying past and\u00c2\u00a0hang on.\u00c2\u00a0 And like the Prospectus itself, she tucks the humor into surprising places that keep you smiling and demand your attention.<\/p>\n

First and foremost though, she is\u00c2\u00a0about sabermetrics and she admitted that she is still looking for that unified theory, a “Rosetta Stone”\u00c2\u00a0of player evaluation and team performance that will allow us to compare statistics across one era to another, to make reasonable assertions about how\u00c2\u00a0dead ball era players compare to those from the most modern eras.<\/p>\n

“There are limits, though,” she acknowledged and she settled into telling stories about the beginnings of Baseball Prospectus<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 The first publication in 1996 did not contain assessments of all 28 teams playing at the time–a beginners oversight.\u00c2\u00a0 “But if you want the Word file on the Cardinals that was missing, I can get it for you.”\u00c2\u00a0 She was proud to admit the mistakes because she and her colleagues had\u00c2\u00a0the determination\u00c2\u00a0to come back and get it right the following year.<\/p>\n

She still\u00c2\u00a0works both sides of the aisle–writing her “Transaction Analysis” Column for Baseball Prospectus.com and still contributing to\u00c2\u00a0the annual print publication, but she has an affinity for on-line journalism.\u00c2\u00a0 She had great insights into what she called baseball’s “explosion of information,” one that she believes coincides with the expanding need for analysis.\u00c2\u00a0 She opined that when Joe McCarthy was a manager, he probably only had to know the tendencies of several key players on a few teams–a sharp contrast to the complex information demands of today’s managers.<\/p>\n

The exponential growth\u00c2\u00a0in baseball analysis has created a demand or market for it within today’s game she believes.\u00c2\u00a0 But Kahrl was insistent not to overstate the importance of statistical and analytic research.\u00c2\u00a0 She emphasized the balance between so many things–scouting of course, and she gave a nod to her colleague Kevin Goldstein for stressing it within the Baseball Prospectus<\/em> group, but also of oral histories and video studies that have gotten increasingly sophisticated with computer applications.<\/p>\n

Kahrl had insights for web sites like this one as well.\u00c2\u00a0 “Diversity of content offering,” she said, is a key.\u00c2\u00a0 She was talking about the need not just to stress statistical analysis in her end of things, but she said the smart journalists are always looking for the newest and best kinds of information, always on top of exactly what people are looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 “It is asking the right questions,” she said, “more than finding the right answers.”<\/p>\n

Talking about today’s baseball writers focusing on statistical analysis she said it is about “people who can put together the right information,”\u00c2\u00a0as though she really knew exactly what she had in mind.\u00c2\u00a0 The art of it is that I think she did.<\/p>\n

Kahrl said that it is satisfying to see the success sabermetric analysis has had.\u00c2\u00a0 She asserted that only the Philadelphia Phillies do not employ a sabermetrician on their staff–a curious metric in and of itself.\u00c2\u00a0 But she believes that\u00c2\u00a0more effective statistical analysis could be\u00c2\u00a0employed\u00c2\u00a0by broadcasters.\u00c2\u00a0 “Can Hawk Harrelson even read?” she asked playfully.<\/p>\n

Broadcasters use of stats begin and end with triple crown numbers, she said.\u00c2\u00a0 But radio and TV broadcasts could only be improved by something of greater\u00c2\u00a0depth–something more than the “Bull Durham interview” pabulum that so many players learn to mouth for TV as players and then too often fall back on in the booth.<\/p>\n

She was asked in the end whether her induction into the Baseball Writers Association of America with colleague Will Carroll has changed her perspective.\u00c2\u00a0 While she said she valued the establishment writers more, some part of Christina\u00c2\u00a0Kahrl will always be an outsider looking in, always be a social scientist arguing method to… the establishment.\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0that perspective is her strength.<\/p>\n

She stayed and answered questions long after the session ended and\u00c2\u00a0had a devoted audience until the very end.\u00c2\u00a0 “It is an art to conceal art,” she said early in\u00c2\u00a0her hour, but it was hard to hide the bright smile and intellect of Christina Kahrl.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It will be fun to\u00c2\u00a0to see where her success takes her\u00c2\u00a0next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus was the highlighted speaker for SABR 39 held in DC this week.\u00c2\u00a0 There were great sessions.\u00c2\u00a0 There was enough trivia and analysis to\u00c2\u00a0sate the\u00c2\u00a0hungriest baseball appetite,\u00c2\u00a0but for inspiration it was all\u00c2\u00a0Christina Kahrl–an iconoclast with\u00c2\u00a0shiny new BBWAA keys to baseball’s executive washroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}