This past weekend, thanks to the generosity of the Anthony A. Yoseloff Foundation, I had the tremendous honor of attending the Society for American Baseball Research Analytics Conference in Phoenix. It would be impossible to write a recap of the weekend that does justice to the incredible experience I had, but sprinkled amongst the high-level research presentations and captivating panelists were a number of interesting Tribe tidbits. Here’s a brief summary of the most interesting Indians-related topics from the conference.
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Cleveland Vice President of Marketing & Brand Management Alex King gave a fascinating presentation Friday morning (along with Damon Ragusa from ThinkVine) about how the organization has completely revamped its approach to promotional schedule and targeted advertising. Using a more complex “agent-based model” (rather than traditional econometric regression) the Indians feel they have a much better handle on how best to spend their marketing resources. The number that shocked me: the team recouped about a 5 percent return on investment from money spent on promotions in 2012, but the Tribe expects a whopping 75 percent ROI from giveaways in 2013.
Though he didn’t talk about real specifics, Indians Director of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey offered a couple particularly interesting thoughts. Despite all the flack the new Collective Bargaining Agreement has gotten this winter for its negative impact on high-profile free agents, Falvey said that another of its provisions—moving the signing deadline up to the middle of July—has been tremendously helpful in that it gets newly drafted players on the field much faster, thus facilitating their development. He also said that GM Chris Antonetti always seeks opinions from throughout the front office before making a player transaction.
There were, of course, countless other fascinating insights and ideas bouncing around the conference in panels, lectures, presentations, and casual conversations. This conference was a phenomenal event and I would strongly encourage anyone with an interest in baseball statistics to make the trip down to Phoenix next year.