[Saberseminar 2016 is SOLD OUT. We look forward to seeing you August 13-14!]
Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball, a weekend seminar for the benefit of the Jimmy Fund and the Angioma Alliance, puts you up close with some of baseball’s top coaches, statisticians, scouts, doctors, and scientists. The seminar will take place on August 13 and 14, 2016 in Boston, MA.
During this event, you will grasp how science is blended with advanced baseball statistics and traditional scouting assessments to produce outstanding results for teams. Don’t miss this special opportunity to learn about the deeper game of baseball from insiders and pros, meet people who love the game, and help the Jimmy Fund and the Angioma Alliance.
Every penny earned during this baseball weekend will go directly to the Jimmy Fund and the Angioma Alliance.
2016 Speakers Include (along with many others):
Dave Dombrowski was named as President of Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox on August 18, 2015. In this role – newly created by the organization – he is responsible for all baseball matters for the club. A distinguished and experienced baseball executive, Dombrowski arrived in Boston with nearly 40 years of service in Major League Baseball. In addition to his extensive accomplishments relating to on-field baseball performance, Dombrowski has also been involved in areas off the field around the game. In April of 2013, former Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig named him chairman of the Commissioner’s On-Field Diversity Task Force, which addresses the talent pipeline that impacts the representation and development of diverse players and on-field personnel in Major League Baseball, particularly African-Americans. While with the Tigers, also in 2013, he accepted the Commissioner’s Award for Philanthropic Excellence on behalf of the club for their Anti-Bullying community program. Dombrowski and his wife, Karie, live in suburban Boston with their daughter, Darbi, and son, Landon.
Jean Afterman, the New York Yankees’ senior vice president and assistant general manager, is the highest-ranking female executive in a major-league front office. Her career began on the stage, where as an aspiring actress she starred in Shakespearean comedies and Cole Porter musicals. She earned her law degree at the University of San Francisco and soon after met Don Nomura, who represented Japanese baseball players seeking to play in the major leagues. She used a loophole to help Hideo Nomo sign in the United States and, after Hideki Irabu’s turbulent negotiations with major-league teams, helped create the posting system governing teams’ purchases of Japanese players’ rights. “She was as tough and smart and quick and as unafraid of George (Steinbrenner) as anyone,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman once told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to have her on this side of the fence?'" She has been with the Yankees since 2001.
Jerry Weinstein has been coaching baseball players since 1966, when he took a position as an assistant coach for the UCLA Bruins’ freshmen team. In the 50 years since, he has been a coach on two USA Olympic teams, managed Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic, been director of player development for the Los Angeles Dodgers, served as catching coach and coordinator for offense for the Colorado Rockies’ major-league club, and managed four minor-league teams. As the legendary head baseball coach at Sacramento City College for two-plus decades, he graduated more than 100 players to the professional ranks, compiled an .800 winning percentage, and was twice named National Community College Baseball Coach of the Year. "If we lose and enough people get better, we've had a great day," he once said. "If we win and no one gets better, we have not." He is the co-author of Baseball Coach’s Survival Guide and the author of The Complete Handbook of Coaching Catchers.
Brian Bannister, the Red Sox Director of Pitching Analytics, spent five seasons pitching in the major leagues, most notably with the Kansas City Royals, where he finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 2007. He was a right-hander with an underwhelming fastball in a sport that lusts for hard-throwers and lefties, and his ability to succeed was attributed as much to his brain (and stubborn perseverance) as to his arm. “He tinkers and analyzes and studies and plots and creates and destroys and invents and experiments,” the writer Joe Posnanski once said of him. By a certain type of baseball fan, Bannister will be remembered as the first ballplaying sabermetrician, a student of advanced statistics who saw information as valuable, not threatening. His public embrace of the brainy side of sports helped bridge the divide between baseball’s jocks and nerds.
John Baker is a former Major League Baseball player that has played for the Marlins, Padres and Cubs. He also spent time in the minor league organizations of the Athletics, Dodgers and Mariners. John's baseball career has taken him across the country and over seas. In the name of baseball, he has spent time in Holland, Belgium, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Iraq and Kuwait. After attending De La Salle High School in Concord, CA, John was a walk on at Cal in 2000, he later earned a scholarship for the 2002 season. He was drafted by the Oakland A's in the fourth round of the 2002 MLB draft and made it the Major Leagues in 2008 with the Florida Marlins. Besides writing about and discussing baseball, John enjoys reading, playing the guitar, exercising, watching MMA and spending time with his two young children. He lives in Danville, CA.
Dr. Alan Nathan is a physics professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After a long career studying the high-speed collisions of subatomic particles, he now studies much lower speed collisions between baseballs and bats. He runs the very popular site The Physics of Baseball, and has served on various panels advising organizations such as the NCAA on issues related to bat performance.
Dr. Christopher Geary is Chief of Sports Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and is an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at Tufts Medical Center. Following his residency, he completed the San Diego Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy Fellowship. He also served as Assistant Team Physician for the San Diego Padres, San Diego State and UCSD. He is currently a team physician for Tufts University and Emerson College and is a primary reviewer for the American Journal of Sports Medicine.