For the third consecutive year I ventured to Boston, Massachusetts to attend the two day weekend conference Sabermetrics, Scouting and the Science of Baseball, more famously known as SaberSeminar. In fact, NatsGM.com was honored to be one of the sponsors of this year’s event.

SaberSeminar is now in its 5th year bringing together dozens of the top baseball minds, with 100% of the proceeds go to benefit the Jimmy Fund, an organization that raises funds for cancer care and research. Past speakers have included such impressive names as Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell and Dr. Glenn Fleisig.

This year’s event was headlined by former Boston general manager Ben Cherington and future Hall of Fame pitcher Curt Schilling, among the many fascinating presentations. While each of the 30+ presenters over the two days was outstanding, for the sake of brevity I will highlight a few of my favorite presentations.

Tom Tippett

Early Saturday morning Boston Red Sox Senior Baseball Analyst Tom Tippett took to the stage to give a short presentation about the projection the front office had for the Red Sox 2016 season and several pivotal moments of the season. Surprisingly he made a specific point to show when catcher Ryan Hanigan injured his knuckle in May, stating “I think that had a pretty significant impact on the team”. He also highlighted the 8-game losing streak around the All-Star break, mentioning numerous examples of bad luck the team endured during this time. He was not trying to dismiss the losses strictly by luck but did say “it was a really bizarre period where it just seemed like every few days something would happen that would leave you shaking your head”.

After humorously analyzing the team’s struggles this month, Tippett opened the floor to questions and received two obvious questions about Hanley Ramirez’s left field defense and Rick Porcello’s contract extension. Tippett quickly stated that he was not in the room but that the team was surprised Hanley’s defense was not better moving from the middle infield to a corner outfield spot. For Porcello, Tippett again said he was not directly involved in the decision, but speculated that having him signed for his age 27-30 seasons were highly coveted by the organization.

Curt Schilling, SaberSeminar 2015

Unfortunately due to some recent health news Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell was unable to speak at the conference this year. We at NatsGM wish him a speedy recovery and the best of luck. Fortunately for the audience, pinch-hitting for Farrell was legendary major league pitcher Curt Schilling.

Schilling’s presentation was entirely a Question-and-Answer session with the audience and his first answer stuck with me the rest of the weekend: “My number 1 goal was to figure out how to throw a ball when the hitter was swinging and a strike when the hitter was taking.” This entire philosophy perfectly summarizes pitching in one sentence. Later in the same answer Schilling did mention that he was always looking for data on umpires and the human element involved in the strike zone. He wanted to know which umpires would call strikes in certain areas of the zone, as this would factor into his game plan and how he wanted to set up hitters. He said he thinks this information is really just starting to come out.
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Another great question from the audience was which hitter from his era did he least like to face – Schilling quickly said while he did not fear him, that player was Todd Helton and thinks he had a Hall of Fame career in obscurity. He joked that it felt like Helton “was 10-2 in his career off of him”. He also made another terrific point within his answer stating that there was a common thread on hitters that did well off him: “Marquis Grissom, Mark Lemke, Julio Lugo, no one 6-foot or taller, all the little guys… I was a fastball power pitcher. If you are 5-8 the one thing you better be able to do is hit a fastball. So they all came up through the minor leagues and for all these little guys, everything is a high fastball.”

Ben Cherington

Following Schilling on Saturday afternoon was former general manager of the Boston Red Sox Ben Cherington: First the simple fact that Cherington made his scheduled appearance after a difficult week professionally speaks to the tremendous character of the man and he should be commended for participating. In fact, he opened his talk with a joke saying “this forum is such a progressive event it even invited the unemployed”.

Cherington received the inevitable question about Hanley Ramirez and his defense, stating that “nobody knew, we didn’t know what he would be defensively in left field… we made a bet based on history of what players look like when they move from a middle infield position to another position and there is data that can always try to make educated guesses on that… and obviously we have seen what’s happened, it hasn’t gone well.”

Interestingly Cherington later mentioned that Boston tried to pry 3B Josh Donaldson away from Oakland early last offseason but was told that they were not going to move him. He also said to give Toronto credit for being persistent and for being able to get a deal done.

Finally he discussed the Pablo Sandoval signing, stating that the decision was not made with the idea that Fenway Park would bolster his offensive production but filling a “black hole” at the position with someone still in his prime. This move has not worked out thus far though Cherington left an impression he thought he would improve in the future.

Diamond Kinetics Demonstration

This year’s event easily surpassed the previous two conferences I have attended. I want to personally congratulate and thank SaberSeminar host Dr. Dan Brooks and SaberSeminar Founder Chuck Korb, who work tirelessly year-round to put on this spectacular event. In addition Master of Ceremonies Mike Ferrin from Sirius XM was his typical gregarious self and did a fantastic job keeping the presenters on schedule throughout the two days.

SaberSeminar is easily the best baseball event outside of a baseball stadium each year and I cannot wait to make my return next summer.