Thanks for opening up The Cipher on this lovely Tuesday. Actually, I don't know where you live, but where I live, this Tuesday is one billion degrees and quite unlovely. Stay inside. Read the blogs.
-Maitreyi |
The Minor League Shrink And The Growing Gap Between Triple-A And The Bigs
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The New Trend In Book Covers Is Old-Timey Animals
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Two Things We Liked On The Internet Today:
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A Special Message From Our Friend Kalyn Kahler |
Hi comrades! I have to issue an apology because I have now joined the masses in asking, pleading, begging you to please listen and subscribe and rate and review my new podcast, Spiraled. For the last three years, I've been working on adapting my three-part investigative series for Sports Illustrated about several ex-NFL players who joined an extreme religious group (the big names: ex-Packer Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila and ex-Colt Robert Mathis) into an audio series, because who doesn't love a good sports-true-crime-religious-extremism mashup? |
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The first of six episodes just dropped today! This was the craziest, deepest dive of a story I have ever done, and when I first started, I only knew of a strange incident that made local news in Green Bay. Two of Kabeer's friends had been arrested for trespassing at his children's school Christmas program. They'd both been carrying guns without a license, and it was Kabeer who sent them... It turned out Kabeer had renounced Christianity and split with his wife while she was pregnant with their eighth child because he'd gotten hooked on a Youtube preacher named Pastor Dowell. And then, while watching the Youtube video of Kabeer's wedding to a different woman (not a legal marriage, because they don't believe in marriage or birth certificates), I saw a familiar face. Robert Mathis?!?!?
For these ex-NFL players, the search for identity, and the craving for masculine space when they retired and were suddenly without it, pulled them to Pastor Dowell, a man who'd spent a decade in the army, barks like a coach, and shares anti-semitic, homophobic and misogynistic opinions. At the time, I knew of three ex-players who had started their own communities of this group, two of whom had severed their relationships with their original wives and children. I wondered if any more ex-players would get involved. And six months after my SI story ran, an NFL agent texted me.
"I got a call today from a former client's wife. She said her husband is living in KGB'S compound after joining the cult. Most mind numbing call I can remember getting as an agent."
That's what they call a cliffhanger. I hope you enjoy Spiraled! You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
- Kalyn Kahler |
How To Write A Catchy Presentation Title |
On a recent Tigers broadcast, play-by-play guy Jason Benetti mentioned attending the Saberseminar baseball analytics conference this past weekend in Chicago. Curious, I pulled up the Saberseminar website and looked through the schedule. So many presentations sounded interesting. Effect of Trunk Rotational Velocity on Fastball Velocity Changes Between Practice and Game Settings! Using XGBoost Models To Analyze The Value Of A Foul Ball! A Model-Based Approach to Pitch Arsenal Evaluation and Addition!
But one part of the schedule really caught my eye: |
[4] 9:50-10:00 | Robert Hickson, Matthew Hollander, Brandon Jenning (Palo Alto University)
Clustering Bat Tracking Data: Profiles of Bat Speed and Swing Length Associated with Expected Performance Statistics
[5] 10:00-10:15 | Mark Roman Miller (Illinois Institute of Technology)
What If They Played Without A Bat?
[6] 10:15-10:25 | AM Break |
The Saberseminar organizers were wise to schedule a break right after "What If They Played Without A Bat?" Imagine being the poor "Clustering Bat Tracking Data" people, proud to have advanced everyone's knowledge of baseball when—bam!—you get hit with "What If They Played Without A Bat?" They probably spent the AM Break kicking themselves. No bat! Why didn't we think of that? What's worse: This threatens to destroy their life's work. If baseball were played without a bat, there would certainly be no bat tracking data, much less clusters of it.
Did anyone reading this attend Saberseminar? Tell me. What would happen if they played without a bat?
- Maitreyi |
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