Earlier this month, the sports conference that ESPN/Grantland scribe Bill Simmons terms Dorkapalooza was held in Boston. The MIT-sponsored Sloan Sports Analytics Conference brings together enthusiasts both inside and outside of a variety of sports. Being as baseball is a sport where analytics are important, and our own Andrew works in such a job, he was there, and he shares his perspective on the conference to open up the podcast. His key takeaway from all of it: the importance of being able to communicate newer-era statistics to the layman.
We look a bit at how some new metrics can apply to the Orioles, and follow up with some discussion of a comment that Wayne Kirby made about zone rating during the MASN broadcast of Sunday afternoon's spring training game.
For some slightly less dorky discussion, which begins right about the halfway mark (23:00 or thereabouts), Andrew and I go on to talk about things such as the absurdity of the notion of Johnny Damon signing with the Orioles, how much we dislike Kevin Gregg (and why), and we offer our speculation about what will happen with the starting rotation based on how things look at this moment in time.
In an attempt to simplify the podcast for everyone, I've changed the bit rate of the mp3 to keep the file size smaller, meaning no more two-part podcasts. Your feedback on whether there is any noticeable downturn in audio quality as a result is appreciated.
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This episode is about 48 minutes long.
Thank you as always for all the feedback. Please keep listening and keep helping us bring you a better show. We expect to be back in two weeks, at which time we will hopefully launch into a more frequent, and more guest-filled podcasting schedule for the duration of the season.