John Cappello's Bio

John Cappello is author of Stealing Greatness, a book that demonstrates the devastating impact steroid use has had on major league baseball’s record book. Please stay tuned for future announcements regarding its publishing date.264x572dpi

John is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), and has made several presentations at SABR gatherings, which are listed below. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. As president of Optimal Design, Inc., John has provided hardware design services to the broadband, telecommunication, and medical industries since the early 1990s. He is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Philadelphia Consultant’s Network (CONET).

A lifelong Phillies fan, John has been fascinated by baseball statistics since he began collecting baseball cards and playing Strat-O-Matic baseball in the 1970s. He lives in South Jersey with his wife and two children.

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SABR Presentations

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues 36th Annual Meeting of the Bob Davids Chapter, Columbia, MD, January 24, 2009.

The content of this presentation was cited extensively in the Philadelphia Daily News* on February 27, 2009, by columnist Bill Conlin, an institution in Philly sports journalism. It was also referenced in Sporting News Today by sportswriter Stan McNeal in his Phillies preview on February 23, 2009. This presentation was converted to article form and made available at baseballengineer.com here.

Crunching Numbers Pitch by Pitch – Connie Mack Chapter, Philadelphia, PA, May 2, 2009.

This presentation reveals more to Sammy Sosa’s exploding home run production in 1998 then just improved pitch selectivity. The core of this material was converted to article form and made available at baseballengineer.com here.

Career Transformations: Aging Anomalies that resulted in Performance Increases of 50-200% during Baseball’s Steroid Era – 2009 SABR Convention (SABR39), Washington, D.C., July 29th – August 2nd.

This presentation revealed many of the key concepts of John’s book Stealing Greatness. A PowerPoint version of this presentation will be uploaded at baseballengineer.com at a future date.

*John’s name was incorrectly referenced as “Joe Capello” in this article.