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 is also a contributor to Seamheads.com.
John received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. As president of Optimal Design, Inc., he 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
Mark McGwire’s Jacuzzi Moment: Big Mac’s statistics and timeline in the majors don’t support his comments about his steroids use – Connie Mack Chapter, Philadelphia, PA, January 23, 2010. This discussion was also covered at BaseballEngineer 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 research detailed in his manuscript Stealing Greatness.
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.
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 by columnist Bill Conlin on February 27, 2009. 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. (Note: John’s name was incorrectly referenced as “Joe Capello” in the Daily News article.)
