When you think of analytics in baseball you immediately think about traditional measures like hits, runs, and on base percentage. If you’re a baseball enthusiast you might know about advanced metrics, like FIP, wOBA and other Sabermetric terms. In this session, Sig Mejdal, one of the first analysts in professional baseball, shares with us some less obvious or unusual metrics that influence success for professional baseball players. Learn how phenomena like the California real estate boom; the proliferation of air conditioning in Florida; and westward and southward U.S. expansion affected where major league teams looked for players for their organizations. Along the way Sig will also show us how the average location of major leaguers has changed over time, using an animated bubble charts and examines the “age cutoff” observation analysis Malcom Gladwell made famous in Outliers. Find out how month of birth can influence the early and continued development of strong players and how it can affect current (and perhaps future) major leaguers. Sig ends his talk by showing us yet another “boring data table,” specifically player’s height, and noting what this data tells us about current major leaguers.