The FanGraphs Live Discussion – NYC

Last week, we announced our first ever Live Discussion, which will take place in Manhattan on Saturday, August 7th. Today, I wanted to expand on the announcement, and explain why we’re pretty excited for this event.

Over the years, I’ve hosted quite a few events similar to this, and they’ve always been tremendously well received. There are few places in our everyday lives where we can get together with other people who share a similar interest level in baseball and talk about the game in depth for several hours at a time, and that is what this will offer. The variety of topics we’ll be able to cover with our assortment of guests is just tremendous.

The discussion about the changing face of baseball media should be fascinating. Jonah Keri will moderate a panel that will include Will Leitch, Michael Silverman, Alex Speier, and David Biderman, all of whom have different perspectives and roles in reporting on the sport. The way the game has been covered has changed dramatically over the last ten years, and it will continue to evolve as the world moves away from printed products. Perhaps no one personifies “New Media” more than Leitch, and it will be fun to listen to those guys talk about how they view coverage of the sport.

We won’t just talk about how the game is perceived through the lens of those who cover it, however. With Mitchel Lichtman (or MGL as he’s generally known) joining us, we’ll have one of the more interesting statistical analysts in the country available to share his thoughts on where the sabermetric community is at and where its going. FanGraphs will also be represented by myself, David Appelman, Carson Cistulli, Bryan Smith, and Joe Pawlikowski, so along with MGL, we’ll be able to have some interesting discussions about what’s next in nerd stats.

Speaking of Joe P, he’s bringing the whole crew from River Ave Blues, so if you’re a Yankee fan, this will be your chance to hear the crew of the best Yankees blog chat about your team in person. If you’re a Mets fan… we’ll hopefully have an announcement about one of yours attending the event as well – that should be coming soon. As we’re holding the event in NYC, we’ll definitely spend some time talking about the local teams, and it’s been an interesting season for both.

We’re not holding this in a bingo hall, either. If you haven’t checked out The Florence Gould Hall, you’re missing out. We’re really excited to have such a tremendous venue for this event – the kind of place that will offer a relaxed, comfortable environment that still will allow everyone who attends to be able to see and hear what is going on, no matter where they’re sitting.

If you haven’t yet purchased your tickets, do so now. We’ve made every effort to keep costs down, so for $15, you’re getting tremendous value. Whether you’ve been reading the site for years or you just stumbled across it, you’ll have a good time.

I look forward to meeting you all there.