The Greg Spira Baseball Research Award Committee (www.SpiraAward.org) has announced the start of nominations for the fourth annual Greg Spira Baseball Research Award.
The Nomination Period will open at 12:01 a.m. EST on January 21, 2016, and remain open through 11:59 p.m. EST on March 6, 2016. Nominations received before or after the Nomination Period will not be considered.
The nomination form will be available online at www.SpiraAward.org. Anyone can nominate a qualifying piece for the Award, and self-nominations by authors are welcome. Note, however, that only one entry per author will be considered.
Winners of the Greg Spira Baseball Research Award will be announced on April 27, 2016, the 49th anniversary of Greg’s birth.
In order to be eligible for the award, a story, research paper, or book must be about baseball and must contain original analysis or research. Nominated pieces or books must have been published between January 16, 2015, and January 15, 2016. Articles, papers, and books eligible for consideration include those published in print or in e-books, those published or posted on the Web, academic papers or dissertations, and papers presented at professional or public conferences.
The winner of the 2016 Greg Spira Award will receive a cash prize of $1,000. The committee will also recognize two additional writers with awards of $200 for second place and $100 for third place. Winning entries must display innovative analysis or reasoning by an author who was 30 years old or younger at the time of the entry’s publication.
Last year’s Spira Award went to Lewis Pollis for his Brown University senior honors thesis in economics about the underpaying of general managers for the value produced to their organizations. Pollis was hired this January as full-time analyst in baseball research development by the Philadelphia Phillies. Second place went to Cee Angi for her profile of Vin Scully. Rob Arthur’s article comparing the different frequencies of bat on ball placed third. In 2014 Ben Lindbergh took first place, James Santelli second, and Noah Woodward third. The inaugural Spira Award in 2013 was presented to Trent McCotter. Dan Farnsworth received second place and Caleb Hardwick was third that year.
The Publication Period dates have been chosen so that pieces published about the annual January Hall of Fame election are eligible for consideration without having to wait a full year. This also ensures that pieces about Spink Award, Frick Award, and Hall of Fame inductees who will be honored in Cooperstown on the same July weekend will not be split between two Greg Spira Awards.
A panel of judges – including Greg’s brother Jonathan Spira, the creators of the Award, and several close friends of Greg – will determine the winners of this innovative competition. The selections of the judges are final and not appealable.
About Greg Spira
A lifelong and passionate Mets fan, baseball researcher Greg Spira died on December 28, 2011 in his native New York City. Spira was an early adopter and a pioneer in using the Internet to advance baseball analysis, and he later contributed to many sports books as a researcher, writer, and editor. Spira was the creator of the Internet Baseball Awards, now managed by Baseball Prospectus as The Greg Spira Memorial Internet Baseball Awards.
The founders of the Greg Spira Award include Sean Forman of Baseball-Reference.com, Dave Pease of Baseball Prospectus, Sean Lahman of Baseball1.com, and Gary Gillette of 24-7 Baseball, L.L.C.
Remembrances, tributes, and other information about Greg Spira can be found at www.GregSpira.com
For more information, please go to www.SpiraAward.org or send a message to Info(AT)SpiraAward.org.
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