Ben Lindbergh, left, and Sam Miller, right, will be writing a book about their upcoming season with the Sonoma Stompers. The duo will join the front office as the first ever baseball operations staff.
Danielle Putonen/Sonoma Stompers
Theo Fightmaster, General Manager
The Sonoma Stompers Baseball Club has announced two additions to the club’s baseball operations department. Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller, two of the nation’s foremost analysts on advanced statistics and baseball analytics, will implement strategy through cutting edge data-driven metrics, advanced scouting and bold, progressive ideas. The two writers will chronicle the 2015 season for the independent team that competes in the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs in Northern California. Along the way they will tell the stories of the players, management and the league. They will also devise and implement strategies based on their analytical findings. Their story will be told in a book, tentatively titled “The Baseball Sandbox,” to be published by Henry Holt in 2016.
Lindbergh is a staff writer for Grantland, where he writes about baseball and dabbles in pop-culture coverage. He also co-hosts and produces Effectively Wild, the daily Baseball Prospectus podcast. He was formerly the editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus and an on-air contributor to MLB Network; and has also worked for the Elias Sports Bureau, Bloomberg Sports, and multiple MLB teams. He lives in New York.
Miller is the current editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus, the co-editor of the Baseball Prospectus Annual, and a contributing writer at ESPN the Magazine. He also co-hosts Effectively Wild. He previously worked as a news reporter covering local government and education in Southern California, but he got his start in baseball sending unrealistic trade proposals to the San Francisco Giants' General Manager in the late 1980s. He lives on the San Francisco peninsula with his wife and daughter.
"Sam and I have been brainstorming for years about what we would do if someone put us in charge of a professional baseball team,” Lindbergh said. “We look forward to finding out which of our ideas make sense and, more importantly, which ones are wrong."
Added Miller, “Independent baseball is a tremendously important part of the sport. It provides something special and irreplaceable for the fans, for the players, and for the local communities that support these teams. We’re excited to see this independent league play a historic role in the advancement of baseball strategy and analysis.”
Stompers’ brass was first approached with this idea last fall, and was very receptive to the proposal.
“This is a truly exciting adventure for us,” said Theo Fightmaster, Stompers General Manager. “Not only will this give us two of the game’s sharpest minds, but it will offer us a competitive advantage, and give us a chance to make genuine contributions to the game of baseball. Furthermore, this will and add credibility to our organization and our league. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work alongside Ben and Sam this summer.”