Meet the Experts...
Shandler Enterprises, LLC. began publishing statistical reports for baseball analysts and fantasy leaguers in 1986. Since then, we've grown into one of the largest information providers in the industry, producing quality products continuously and over a longer period than any other fantasy baseball company.
Our writers and analysts are paid professionals, not weekend hobbyists or corporate staffers. While other information services seek out professional journalists who play fantasy baseball, we seek out successful fantasy players with innovative ideas who know how to write. That's our difference, and it's a huge one.
Directors
RON SHANDLER
(Editor and Publisher) has been publishing his unique brand of statistical
information since 1986. A fantasy leaguer since 1985, he was the first author to develop sabermetric applications for fantasy play. His annual book, the Baseball Forecaster, is now in its 21st year of publication. Ron
is the founder of Tout Wars, the national experts league featured in the 2006 book, Fantasyland. In national experts competition, he has finished in the top three 11 times, including five titles. He has been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) since 1985 and is a member of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA), which presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In 2004, he was selected to help form an advisory board for the St. Louis Cardinals. Ron has an MBA from Hofstra University and is a professional forecasting analyst by trade. Complete bio.
RAY MURPHY
(Managing Editor) has been playing fantasy baseball in various formats since 1988. Ray competes in, and has numerous money finishes in, AL-only, NL-only, and mixed Rotisserie leagues. He is also an avid player of simulation games, both Scoresheet and APBA. He currently serves as commissioner of the 24-team, play-by-mail APBA Transcontinental Baseball League. Ray resides in the Boston area with his wife, Jennifer.
DERIC McKAMEY
(Director of Minor League Analysis) has over 15 years experience as a baseball analyst. He is a 2002 graduate of Major League Baseball's scout school and talks regularly with players, development directors and major league GM's. Deric has been a contributor to Street & Smith's Baseball magazine since 2001 and has been an advisor to the St. Louis Cardinals since 2004. He is an Ohio State graduate and lives with his wife and three daughters in Ohio.
HAROLD NICHOLS (Director of News Analysis) has played Boxscore Baseball since the mid-1980’s and is among the league’s all-time win leaders. Since 1999, he has won five NL and four AL titles. In both 1999 and 2005, he won the Dick Houser award as the outstanding owner in all Boxscore leagues. During the working day, he is Dean of the Meridian Campus of Mississippi State University. He teaches theatre history and is one of the few theatre historians in the country with advanced training in statistics. Harold lives in Meridian, MS with his wife Anna Marie.
PAUL PETERA
(Director of Data Analysis) is in his tenth year with Baseball HQ. His writing has appeared on Baseball HQ for the past nine years, most notably in the Market Watch area. He has been involved with Data Analysis since his arrival. Paul has worked extensively on the past seven editions of the Baseball Forecaster. He has been active in fantasy baseball since 1987. In his spare time, he enjoys distance running, and completed his first marathon in Houston, TX in 2007. The Virginia native holds a B.S. in Business Management from Virginia Tech, and is an avid Hokie fan. Paul serves as a Risk Manager for a St. Louis-based brokerage firm, and lives in Edwardsville, IL with his wife Andrea and daughter Abby.
BRENT HERSHEY (Director of Interactive Features) has contributed to Baseball HQ in various roles since 1999. He grew up a Phillies fan in Pennsylvania and didn't realize how rare that 1980 taste of success would become. He would encourage memories of Larry Bowa the player rather than Larry Bowa the manager. A veteran of the rotisserie format, he has been increasingly smitten by the Scoresheet bug and sim formats in recent years. He has earned a B.A. in Journalism from Temple University, an M.Div. from Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and is currently working on a masters degree in religious studies at the University of Iowa. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Iowa City, Iowa.
DAVE ADLER
(Director of Games Analysis) has been a member of the ultra-competetive "I Want to Be George Steinbrenner" Baseball League (ironically based in Boston) since 1986. He's served as commissioner ten years, won the league five times, and had 14 money finishes. When not managing his beloved Cygnus A's, he is an astronomer working with the Hubble Space Telescope, living near Baltimore with his wife, Beth. Dave has a BA in Astrophysics from Boston University, and MA and PhD in Astronomy from the University of Virginia.
Research & Analysis
Rick Wilton (Dr. HQ) was the fantasy baseball industry's first injury analyst, and is the only one with experience in sports medicine, radiology, pharmacology and physical therapy. Rick started his sports career as the co-host of the University of Utah's pre-game football and basketball shows from 1981 to 1984. He was also a regular on Sports KALL, the weekly sports call-in show in Salt Lake City. Rick began baseball writing with free-lance articles for Baseball Weekly and Fantasy Baseball magazine. From 1992-1995, he was the president of Sports Journal Publications, Inc. which published Fantasy Baseball Journal, Diamond Alert and the Hot Sheet. He researched and co- authored the book, Forecasting Pitching Careers, and was the fantasy baseball expert for WMVP radio in Chicago during the 1996 season. Rick is an alumnus of the University of Utah and lives in Racine, WI, with his wife and daughter.
Matt Beagle
(Market Pulse) exemplified the depth of fanalytic commitment as an expansion manager a decade ago. Appendix bursting, he coerced a hospital release to retrieve his Strat-O-Matic materials to draft from the recovery room. The next year he won the first of four championships and six consecutive World Series appearances in the Capital Baseball League. He won five Strat titles and nine consecutive pennants in the Universal Baseball Association, and two titles with nine money finishes in ten years in Cleveland's Westside Points League. Matt obtained his JD/MBA from Wake Forest, after attending Ursinus College, near his beloved Phillies. He now follows the Indians as closely after a Jacobs Field wedding. A bank Vice President and Instructor at Bloomsburg University, Matt brings 25 years of fanalytic experience from Bloomsburg, PA.
Neil Bonner has been
playing fantasy baseball in online leagues since 1997. He is the defacto commissioner and
member of the ultra-competitive AL Hardball League at ESPN Fantasy Baseball. He lives in
Northern Virginia and is thrilled he finally can root for a home team (Go 'Nats!). Neil
played baseball as a youth and now enjoys managing Little League baseball teams for his
youngest son. He received a MS in Management Science from George Washington University,
and has worked in the IT field for 20 years.
Patrick Davitt
(Baseball HQ Radio) has been playing 4x4 Rotisserie since 1988 in the Regina Rotisserie League in Saskatchewan, Canada. His PaperBoyz franchise has been in the money in all but four seasons and won titles back-to-back in 2001 and 2002. Patrick joined the Baseball HQ team in 1999, writing about Rotisserie strategy and rules. He has also written the AL Market Watch, the Batting Buyers Guide column, and independent baseball and fantasy research. Patrick now hosts Baseball HQ Radio, a weekly free program about fantasy baseball, available as an MP3 download from Baseball HQ or from podcast providers like iTunes and feedburner.com. Patrick is now a "pinch-hitter" for NL and AL Market Watch and an enthusiastic participant in the HQ Forums.
News Analysis
DIRECTOR: Harold Nichols
NEWS ANALYSTS
Gerald Holmes (National League) has been a fantasy leaguer for over six years. He is the current two-time defending champion of his 6-year-old mixed keeper league, and
hopes someday his beloved Cubbies will be able to make the same claim.
Gerald is a high school math teacher in Columbus, OH and spends his days
convincing young minds there are important connections between
mathematical concepts and real-life, such as statistical trends in
fantasy baseball. He received his Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical
Engineering from Purdue University, a Master's of Science in Civil
Engineering from The George Washington University, and finally got it
correct by obtaining a Master's of Arts in Mathematics Education from
SUNY Albany.
Joe Hoffer (National League) is in his first year as a Baseball HQ Market Watch analyst. He's played 5x5 NL-only keeper leagues since he graduated Lake Forest College with a BS in Psychology in 1988. When he isn’t at Wrigley Field (he once attended 88 Cubs games in one year), he is selling advertising for Rolling Stone magazine, running marathons with his wife Anne or hanging out with his two-year old daughter, Tessa.
Tom Kephart (American League) has been competing in various fantasy baseball formats (primarily Rotisserie Mixed and NL-only Leagues) since 1991. He is a life-long Cincinnati sports fan, a diehard Reds fan, and an enthusiastic student of baseball history. He earned a B.A. in Communications and Political Science, with M.A. in Political Science/Policy Analysis from American University, and an M.A. in Political Science from Ohio State. He lives in Columbus Ohio.
Troy Martell (American League/Scoresheet) has been playing fantasy baseball, particularly Scoresheet, for approximately 10 years. In 2006, he won his AL-only
single-season league with 109 wins, the second-highest win total of all Scoresheet AL-only teams. Troy
was born in Minnesota and is a die-hard Twins fan. He currently works as an attorney in Milwaukee. He has a B.A. in political science from Marquette University and a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law. Troy spends most of his free time with his wife, Erin, and his dog, Lando.
Mike Roy (American League) has been playing fantasy baseball for 22 years, including several years in a Sabermetricians League featuring linear weights and pitching runs as categories. His Hartford Hit Men have won 3 consecutive championships in BJFB/STATS leagues (one team ranking 5/1200) and an ESPN league. Mike manages personal investments when he is not talking fantasy trades with his son. He enjoyed previous careers as a finance attorney and a high school Latin teacher. He has a BA in Classics from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and a JD from Cornell Law School. A lifelong Yankees fan, he resides in West Hartford, Connecticut, with his wife, son, and daughter.
Brian Rudd (National League) has participated in fantasy baseball for the last 10 years. He is a graduate of the University of Louisville with a degree in Sport Administration. A big St. Louis Cardinals fan, he currently resides in Lexington, KY with his wife, Mona, and daughter, Kaelyn.
Tom Todaro (National League) has been a Mets fan for 35 years. Growing up on dice baseball and Strat-O-Matic, Tom's been active in Rotisserie leagues since 1990, both auction and straight-draft. When not perusing stats or chasing his two kids around the house in Middletown, NJ, Tom works as a Java programmer for a software company in New York City.
Jeffrey Tomich (National League) is in his fourth year as a Baseball HQ news analyst. He's among the founders of the Inky Wretches League, a 6x6 NL-only keeper league, and also has competed in a 5x5 mixed league for the past eight years. Jeffrey has a B.A. in English and economics from Tulane University and works as a business journalist. He and his wife, Elisa, live in St. Louis, but his favorite team remains the Astros. When not studying box scores, he enjoys running, cooking and traveling.
BUYERS GUIDE ANALYSTS
Doug Dennis (Bullpen) has almost 20 years of 4x4 and 5x5 experience. He has won his home league seven of the past eight years, won the XFL in 2007 and has been a regular in USA Today's LABR league. Doug wrote the Tip Sheet for Sports Weekly in 2003 and 2004, served as a consultant to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004 and 2005 and has contributed to a number of annual publications. Doug has been working at HQ and speaking at First Pitch Arizona since way back in the 20th Century.
Brandon Kruse (Batting average) is in his first season as a Buyer's Guide analyst, after two years spent as an AL Market Watch analyst.
He was the 2003 Grand Prize winner of SportingNews.com and MLB.com's
Ultimate Salary Cap Baseball game, and enjoyed a Top 50 finish in
2005. He's also involved in a straight-draft mixed Rotisserie league
and is deeply obsessed with Out of the Park Baseball (v6.5), where he
is the owner/GM/manager of three teams in a fictional league,
including the most recent league champion. Brandon is a lifelong Twins
fan, and lives in Minnetonka, MN with his wife Christi, six-year-old
daughter Grace (who cried when informed about the free agent departure
of Torii Hunter), and one-year-old son Nathan (who cries about a lot
of things, mostly unrelated to baseball).
Scott Monroe (Speed) is now in his ninth year of writing for Baseball HQ, including four as Director of News Analysis, and has been involved in various forms of fantasy baseball since the mid-1980s. He has served as commissioner of one of his two local leagues for several years, and has won championships in two of the past three years. Scott typically competes in NL-only or mixed Rotisserie leagues, and as a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan has thus far avoided joining an AL-only league for fear that the heart would indeed rule the head. Scott and partner Ray Murphy have also competed in the first four years of the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. Scott is an attorney by day, but also worked for several years as a data analyst honing his enjoyment of numbers and statistics. He lives with his wife and two children in Richmond, Virginia.
Stephen Nickrand (Starting Pitching), entering his eighth year with Baseball HQ, is honored to carry forward Baseball HQ's tradition of spotting starting pitchers who will outperform expectations. Stephen has been a baseball analyst for most of his adult life. He recently returned from living in Germany, where he failed to teach the concept of strand rate to the locals but did support his hometown baseball club, the Paderborn Untouchables, who have won several German baseball championships. In his free time, Stephen pretends he's an amateur movie critic and obsessively follows the band Pearl Jam on tour across the world. Stephen is an alumnus of the University of Michigan and has worked in the Human Resource field since graduating in 2000.
Joshua Randall (Power) has been playing fantasy baseball since the last millennium, primarily in mixed draft leagues, but he makes time for single-league auctions in order to maintain his street cred. He is entering his seventh year writing for BHQ. Joshua is a long-time Cleveland Indians fan who grumbles every year at the rising season ticket prices, yet always buys them anyway. When not undertaking fanalytic research, Joshua works as a business analyst at a large automobile insurance company.
Skip Snow (Weekly Planner - NL) is a 20-year vet of baseball gaming, from dice to Diamond Mind and from front office to fantasy league. He spent ten years on the Cleveland Indians' Sales & Marketing force and now heads the business development department for an education management company in Cleveland. He's a lifetime Yankee fan who had his belt and shoelaces taken from him after the Red Sox disrespectfully ended the eternal Curse of the Babe after merely 86 years. In the fanalytic world, he wrangles a herd of several fantasy teams in several sports. In the real world, he and his wife Anne Marie live in Rocky River, Ohio and wrangle a herd of four children - Michael, Maria, Andrew, and Lauren.
Jock Thompson (Weekly Planner - AL) Often referred to as "The Father of Deep 5X5 Mixed Keeper On-line Rotisserie Leagues", Jock has won 16 championships with 24 money finishes in 31 attempts, spanning two leagues since he began playing in 1989. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and works part-time as a database programmer-analyst. Jock resides in Orange County, CA with his roto-playing wife Sandie, with whom he spends most of his time between March and November taking in as much MLB, minor league and college baseball as possible. He is HQ’s preeminent SoCal and Arizona baseball enthusiast, is unmatched in his own mind with respect to his knowledge of the Angels, and makes regular efforts to provide some balance to the East Coast bias found in the HQ Forums. He’s been known to take in the occasional stray Pearl Jam groupie from the Orange County streets, and his current dream is to play in the same rotisserie league as Keith Olbermann and Jason Bateman.
Minor League Analysis
DIRECTOR: Deric McKamey
Jeremy Deloney (Minor league analyst) is in his fourth season with HQ as a minor league analyst. He appears daily during the season with the daily callup reports. When he's not in ballparks during the summer, he can be found at work at a securities firm or sharing his baseball passion with his three children, ages 6, 4 and 1. Jeremy lives in Lebanon, OH and is a lifelong Twins fanatic.
Rob Gordon (Minor league analyst) is an avid fan of minor league baseball and also has the misfortune of being a life-long Cubs fan. He plays in an NL-only league that was created in 1984. Heavily influenced by the work of Bill James, the league uses a modified Runs Created and Runs Allowed formula to determine a winning percentage. In 2003 he completed a Ph.D. in US Labor and Environmental History at Wayne State University where he occasionally still teaches. He currently lives in the metropolitan Detroit area and works as an Academic Advisor for undergraduates at the University of Michigan. Go Blue!
Data Analysis
DIRECTOR: Paul Petera
Andy Andres
(Data analyst) teaches what is likely one of the first ever college courses in Baseball
Analysis and Sabermetrics at Tufts University in Medford, MA. When not spending time
scheming victory in the very competitive Boston Baseball League, he also teaches biology
at Boston University and Harvard College. Andy is a diehard Red Sox Fan and lives in Cambridge, MA with his
wife, Kate, and their three children, Maddie, Aubree, and Griffin. He also plays 3B for
the Jumbo's Peanut Surprise in various Tufts Softball Leagues, and has been schooled at
Universities Brown, Harvard, and Tufts.
Matt Dodge (Data
analyst) began his formal fanalytic training in college, when his Quantitative Methods professor allowed him to use baseball statistics for data analysis projects. Player valuation studies came next, when this third-generation Yankee fan and his die-hard Oriole fan wife debated at length the comparative statistics for Brooks Robinson and Graig Nettles. Since then, Matt has spent most of his non-working moments competing in national and local 4x4, 5x5 and ultra Rotisserie games, with several first place league finishes (including the 2nd annual Arizona Challenge). After graduating with an Industrial Engineering degree from Clarkson College, he is now located in the I-95 corridor, where he cheers on the High A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals and manages transactional systems integration for a major business unit in a Fortune 50 chemical company.
Philip Hertz
(Data analyst) has been playing Rotisserie Baseball since 1985, and has finished first or second in his primary league in all but three seasons. Phil, like Ron, is a die- hard Mets fan, who attended the Mets first game at the Polo Grounds. He has an A.B. in history and urban studies from the University of Michigan's Residential College and a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law. When not pursuing his first love; i.e., baseball, he serves as the Deputy General Counsel for a United States government corporation. He and his wife live in North Bethesda, Maryland, just outside the nation's capital, and travel around the world annually -- but almost always with laptop in hand!
Mike Shears (Data analyst) has managed teams since 1992 and has earned two Scoresheet division championships and several top-half Rotisserie finishes on his pitching strength. He's familiar with the Rotisserie, Ultra 4x4 and 5x5, and Scoresheet formats. Mike's an 1987 Engineering graduate of Ohio State and lives in Indiana as a network admin. A former men's softball coach, he understands the never-ending struggle to find a good leadoff hitter.
Rod Truesdell
(Data analyst) joined Baseball HQ in 1999. Rod has performed in numerous roles with Baseball HQ, including Scoresheet Baseball and AL Market Watch analyst, and most recently AL West Playing Time analyst. Rod also serves as co-editor of Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster, and has been a contributing Forecaster author since the 2004 edition. A native Texan, Rod has followed the American League since the Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972. He has won eight Scoresheet Baseball championship trophies, including the inaugural 1999 championship in the Scoresheet Champions Internet League, AL-SCIL. Rod is a meteorologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC, where he lives with his wife, three kids, three dogs, and one cat.
Games Analysis
DIRECTOR: Dave Adler
Matthew Baic (Rotisserie) joined HQ in 2006 after a two year stint with another fantasy sports service. He has more than 10 years of fantasy baseball experience in Rotisserie, head-to-head and Strat-O-Matic. He was chosen as a "Regular Guy" in the 2004 LABR-NL league. In 2007, he finished 1st for Fantasy Sports Magazine in a mixed experts league. The previous two seasons saw him finish 2nd and 4th in the same format for the Fantasy Auctioneer Invitational Experts League. He recently celebrated his 10th year anniversary to his wife Beth. Sons Samuel, Seth, and Keegan are in intense training for their Fantasy Sports careers. He is a programmer, lives in Cranberry Township, PA, and still remains a diehard Pirates fan.
Brent Grooms (Head to Head) is a full-time student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, majoring in Information Resources. He has also earned an AA degree from the Art Institute of Seattle where he majored in Audio Production. Brent has been playing fantasy baseball since 1992 and has won over 20 titles. This includes a 2007 NFBC Ultimate league title, and a 2006 NFBC league title. He is a native Iowan and a lifelong Cardinals fan currently living in Wauwatosa, WI with his wife Rachel and their two retired racing greyhounds.
Dylan Hedges (Head to Head) has been playing competitive Mixed and NL-only leagues for several years. He is an IT sales consultant from Franklin, TN where he lives with his wife, April, and chocolate lab, Dakota. He also covers college baseball and competes in the Music City Baseball Association.
Craig Neuman (Rotisserie) has 11 years of Roto experience. He is a poster boy for the success HQ can provide. Before discovering HQ and the Forecaster, he finished in the money only once in 7 years. Since becoming an avid fanalytic player, he has finished in the money 3 of 4 years including his first championship in 2006. Craig is also a life-long Cardinals fan and was thrilled that they could join in the 2006 Yoo Hoo shower. Craig is currently living in suburban Chicago with his wife and two children while spending his days working as a Director for a non-profit social service agency.
Peter Sheridan (Salary Cap Gaming) has a computer programming background and has been a Minnesota Twin fan since he can remember. He has been active in fantasy baseball since 1999 and fantasy football since 1984. Pete is a graduate of Northwestern University and avid supporter of the Wisconsin Badgers. He lives in Madison, WI with his wife Jennifer and two daughters, Molly and Sammi.
Interactive Features
DIRECTOR: Brent Hershey
Hal Cohen
(Forums) began his rotisserie career in 1988. Since that time, he
has captured three championships and a handful of second place finishes.
During those brief breaks from number-crunching, Hal spends his days as an operations manager at a
large Asset Management firm in Manhattan, and devotes his remaining leisure
time to singing with a small barbershop-style chorus. He received a
Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and lives on Long Island with his wife, Julie, and daughters Hope, Lucy, and Jane.
Frank Noto (Advisory Board) has played various Roto formats since 1991 and written on baseball sabermetrics for almost a decade. He typically finishes in the money, and has won 7 league championships. In real life, he is a partner in the nation’s most prestigious anti-NIMBY firm, www.GcaStrategies.com. There he conducts state-of-the-art public opinion surveys and helps build community and political support for controversial real estate projects. He wins for 93% of his clients, with an ERA of 3.52. Frank is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Josh Paley (Advisory Board), RHP, UI.....43.....2008 NDFA Illinois
Strengths: 25MPH eephus pitch. Command. Comfort sitting on pine. Bats both and drives ball with authority with fungo bat.
Weaknesses: Velocity (55 MPH "economy" fastball). Kind of scrawny. Bengie Molina speed. What's with that twitch?
Comments: Recognized as fantasy baseball expert at high school by students because he knows how to pronounce "Yovani Gallardo." Won CDM Diamond Challenge in 2000 and MLB.com inaugural experts league in 2002. Member of 1996 Palo Alto C league softball champs.
MLB Debut: Never
Potential Rating: 1E
Customer Service
Lynda Knezovich is the voice on the phone that many of you have come to know over the last six years. While not a fantasy player herself, she appreciates the enthusiasm and eagerness of the BaseballHQ customer! Her ultimate goal is to ensure a swift and trouble-free customer experience. Prior to a five year stint as a stay-at-home mom, Lynda worked for IBM in Baltimore, Maryland as an Account Administrator. She now lives in Roanoke, Virginia with her husband, their daughter, a Great Dane, a Chihuahua, and two cats.
