Dave Cameron (baseball analyst)

Biography

Cameron grew up in Seattle, attending Christian Faith High School in Des Moines, WA from 1995 to 1999. In high school he developed a strong interest in baseball, discovering the alt.sports.baseball.sea-mariners newsgroup, reading Rob Neyer and playing the sport. Cameron, a varsity catcher, made the state's all-star team his senior year when he led the league in walks. After high school he attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he received his degree in economics.

In 1999 he began writing for Baseball Prospectus then, three years later, in 2002 he created U.S.S. Mariner with Derek Zumsteg and Jason Barker. The website was named after "the U.S.S. Mariner," a ship in the US Navy that would "fire its cannon after Mariner home runs and wins back in the 1980s". In 2008, he also activity for a while as ESPN commentator. In March 2009 Cameron began writing for the Wall Street Journal then in April of the following year, Cameron became the full-time managing editor and operator of FanGraphs.

On July 25, 2011, Cameron announced that he has been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Treatment was successful and in December of that year he announced that he was joining the Baseball Writers Association of America: "When I started writing about baseball [...] I never imagined it would turn into a career or that I’d ever be considered an Official Baseball Writer. The world is full of interesting twists and turns, though, and I’m happy to be able to walk through this newest open door."

Grandfather's murder

Cameron's maternal grandfather was murdered when his mother was 19, at the family home in Baltimore. There is currently a documentary being made about the killing and how it shaped the lives of Cameron's 13 aunts and uncles.

An Open Letter

On June 27, 2007 Cameron wrote a post "An Open Letter To Rafael Chaves" asking Rafael Chaves, the pitching coach, to make Mariners' pitcher Felix Hernandez throw fewer fastballs: "Take over control of the pitch selection to start the game. Make Felix throw a change-up or a curve ball to the first batter. Throw a first pitch slider in the first inning.". This letter eventually was passed along by a fan to Chaves, who had previously been attempting to make the same point to Hernandez and used the letter as reinforcement. Hernandez changed his pitching approach the next game saying: "On the internet, they say when I throw a lot of fastballs in the first inning, they score a lot of runs. I tried to mix all my pitches in the first inning."

Baseball writing

Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs, and, along with Derek Zumsteg, a founding member of a Seattle Mariner's blog: U.S.S. Mariner He also writes for ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, and previously wrote for Baseball Prospectus.

Among other topics he has contributed sabermetric research on HR/FB rate, correlations between velocity and strikeout rates, the general evaluation of pitcher talent, defense evaluation, and roster construction strategies.