From Dublin to Boston this coming week for the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Among those on this year’s slate: Billy Beane, Bill James, Michael Lewis, Gabriele Marcotti, Kirk Goldsberry, Stan Kroenke, John Urschel, Paul DePodesta and Jeff Ma.

It will almost certainly be enjoyable, there will be sportsnerdy talk, and the soccer analysts’ meetup will be a grand way to get things going on the Thursday evening.

Hopefully the 2016 conference will have a bit more research chops to back up the big name panels. There is a place for both, but the balance is important.

Here’s a few postings, pieces and interviews from previous years…

• Sloan 2015 – the stupidly long roundup – Part 1
• Sloan 2015 – the stupidly long roundup – Part 2
• Sloan 2015 – Irish Times column
• Sloan 2014 – Day 1
• Sloan 2014 – Day 2
• Sloan 2013 – Irish Examiner feature – Revenge of the Nerds
• Sloan 2013 – Dorkapalooza – Newstalk FM (audio)

P.S. There has been a flurry of posts to this site over the last two days. Twelve pieces, comprising the various columns done since just before Christmas. If you’re one of those who subscribes to the site using an RSS feed, apologies for that. Life has been busy. Very busy. It was time to play catch-up, and that time was now.