Senior Performance Analyst, Foundational Research

Reports to: Assistant Director, Foundational Research
Additional reporting responsibilities to: Director, Integrative Baseball Performance
Location: Philadelphia, PA or Remote

Position Overview:
Analysts with the Phillies are tasked with maximizing organizational impact, in pursuit of building a consistent World Series contender. As a Performance Analyst in the Foundational Research department, you tackle baseball’s most difficult problems in biomechanics, strength and conditioning, and athletic training, leveraging proprietary data sources to systematically improve player evaluation, development, performance, and health at scale.

You work closely with technical staff and performance specialists in Baseball Operations to outline a strategic vision for the future of performance research at the Phillies. You internalize cutting-edge insights from the Phillies’ Research & Development department in player evaluation and development, leveraging those insights in performance research that is effortlessly additive to our existing player acquisition and development paradigms.

Success in this role would involve improving our existing player evaluation tools, identifying novel and high-value avenues of high performance research, building systems to improve the efficiency and value of player assessment data collection, and seeing an integrative, best-in-class baseball performance process incorporated in organizational decision-making, spanning player acquisition and player development.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct and oversee performance research projects and manage the integration of their outputs into our proprietary tools and applications, in direct support of player evaluation, acquisition, development, and performance maximization
• Ensure projects conform to best practices for implementing, maintaining, and improving predictive models throughout their life cycles
• Communicate with front office executives, scouts, coaches, and medical staff to design and interpret statistical studies
• Assist the rest of the Foundational Research and Integrative Baseball Performance teams with their projects by providing guidance and feedback on your areas of expertise
• Continually enhance your and your colleagues’ knowledge of baseball and data science through reading, research, and discussion with your teammates and the rest of the front office
• Provide input in architecting the storage, ingestion, display, and analysis of baseball assessment data
• Rigorously identify and vet novel data sources, collection methodologies, or technologies that could be additive to our processes, supporting the organization in implementing them in a scientifically and statistically robust manner

Required Qualifications

• Deep understanding of statistics, including supervised and unsupervised learning, regularization, model assessment and selection, model inference and averaging, ensemble methods, etc.
• Demonstrated experience in handling, analyzing, and interpreting high-performance data in sports
• Proficiency with scripting languages such as Python, statistical software (R, S-Plus, SAS, or similar), and databases (SQL)
• Demonstrated experience designing, constructing, implementing, and leading technical research projects for use by non-technical stakeholders
• Proven willingness to both teach others and learn new techniques
• Willingness to work as part of a team on complex projects
• Proven leadership and self-direction 

Preferred Qualifications

• BS, MS or PhD in a related quantitative (Math, Statistics, Operations Research, etc.) or scientific field (Biology, Physics, Bioengineering, etc.), or equivalent practical experience
• Familiarity with best practices in machine learning operations (Git, Docker, MLFlow or the equivalent)
• Experience designing and running experiments
• Experience managing or overseeing the work of other data scientists or analysts
• 0-5+ years of relevant work experience

Interested applicants should submit both their resume and an answer to the following question:
Our R&D Department informs us that a recently drafted pitcher would have a big league arsenal if they gained 2mph in the off-season. What models would you build or metrics would you look at to determine whether the player can achieve the proposed gain in velocity? (250 word limit)

Tip: There’s no defined right or wrong answer. Responses are used to get some insight into how you approach problem solving and baseball in general.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

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