Job Posting: Pirates Quantitative Analyst
Reports to: Director of Baseball Systems Development
Location: Bradenton Florida
Job Summary
This position will focus on creating and analyzing baseball data sets through the use of advanced statistical analysis with the tasks of creating, implementing, and maintaining predictive models to aid in the decision making process. The position will report to the Director of Baseball Systems Development and act as a resource to other staff on the proper use and implementation of statistical techniques and their suitability for baseball analysis.
Primary Responsibilities
• Design, test, implement and maintain advanced baseball metrics and predictive models using statistical tools and analysis.
• Interface with the baseball Operations leadership on player evaluation and valuation, in-game strategy and transactions by presenting the results of analysis in a clear, understandable fashion using a variety of avenues.
• Advise other staff on the proper use and implementation of statistical techniques, algorithms and tools.
• Keep abreast on development in statistical fields, related to techniques, algorithms and tools applicable to baseball research and recommend/implement them where applicable.
• Keep abreast of sabermetric research in order to integrate new models and processes into the existing infrastructure.
• Other duties as assigned by Director of Baseball Systems Development.
• Maintain and extend the current information infrastructure through the use of SQL, SQL Reporting Services, R and C#.
• Work with the Director of Baseball Systems Development and Data Architect to maintain the long term information and systems architecture for Baseball Operations.
• Assist in one-off research projects to answer specific questions for the baseball Operations staff.
Required Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Operations research, mathematics, Computer Science or a related quantitative field.
• Experience with statistical tools and packages such as R, STATA, Decision Tools, SPSS, or SAS.
• Experience with relational database systems and some knowledge of SQL.
• Deep knowledge of baseball including familiarity with all domains of sabermetrics.
• Demonstrated ability to present complex models and ideas to business level users using oral, written and presentation skills.
Desired Qualifications
• Masters degree in Statistics, operations Research, mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field.
• Ability to mentor and teach other staff members.
• Experience in object-oriented or a 3GL programming languages such as C++, C#, or Visual Basic.
• Experience in the baseball industry.
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
I have to wonder: why Bradenton? I know their spring training complex is there, but wouldn’t Pittsburgh be more appropriate?
Income tax?
Is the law more favorable to employers in FL than PA?
Are they poaching some talent from the Tampa front office?
More stats people available for hire in Florida where there are fewer stats jobs, than in the North East where there are stats jobs everywhere.
… one of those market inefficiencies we like to discuss at Fan Graphs…
That doesn’t make allot of sense, talent tends to cluster around where the jobs are. Hence why you see allot more tech start ups on the west coast than, say Oklahoma.
It’s more likely a tax dodge.
You also have to remember that in Bradenton is where their minor leagues are run and their Hi-A and rookie teams are located. It is a good base of operations if your job is in regards to drafting, scouting, and predicting.
Why Bradenton? Simple. These are stat geeks that will never watch a Major League game and instead be counted on to make up new stats like WAR, VORP, BABIP, BLORG%, QXZ7^5 ratings, or whatever the “flavor of the month” stat is. How do you calculate WAR exactly? Fangraphs and Baseball Reference can’t even agree.
Those are all solid reasons. While a lot of this work is done on the computer, teleconferencing with coworkers gets old, and I imagine that a large portion of their stats people are in Pittsburgh. Lots of telecommuting/conferencing.
it’s interesting to see the evolution of what they’ve called these jobs over the years. I don’t think it used to be “quantitative analyst”.
I really wonder how much a job like this would pay starting out, with those qualifications one would suspect something in the 60k-80k range but maybe more with an MS.
I meet the requirements for the position, along with a Masters and additional experience/training that, while not listed, would be an asset, I believe.
Somewhere around $90k would be my reservation wage given that cost-of-living in Bradenton is around the national average, which is probably about 50% more than what the Pirates are willing to pay.
Having worked for a team for a year, I would guess less than that. Probably $40k or so.
well, I KNOW how much SAS pays for that, which with a masters is mid 100k with no experience, and significantly more with experience. IBM PDO is similar. Government contracting pays about the same for a similar skillset without the masters. Somehow, I doubt the Pirates are paying that (but good for them if so!)
Someone with those credentials could probably get a job in Finance for one of the bigger firms and make $150K+ possibly. Quant Analysis is a big time market right now.
It’s moments like these, toiling at research and seeing a job posting involving both math and baseball, two of my favorite things, working for my favorite team, during which I regret having majored in chemistry…
Total anecdote, but knew someone who got an offer for a similar position with another MLB club, salary was 50% of offers from Google and other tech jobs.
And that was salary alone – does not count considerable stock awards.
I think you have to expect to take a discount for getting to work in baseball though, because thats pretty much any fans dream. Google is the top of the foodchain but working for a baseball team would be pretty awesome. I’d take half my current salary to work for my favorite baseball team in a minute, and I dont make anywhere near what most people at Google do.
Well, there’s that and the fact that custodial positions aren’t in high demand, so you’re out of luck with the competition that’s already out there.
Google you also have to be willing to work 12-15 hours per day. No ifs ands or buts. The Googleplex is amazing but it is that way to keep people in the building working…not going home. You can still have a life outside of work here it seems. Not to mention you would be living in Florida.
The baseball job probably would entail similar hours.
This is not true at all. Sure, there are occasional weeks during crunch time when you’re pulling those hours, but that is not at all the norm. I know many, many people who work at Google and they’re typically out by 6 or 7 (and often get to work around 10am).
They still may hire you if you are well versed in baseball and math. Chem is a very tough major and if you did well at a good school, that’s a plus.
Jeff Sullivan says it would make sense for me to apply. So here I am.
Go without the ‘h’, Mr. Lester. It’s snappier!
He can’t even spell his own name. I thought he was born in Washington, but I guess he’s Mexican after all.
I’m always up for some Quintanative analysis.
i prefer quintanillative analysis myself.
#keepnotgraphs