On a late night in early March, five computer screens, two big-screen TVs and one projector screen were spread out across the room in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. One student slouched in a desk chair while another stared at a scribbled-on whiteboard.

Sport analytics Sophomore Colby Olson lay on the floor in the middle of it all. Each screen — and student — waited for Kyle Liotta to find the correct data set and line to fit it for his baseball analytics team.

Liotta, a junior sport analytics major and Falk peer advisor, was the captain of this team. And much like Major League Baseball analysts who recently began their 2019 season, they were using statistics and analytics to solve on-field problems. During spring break, the foursome travelled to Phoenix, Arizona to compete in the Diamond Dollars Case Competition.

The competition, which his team nearly won, pit groups of college students from across the country against each other, to solve problems or answer questions pertinent to baseball’s analytical landscape. Sponsored by the Society of American Baseball Research, the competition allowed college students to present their own research to a panel of MLB executives.

Having now participated in four competitions, two in both Phoenix and New York, Liotta is no rookie on the scene. But participating in these competitions is just the tip of the iceberg for Liotta’s relationship with the game.

Growing up just outside of West Point, New York, Liotta has always gravitated toward baseball. He began playing in little league, continuing all the way through high school. A New York Yankees fan, he would — and still does — hop on a train to the Bronx for a game or two each summer, but he doesn’t limit himself to only watching his favorite team.

Liotta has been to 24 of 30 active MLB ballparks, along with two which were taken out of commission. Last summer, he and his father flew to California and drove up and down the state, catching a game at each of the five active parks.

While Liotta acknowledges that these types of trips are great ways to spend time with his family and see the country, he keeps a business-like demeanor about it.

That seriousness can be seen elsewhere, too. Ryan Scimone, a close friend and former roommate, said Liotta is always working on something.

“The three years I’ve known him, he’s always had his laptop open, working on something,” Scimone said. “Even when there’s sports on TV, he always has his computer open to a spreadsheet, filling out teams by player region.”

Anna Henderson | Digital Design Editor

Liotta has created multiple spreadsheets separating MLB players by different categories. While one may be based on where certain players were born — known as the player region — another might be based on where certain players went to college.

Once a spreadsheet is complete, Liotta takes one of two routes: he either moves on to the next one, or enters his created rosters into a video game and tests out how they would fare in an MLB season.

Liotta has presented his research to high-ranking baseball officials from major league camps.
David Meluni, an assistant teaching professor in the sport management department at SU, has accompanied Liotta and company in Phoenix. Because of a handful of sales-related obligations, he wasn’t as directly involved with the competition as the students were, but he acknowledged that the sky’s the limit for groups participating in these kinds of competitions.

“When they’re presenting and they’re competing,” he said, “it’s going to intrigue someone from the Royals or Diamondbacks to say ‘this is what we’re thinking, but look at what these students are doing.’”

Liotta is unsure of his future in the sport. Despite applying and interviewing for multiple summer internships with professional franchises this year, he considers his other experiences more influential.

In 2018, he spent four months interning at DKC, a public relations firm in New York City. There, he grabbed data from social media and used various coding languages and computer programs to analyze clients’ audiences. That type of data manipulation, despite having no connection to baseball, is what Liotta wants to do.

“Obviously it’d be awesome to work for a baseball team,” he said. “But I don’t even necessarily want to work in sports. I just want to work with data analytics.”

Right now, however, his focus is on the game. He attended the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last month and the competition required nearly all of his attention soon thereafter.

The preparation for the competition was grueling. He and his team spent five straight days working on their presentation — but it was baseball and numbers, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Published on April 10, 2019 at 9:50 pm