Analytics Class is Home Run in Virtual Environment

Apr 23, 2020

It was nearly three years ago that they thought of the idea: Wouldn’t it be fun to use baseball as a tool to teach analytics?

Now, David Hyland, PhD, is completing his fourth semester teaching BAIS-311, Sabermetrics: Statistics with Baseball Data, a course found in the Business Analytics Information Systems department in the Williams College of Business. Gregory Smith, chair of the department, helped Hyland develop the idea, and the class has grown increasingly popular each year.

While the course has always drawn exceptional guest speakers (Hyland has been able to bring in notable names like Xavier baseball Head Coach Billy O’Conner and various baseball agents to explain things like the collective bargaining agreement), the move to the virtual learning environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic has actually given Hyland access to more notable guests.

So in a sense, these last eight weeks of remote learning have enabled the class to become even more interesting, Hyland said.

“When would you ever be able to get (Reds Manager) David Bell to come speak to class just days before Opening Day?” Hyland asked.

His class was able to do just that, via Zoom. They were also able to chat with Kyle Boddy, the Minor League Director of Pitching Initiatives/Pitching Coordinator for the Reds, as well as Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer. In April, Bauer visited the class via Zoom to talk about statistics and how they’re applied to the game. He then posted the discussion on his YouTube channel, which garnered over 3,000 views in a week.

“As we say, analytics does you no good if you don’t know how to use it,” Hyland said. “These guys are telling us how they use it.”

And while there will always be challenges teaching in the virtual environment, Hyland says he thinks the best professors will go through remote learning and become even better ones. He should know — he’s been teaching at Xavier for 16 years and has served with the Center for Teaching Excellence.

“I think you’ll see professors learn how to incorporate more of these tools into their teaching,” he said. “And until we can teach face-to-face again, we’ll take advantage of the opportunities that remote learning provides.”

Like being able to Zoom in Major League managers and pitchers when you want to.  

“We’ve established a great relationship with Major League Baseball and the Reds,” Hyland said. “It’s a testament to Greg (Smith) and all of the wonderful people in the Analytics Department. They really spend their time thinking about what is going to make Xavier better. What will students like? What will make them a success when they leave? We think we’re doing some wonderful things here.”

— by Ryan Clark, Office of Marketing and Communications