Miscellaneous Advice for Baseball Analytics

David Dalpiaz

April 15, 2025

Who Am I?

David Dalpiaz

Figure 1: A name tag with the name Dave written on it, in all caps.

My Background

I’ve been an Illini for a while…

  • 2005 - 2009: BS in Mathematics from Illinois
    • Minors in Computer Science and Statistics
  • 2009 - 2014: PhD in Statistics from Illinois
  • 2014 - 2023: Taught for Statistics @ Illinois
    • 2018 - 2019: Taught for Statistics @ OSU
  • Now: Teaching for Computer Science @ Illinois

Advice

Know Available Roles!

Keep an eye out for internships!

Science versus Engineering

Data Science

  • More statistical
  • Exploration oriented
  • Creative
  • Comfortable with uncertainty

Data Engineering

  • More CS / engineering
  • Process oriented
  • Security minded
  • Risk averse

Learn SQL!

Read!

Contribute To Open Source Projects!

No contribution is too small!

Go To (And Present At) Conferences!

Figure 2: Banner for the 2023 Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball conference.

Work With Illinois Sports!

  • Illini (Baseball) Analytics
    • Contact: Colin?

Figure 3: The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign wordmark.

Don’t Take Classes!

If you’re a junior or senior, it is time to focus on your own work, not coursework. Focus on independent projects!

Well, maybe this one…

Or maybe these if you haven’t already:

Why Projects?

  • Practice!
    • You’ll develop skills.
  • Publicity!
    • You can demonstrate your skills.

Develop Your GitHub Portfolio!

Figure 4: A screenshot of Dave’s GitHub on November 14, 2023.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

  • Use R or Python every single day!
  • Work with data every single day!

Figure 5: A screenshot of the RStudioIDE during package development.

Project Ideas

Don’t have project ideas?

That’s OK. Replicate instead.

Questions?