The Pirates Why

The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary

The Pittsburgh Pirates are seeking a data scientist who can impact the organization’s acquisition and player development through the development of core research models. The Research & Development team’s mission is to rethink a changing game, discover competitive advantages, and scale data-informed decision-making across the organization. Ideal candidates are those who are motivated to deliver novel findings that they see all the way to direct impact with end-users. Our data scientists work both independently and collaboratively to break down complex problems into smaller steps and iterative solutions, presenting their work to personnel across Baseball Operations departments. We are building a team with complementary expertises that can tackle new questions across ball-tracking, player-tracking, biomechanical, and custom datasets—some of the most interesting and applicable data in the world! We are open to discussing local, remote, and hybrid options depending on your professional and academic experience.

Responsibilities:

1. Design and deploy core statistical or machine-learning models in the valuation, development, and other on-field spaces.
2. Document and present iterative work to R&D and Baseball Operations stakeholders through a combination of written reports and live presentations.

Required:

• Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
• Advanced degree in a quantitative field (e.g. statistics, economics, physics, operations research, etc.) or equivalent experience (2+ years) involving largely self-driven research.
• Ability to effectively communicate complex topics to technical and non-technical audiences through written and verbal formats.
• Programming skills in R or Python to work efficiently with large data sets.
• Ability to work evenings, weekends, and holidays when required by the baseball calendar.