ASU 'big data' students beat Stanford, others in 'Moneyball'-style competition

Five graduate students in the W. P. Carey School of Business’ new Master of Science in Business Analytics program got to put what they’ve learned about “big data” to use last week when they beat out Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago and Pepperdine University for first place in the Diamond Dollars Case Competition.

The competition was held at the Society for American Baseball Research Analytics Conference in downtown Phoenix, where student teams were asked to quantify the best trade package for Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels.

Cody Callahan, captain of the Arizona State University analytics team, and team members Sean Aronson and Emerson Frostad all have experience playing baseball, some for school, some professionally.

"This conference combines both of our passions,” said Callahan, “applying analytics and Major League Baseball."

Both Callahan and Aronson – who want analytics careers in professional baseball – are being pursued by MLB teams to work in those roles.