A Passion for Data Analytics

Alex Seiden ’25 spent his summer exploring his passion for data analytics with two incredible opportunities, a week at the TCU Analytics Academy and a week with MLB’s Cincinnati Reds. In addition to Seiden, Alex Parsons ’26 and Paxtyn McPeak ’26 attended the TCU weeklong on-campus initiative.

At TCU, Seiden, Parsons and McPeak learned about the basics behind data and its organization. This included learning about various platforms, including Tableau, UI Path Studio, and Alteryx, among others. Each day consisted of a focus on one or two of these platforms, and they also explored various projects using these platforms to sort through data. The main focus throughout the week, however, was a group project, for which they were allowed to choose any topic. 

“My group focused on various international soccer competitions within the last two years, and we established trends between team wins and average team age, team market value, and possession percentage,” Seiden said.

Staying on the topic of sports, Seiden spent a couple of days shadowing various individuals with the Cincinnati Reds thanks to his uncle, Sam Grossman, who is the Assistant General Manager and Vice President. 

“During my time there, I joined both the baseball operations team and the data analytics team during their daily operations,” Seiden said. “I learned about various projects that different individuals are focusing on, including video creation, pitching and hitting formation tracking, and pitch zone tracking. Some of the analytics team members showed me different internal programs, including a season projection system, internal rankings, and scouting projects. Additionally, I was able to attend a home game with the front office members, where I learned how to score a game while also learning additional information about players and statistics.”

Seiden also had the opportunity to speak with multiple individuals about their experiences with assisting their universities’ baseball teams, which is something that he would love to pursue in the future.