Junkins’ Innovative Approach to Baseball Analytics at the University of Notre Dame
Author: Marshall King
Jerod Junkins – ’23 Graduate of Notre Dame ACMS and Business Analytics Program
Passionate Athlete Turned Analytics Leader
The sport of baseball has always relied on statistics. As data takes on a more prominent role in the sport, Jerod Junkins found a way to harness it for the University of Notre Dame baseball team.
Junkins, who graduated in May 2023 with a double major in Business Analytics and ACMS (Applied Computational Mathematics and Statistics) Supplemental, was the head of analytics for the baseball team. He’s a former player who both loves the sport and the growing number of ways data can be used in it. “Everybody’s trying to find something new,” he said.
Trackman camera technology now being used in most college and minor league stadiums gathers roughly 70 different data points as the games are played. Junkins has been able to use about 40 variables of each pitch from the mound to home plate to create J-Score, a measure of a pitcher’s effectiveness.
Using Data to Uncover Undervalued Pitchers
By tracking movement, velocity, when a pitch was in the hitting zone, and whether it generated swings, he could create a score named after himself that had value to him and the Notre Dame baseball team. He shared data with Seth Cutler-Voltz, the pitching coach, to demonstrate the true value of a pitcher. “Certain pitchers are undervalued, in that they are actually a lot more effective,” said Junkins.
He was able to use data to show when pitchers thrived or when they were lacking. That can help coaches both as they call pitches, but also as they develop rosters and put starters and relievers on the mound in game situations. “I’m trying to fit together as much as I can,” Junkins said of the measure. He could look at individual pitches where a strike or out was needed and show what the pitcher’s best pitch is. “It is very hard to do. It’s hard to measure,” he said.
Junkins’ Journey to Creating the J-Score
By utilizing R, a programming language for statistical computing and graphics, he created a package that could analyze players in a way that coaches were comfortable utilizing. “As an analyst, I love to view everything through data.
I was also a baseball player and I know that just doesn’t happen,” he said, noting that his measure can be one piece of how a player or coach approaches a game situation. The J-Score has only been used on Notre Dame’s pitchers, but could also be used for scouting other teams or assessing pitchers in the transfer portal who could help the Irish, Junkins said. He was thrilled to tackle a challenging problem that is difficult to measure and produce results that were used by a team.
Junkins is going to work for Epic, an electronic medical records company, after graduation but hopes to eventually have a job in sports analytics.
