Episode #15
Episode 15: From Moneyball to Machine Learning
AI IRL: Real Talk with Real Experts Welcome back to AI In Real Life, the podcast from the AI Institute for Societal Decision Making! In this episode, host Ariel Huang sits down with Ron Yurko, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Statistics and Data Science at Carnegie Mellon University and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center. With a career that runs from a data and analytics internship with the Pittsburgh Pirates to a PhD in statistics and a body of open-source research that helped shape modern football analytics, Ron has spent years turning raw sports data into insight and teaching others to do the same. As AI reshapes how teams evaluate talent, call plays, and develop athletes, sports analytics has grown far beyond the Moneyball era into a field powered by biomechanics, tracking data, and machine learning. Ron shares his perspective on what sports analytics really is, how the flood of new data is changing the game, and where AI genuinely helps versus where it can lead you astray. They explore: What Sports Analytics Really Is: Ron breaks down the three pillars of the field-player evaluation, in-game strategy, and player development-and how analytics moves beyond box-score stats to explain not just what happened, but why. The Data Explosion: From chips in shoulder pads to camera systems that capture an athlete's skeletal position frame by frame, Ron discusses how the sheer volume of new data has pulled biomechanics and physics experts into a field once dominated by statisticians. A Career Built on Moneyball: Ron traces his path from reading Michael Lewis's book in high school to manually charting player positions at PNC Park for the Pirates' use of the shift-work that camera systems like MLB Statcast would later automate. Open-Source Impact: Ron shares the story of the project that made expected points and win probability models publicly available and became a foundational piece of modern football analytics. Finance vs. Sports, and the Role of AI: Drawing on experience in both worlds, Ron explains why data science skills are so portable, how AI tools like the NFL's IQ chat are making research more accessible to fans and decision-makers, and why the hardest part of the job isn't necessarily building the model, but getting people to act on it. Whether you're a sports fan curious about the numbers behind the game, a student weighing a path into statistics or data science, or simply interested in how AI is being applied across industries, Episode 15 offers a grounded, insider's look at a field where data meets domain expertise. Get involved! We want to hear from you! Get your questions answered on future episodes by submitting them through the link below or on our website: https://www.cmu.edu/ai-sdm/podcast/form-submission/index.html ----- Listen on your favorite podcasting platform! Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Music YouTube Click here to subscribe to the AI-SDM YouTube Channel Click here to follow AI-SDM on LinkedIn https://www.cmu.edu/ai-sdm/
