Computer science student named top co-op student in Canada

When Henry Shi arrived in New York City for his co-op term at Bloomberg Sports, the pressure was on:  The major league baseball season was set to start in April, and a losing team was looking for statistical tools to change its fate.

University of Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullapur presents Henry Shi with the top co-op student of the year award.

Shi, a second-year computer science student at the time, was suddenly thrust into the high-stakes world of baseball by the numbers. The statistical, analytical approach to professional baseball was popularized by Moneyball, a book by Michael Lewis, that was later made into a feature film of the same name.

Heat map

At Bloomberg Sports, Shi quickly set to work creating software for coaches to easily look at every pitch an opposing player has thrown for the past three years. Shi’s tools also helped them group pitches by type — fastball or curve ball.

Coaches and scouts could also use Shi’s work to look at the average speed of a pitch versus the number of strike outs. With a heat map that Shi started to develop during his term, coaches would be able to examine where pitches are hit most often and then play a video of what a particular play actually looked like. They could do splits on left-handed hitters versus right-handed hitters.

A losing team soars

And while it’s difficult to determine how much impact Shi’s work had on the team, it’s interesting to note his client ended up a leader in its division after being ranked near the bottom. “It was very exciting to see how they played, compared to how they were projected to play. I think it was pretty incredible,” says Shi.

Shi, now in his third year of computer science, was named one of two top co-op students in Canada for 2012, an award handed out by the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education (CAFCE.)

In a letter submitted to CAFCE, Jordan Sheldon of Bloomberg Sports, wrote that Shi built “highly-visible products that are used daily by our Major League Baseball clients.” On the topic of Shi’s work with a particular team Sheldon adds:  “It is also well worth mentioning that the client performed well above expectations during the 2012 MLB season and one could argue that Henry’s work was a factor in their success on the field.”

Ironically, it wasn’t baseball that drew Shi to Bloomberg Sports, a startup within Bloomberg. It was his passion for all things entrepreneurial. “I decided to try something a little different because I think sports are pretty neat and I’m passionate about startups and entrepreneurship,” he says. “I liked the idea of joining a smaller company.”