Sam Marteka grew up without major league sports teams near his hometown in Durham, Connecticut. But that didn’t matter to the SU junior. He still played ball whenever he had the chance.

A three-sport athlete in high school, Marteka was one of the most well-rounded players on his baseball team, he said. While he played baseball during the spring and summer months, he stayed active with cross country and basketball during the offseason.

Marteka entered Syracuse wanting to play club baseball, despite having connections to NCAA Division II and III teams, he said. He was drawn to the newly formed sport analytics program — the only one in the nation — which started his freshman year.

“You can’t get a sport analytics degree anywhere else,” Marteka said. “That academic opportunity combined with the Division I atmosphere that Syracuse brings outweighed everything else in terms of playing at the college level.”

Now 20 years old, three years into his time at Syracuse, Marteka is using the sport analytics knowledge he’s learned in David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamic classrooms on the baseball diamond for the club baseball team. Since the club baseball team has no manager, Marteka leads practices, mentors younger players and applies analytics to day-to-day strategies.

Classes for Marteka’s major such as “Baseball with R” deal with more advanced stats and ways of thinking about the game, giving him a new insight that some of the other players on the team might not have. He’s learned about the intricacies of spin rate on pitches and launch angle on swings, both suggestions he makes to his teammates.

“If people have concerns or if they have questions about stuff, he’s always trying to help them,” sophomore infielder Evan Hummel said. “Marteka is always looking to make the team better.”

Marteka said that he has grown close with other players in the sport analytics major because they view sports from a different angle, just like him. Concepts such as launch angle — the angle that the ball comes off the bat — might be difficult to explain to less experienced players, but talking to his teammates who understand it can improve the way they play.

While Marteka buys into the launch angle trend for hitters, he also notes the importance of spin rate — rotations per second of the pitch — for pitchers.

While he’s learned baseball sabermetrics at SU, Marteka also honed his craft this summer as an intern with the Orleans Firebirds, a team in the Cape Cod Baseball League. His main job was to help keep statistics for the team, but he also applied data and learned how to better explain it to the players.

Marteka (right) interned for the Orleans Firebirds in the Cape Cod Baseball League in the summer. Courtesy of Sam Marteka

Students in the sport analytics program are required to take classes in sport management as well as sport analytics to give a well-rounded view of sports as a whole. They are encouraged to think outside the box to view the game from a different angle than the average person would, Marteka said.

Back at Syracuse, the club team’s 2019 season begins on Sept. 22 at Hobart. While he was the treasurer of the team last year, Marteka will be stepping back from the role for this season. His schedule is packed with academic advising and running charity events as president of the sport management club. He won’t have an official leadership position on the team, but he’s dedicated to continuing the development of the players and making the most of the rest of his time at Syracuse.

“I only have two years of this left,” Marteka said. “I want to make the most out of it before I graduate from here and not have time for organized baseball.”

Published on September 23, 2019 at 12:01 am

aekaylor@syr.edu | @cincinnallie