New Detroit Tigers analytics hire Andrew Thomas nearly won 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'

The Detroit Tigers made some front office moves Thursday, including hiring a new vice president of baseball analytics, Andrew Thomas.

Thomas' hiring was announced alongside the promotions of Ryan Garko to assistant general manager and Georgia Giblin to vice president of baseball performance science. Thomas joins the Tigers after working as a director of data science for a sports technology company, SportsMEDIA Technology, since 2019 and worked as an MLB consultant and hockey researcher in the NHL.

Thomas, a native of Scarborough, Ontario, will lead the Tigers' analytics department while working under president of baseball operations Scott Harris and general manager Jeff Greenberg.

"We also welcome Andrew, who comes to us with impressive technical skills, experience teaching at multiple academic institutions, and a terrific reputation within the sports industry," Harris said in the statement announcing the front office moves. "I’m confident he will be a great thought partner and leader for our talented analytics group.”

Here is some more information on the Tigers' new VP of analytics, who is known for nearly winning the game show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

Hockey background

The WAR stat has been around baseball for a while now, but it's a relatively new phenomenon in hockey that was magnified by a group of data scientists, including Thomas.

Thomas created a hockey analytics website called war-on-ice in 2014 alongside Sam Ventura, now VP of hockey strategy and research for the Buffalo Sabres, and Alexandra Mandrycky, one of the Seattle Kraken's assistant GMs. They developed one of the first WAR statistics that used the baseball moniker for hockey. The website was also a comprehensive database that could be used for research. It was shut down after two years once the founders started getting hired by NHL teams.

Thomas was hired in 2016 by the Wild to become the team's researcher. According to LinkedIn, Thomas' responsibilities included building a data "warehouse" that could be used for analysis and projections while collaborating with scouts, coaches and other front office members. He began consulting with MLB teams, none specified, on a part-time basis as well in 2016, with a focus on player performance projections.

Greenberg, the Tigers GM, also came from a hockey background, serving as the associate GM for the Blackhawks with a focus on analytics, before joining the Tigers in September 2023.

Experience with SportsMEDIA Technology

Thomas joined SMT, a sports technology company that provides live statistics and data to broadcasts and does sports data research, in 2019 after working with the Wild as the company's first director of data science.

He led data science and engineering projects across multiple sports, including helping with the player and puck infrared tracking systems the NHL currently uses. He oversaw data engineering, science, quality assurance and presentation through apps and dashboards for baseball, hockey, football, tennis golf and motorsports, according to LinkedIn.

Game show veteran

Thomas holds a bachelor's in physics from MIT, and master's and doctorate degrees in statistics from Harvard, on top of his vast experience working in sports analytics.

But if you needed more proof of intelligence, he's pretty darn good at trivia too.

In 2018, Thomas won $50,000 as a contestant on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" with a deep run to the $250,000 question, before striking out on a question on the length of the moon landing. According to the Wild's article on his TV appearance, Thomas said he was raising money for immunotherapy treatment research, as his mom was battling lung cancer and he matched it with his winnings.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers hire Andrew Thomas, known for 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'