Toronto FC looks to work the numbers in 2015, hires manager of analytics

TORONTO – Toronto FC has hired Devin Pleuler as manager of analytics.

The MLS team confirmed the hire after Pleuler announced the move on Twitter.

“It’s difficult to trade New York City for Toronto at this frigid time of year, but all signs point to this being an exciting new adventure,” he tweeted.

Pleuler, who graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston with a computer science degree, previously worked as a New York-based statistician for sports data company Opta and wrote the “Central Winger” column for mlssocer.com.

At Wentworth, Pleuler’s studies included a “network passing graph” that depicted a soccer team’s tactical movements, passing and territory covered.

“Previously, people looked at how often the players passed the ball to each other, but nobody included things like average position and variation in players’ field position,” Pleuler was quoted in a 2013 article on the Wentworth Institute of Technology website.

After graduating from Wentworth, where he played goal, Pleuler worked at a data analytics and quantitative marketing company named Autotegrity in Cambridge, Mass., as a data scientist. He also served as an assistant soccer coach with MIT.