Meet the Wildcat Crunching the Numbers Behind Baseball’s Biggest Turnaround

The national anthem was playing in 2022 at UC Baseball Stadium in Cincinnati and Northwestern catcher Bennett Markinson ‘25 was finishing a midterm. This wasn’t necessarily a problem.

The problem was that Markinson was supposed to be playing in the game.

“I was walking into the stadium after finishing this test and one of the guys on Cincinnati was like, "Are you seriously taking an exam when we have a game right now?’ I just had to explain that this is Northwestern” Markinson said. “This is what we do.”

As he hustled to change into his purple uniform, the first-year catcher tried to forget about his data science and economics double major and start thinking about defeating the Bearcats. Markinson eventually hit a game-winning single in the ninth inning to clinch a Wildcats victory.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Markinson was preparing for his dream job - helping the Chicago White Sox develop their data-driven approach as the team’s bullpen catcher.

“Bennett likes to hold it over me, but the first time we spoke was actually when I was the recruiting coordinator at Arizona State,” said Northwestern Baseball head coach Ben Greenspan. “We didn’t offer him, but Bennett is a smart kid and I think his decision came down to Northwestern or MIT. So, he landed where he was supposed to land.”

When Greenspan arrived in Evanston as the new head coach at Northwestern in 2022, Markinson was already a junior. Greenspan would pencil him into his lineup every day for the next two years, the only Wildcat to start all 104 games across both those seasons.

And even when he wasn’t playing, Markinson was looking to give the ‘Cats an edge.

“He once asked me if he could try writing code that would help us analyze the transfer portal so we could compare like an Ivy League graduate transfer with someone from the SEC who didn’t get a chance to play,” Greenspan said. “He just has a mind for data.”

After graduating in 2025 and spending a season as a minor league player with the Philadelphia Phillies organization, Markinson was back in Evanston for a Northwestern Baseball event, when his former manager mentioned the White Sox opportunity.

“Coach Greenspan comes up to me and is like ‘Hey, this job came up and your name got passed along. Would you have any interest?’ I was mostly in shock,” Markinson said. “But I was just excited to connect with the White Sox and learn more about the role.”

But as he spoke with Chicago manager Will Venable and bench coach Walker McKinven, it became clear that this role could be a perfect fit for Markinson, combining his data science and economics background with the game he had been playing his whole life.

“There’s only so many roles on each big-league organization and it’s really beneficial when they find someone who can do multiple things,” Greenspan said. “I think of the Cubs in 2016 where they had Ben Zobrist playing in the infield, outfield and bouncing all over. When you’re building a coaching staff, I don’t think it’s all that different with someone like Bennett who can be your bullpen catcher and is also really good on the data and analytics side.”

As a member of the coaching staff, Markinson is responsible for warming up White Sox pitchers during every game. Off the field, he’s focused on scouting Chicago’s opponents and helping the White Sox develop a plan of attack for different hitters.

But Markinson spent the offseason and beginning of the year developing Chicago’s ABS strategy, navigating the Automated Ball-Strike system introduced in professional baseball this year that allows teams to challenge the umpire’s calls.

If a team gets a challenge right, they keep it. Once a team loses two challenges, they can’t challenge a call for the remainder of the game. Keep pulling the thread and it’s clear the ABS system creates a game-within-the-game for someone with a “mind for data."

When should a team challenge? Is it worth using a challenge in the first inning if getting it wrong could cost you an opportunity to challenge another call in the ninth?

As the White Sox — after losing 100 games in each of the previous three seasons — began to rattle off wins this summer, Markinson’s work on ABS became an increasingly visible part of the team’s new data-driven approach.

The elevator version: Don’t wait until the later innings to start using challenges and a “high leverage” moment that might never arrive. If you see $5 dollars on the ground, pick it up.

On September 24, Chicago clinched their first playoff appearance since 2021. The White Sox featured a defense that challenged more calls than any other team in baseball and a former Wildcat student-athlete, armed with his statistical models, in the bullpen.

“Bennett was never someone who came here just to play baseball," Greenspan said. “He really leaned into everything that Northwestern is.”