Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1601: Always in Motion is the Future

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about which team with a new opening at the top of its baseball operations department would be the most attractive to baseball executives: the Reds, the Phillies, or the Angels. Then (15:07) they bring on James Buffi, the biomechanics expert, former Driveline Baseball biomechanics consultant and Dodgers senior analyst, […]

While all those people, they think they've got it made But I wouldn't buy, sell, borrow or trade Anything I have To be like one of them, I'd rather start all over again. Hello and welcome to episode 1601 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. We are recording in the middle of a full day of baseball, so as we speak, we don't know anything

yet. I guess we can say fairly safely that it looks like the Braves are going to sweep this series. Sorry, Marlins, it's not officially over yet, but by the time you are listening to this, it will be. Other than that, everything is still up in the air, so we will have to save our recapping and previewing for the next episode. And we're devoting most of this one to an interview, which we will get to in just a moment. I have one question to ask you. have one question to ask you. Just the other day, the Reds president of baseball operations, Dick Williams, resigned and said he was stepping down to spend more time with his family and switch over to a different family-owned business. I guess the Reds are sort of a family-owned business for him too. But we've also seen the Angels let go of Billy Epler, and we saw GM of the Phillies,

Matt Klintak, resign. And that was perhaps something that would have happened whether he had resigned or not, that there would have been a change there. Which of those jobs would you want? If you were the hot GM prospect or president of baseball operations candidate, and you could have your pick of openings this year, and it's not clear yet what the red situation will be nick crawl is still the gm there and maybe he will be promoted or maybe he'll stay

on we don't know but let's just say that teams are all flocking to you and saying meg you're available we want you you're the best person for the job you can be the gm or president of baseball ops or whatever we're calling it for any one of these three teams. Do you think there's an ideal situation here? I think that the Meg of like 18 months ago would be surprised by this answer. I'd almost put Philly in last place, which is surprising given some of the talent they have on that team. But I think that they are just, they appear to be in kind of a bad way organizationally. I think that they are about to go through another philosophical shift

in terms of the way that the organization approaches sort of baseball and roster construction. So I guess I would put them last. Do I think that? There are appealing things about each. There are appealing things about each. So there is considerable talent to be had on that roster. And presumably Philadelphia's bullpen will not be quite as terrible as it was this year.

It seems like it would be impossible for it to be assuming that they actually staff it with baseball players and not like, you know, cobblers or youth pastors. So I think that there will be improvement there. But it's unclear to me exactly what the sort of going forward financial picture looks like for them. I think that there seems to be some shifting that's going to go on from a player dev perspective. As a farm system, they don't do particularly well. So in terms of talent, it doesn't seem to be forthcoming from the minors necessarily. So there's that.

The Angels have my trout. So that's always appealing. But they have two and a half starting pitchers. So that's trickier. They really ought to have been better than they were this year, but when you only get two starts and not even really two full starts out of Showa Otani, I guess that's what's going to happen. But that Cincy team, that Cincy team, Ben.

Yeah. Intriguing. I find that Cincy team intriguing. I think that the pitching on that Cincy team is intriguing. And, you know, their collection of position players did not hit quite as well as one might have expected. And when I say one, I mean me. I thought that they would perform better than they did this year. But I think that that organization is one kind of on the rise, on the up and up. They also don't rate fantastically well from a farm system perspective.

Although, you know, I don't think that any of these organizations are in sort of the top half of baseball when it comes to that. But I think that Cincy, although the chili thing we got to talk about. I mean, we don't. We shouldn't talk about it here it's a waste of time and we have a lovely and thorough interview to get to that is far more interesting than my thoughts on the sky chili or whatever it's called we're gonna get

so many angry emails and I'll answer all of them Ben I promise you can import your preferred chili if you take that job yeah whatever you want chili wise it's tough because like they are sort of in similar situations in some respects like they were all either on the cusp of the playoffs or barely made it into the playoffs this year even the angels were contending up until the last week technically

and as you said none of them is like at the top when it comes to farm system rankings so if you want to be the executive who comes in and like turns around a team from scratch and gets to really put your stamp on it and gets to be hailed as the savior because you took a team from nothing to something, then I guess none of these three would be quite what you wanted. It's not like, I don't know, going to the White Sox a few years ago

or the Padres a few years ago where things were kind of hopeless or you could do a full rebuild or, you know, if you joined those teams within the last couple of years, then it's like, okay, things are looking up. I'm going to get in on the ground floor here. So I don't know which of those is closest to that situation, but I think you're probably right that it's the Reds. They did just make it back after a long drought. So you don't get to ride in and take the into a pretty good situation and get to reap the rewards immediately and win a World Series and be with a competent team and have competent people working for you already? Or do you want it to be a big long-term project where you might have to wait a while for the team to get good again, but then you get to build it the way you want it and you get all the credit? Yeah, I guess that there is some appeal

in that, although I'm, you know, I'm not fussy, Ben. I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't dare dream to claim all of the credit. I was not particularly enamored with the way that Angel's ownership conducted itself over the course of the pandemic when it came to the way that it treated baseball operations staff. So I think that that would be a consideration for me if I were moving into one of those roles. So I don't particularly care for that. I mean, I think it would be very gratifying on the one hand to help. And we should say help.

I know that you're not implying otherwise with the way that you characterize sort of what the GM's role is. But you don't ever do this stuff on your own. But I think it would be I think there would be something very gratifying about helping to get Mike Trout back to the postseason. On the other hand, I think it would feel very gratifying to help the Reds score a run in the postseason. And that seems like a much easier task than getting Mike Trout to the postseason. easier task than getting Mike Trout to the postseason. And then when it comes to Philly, you know, there's so much sudden uncertainty around the organizational picture, I think, even to a greater degree than with the other two clubs that you just named that I would be

nervous because I don't do well with uncertainty. It makes me anxious, frightfully. Yeah. Ownership, that's a big factor, as you mentioned. Do you want an interventionist owner and an owner who is maybe going to nickel and dime you? That's something that kind of ties your hand as the GM or president of baseball ops. So you might not want to walk into that situation. That might be an obstacle for the Angels when it comes to hiring people. So, yeah, I mean, on the one hand, when you start with Mike Trout, you're already kind of ahead of everyone else because you have the best baseball player, and you'd think it wouldn't be impossible to construct a playoff team around that best baseball player, but it turns out that it's harder than it looks,

or at least they've made it look harder than you'd think it would be so well and they have some you know we shouldn't i don't want to give i don't want to give the rest of the players on that team sort of short shrift i think that there were some very pleasant surprises or or sort of guys who solidified themselves we should not forget the we're already back to forgetting anthony rendon is good i'd like to point out that it took six months it took six months for us to keep being like oh yeah i remember anthony rendon he had a 156 wrc plus and was worth almost three warren 60 games so we're just gonna keep doing that forever i guess you know but like david fletcher is a real baseball player like he

demonstrated that this year and presumably with some amount of health, we will see a version of Shohei Otani, whether it's a two-way player or not, who is able to hopefully contribute more to the club and you do have money coming off the books with Pujols' contract rolling off soon. So it is not as if they don't have some room to work with and some nice players and then you know literally

the best player in baseball to sort of build stuff around but the pitching is just yeah and it's so consistently that sound that so that's just a real shame because some of it is you know expecting like julio teron to be really good and some of it is, you know, expecting like Julio Teran to be really good. And some of it is tragedy far outside the organization's control or most people in the organization's control. And then some of it is you look around and you're like, wow, we wasted a really good Dylan Bundy year out of nowhere. You remember Dylan Bundy had like a 3-2-9 ERA and a sub 3-5 this year? I do remember that. That was pretty impressive. Ben, that was wild. It still wasn't enough. It was not enough. And even a 16-team playoff field

was not enough. No. So yeah. And then with the Phillies, you've got a team and an ownership group that maybe can just let you go out and sign Bryce Harper if you want or Zach Wheeler or whatever. So that could be appealing. Or if you want to do it the hard way, if you want to be like the small market GM who wins the dollars per war fake title and gets extra credit for that, then maybe you want to go somewhere where it's even harder. Because if you win with a big payroll team, then everyone says, oh, well, you had a big payroll. So anyone could do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough call but you're uh accepting

interviews i guess with any of them right if uh they're interested you know david affleman's a very busy guy so i don't want to assume that he listens to every episode of our podcast but it's fine david don't worry well yeah i think there are only 30 jobs like that or i guess 60 if you count gm and prison baseball ops as separate jobs so they can have their pick of interviews at least but there are different appeals to each of those positions I think but it's sort of interesting because they are in similar situations in some ways but also different situations in some ways and they're going to be going after the same candidates so we will find out what the preferences are or they could go in a totally new direction

with someone we don't already know the name of what impossible you have so many options possibly a non-white ivy league guy can they do that in this economy all right we'll find out what happens there, and we will talk next time about the end of the division series and preview the championship series. But right now, we are going to bring you an interview that is sort of loosely related to the playoffs and a playoff team. We're going to be talking to Jimmy Buffy, who technically is a doctor or at least has a PhD in biomedical engineering,

although he told me not to call him doctor because he doesn't want to be formal like that. Jimmy was a driveline guy, briefly. You may have read about him in Jeff Passan's book about pitcher injuries, The Arm. And then he went to work for the Dodgers as a senior analyst for four and a half years and just within the last year has left the Dodgers to start his own motion analysis company. So he's kind of on the cutting edge when it comes to how teams are using all this technology to improve,

particularly pitcher performance, but not exclusively. MLB's StatCast system now uses Hawkeye, which is capable of tracking players' limbs. So you can see how a pitcher's body moves, how his arm moves during his delivery. You can get some measurements from that, and that's just one of several systems that are being used for markerless motion capture. In other words, you don't need to strap up a pitcher with a bunch of markers on various points of his body that can be tracked in a lab.

You can do that from afar, remotely, without the player being encumbered by anything. So that sort of started a gold rush to collect that data and figure out how to use it to improve players, adding velocity and preventing injuries. And you look at the Dodgers and they have this great all homegrown rotation. They have depth and more pitchers than they know what to do with. And I don't know if that is because of Jimmy Buffy or partly because of him, and he won't know if that is because of Jimmy Buffy or partly because of him and he won't take credit for that but certainly they are doing some things that other teams maybe were not as quick to

do so we will ask him about all of that and the effect of the pandemic shortened season on pitcher health and the postseason schedule and much more in just a moment. No, I don't need someone to let me be. No, I don't need someone to let me be. No, I don't need someone to let me go. Let me be All right, we are back and we are joined now by Jimmy Buffy, who was briefly, very briefly, a biomechanics consultant for driveline baseball before he was poached by the Los Angeles Dodgers,

where he served as a senior analyst for about four and a half years, and almost a year ago struck out on his own as the co-founder and CEO of a motion analysis company called Reboot Motion. Hello, Jimmy. And hopefully not struck out, though. Yes, that's true. Yeah? No, I appreciate you having me, Ben. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. So can you quickly take us through your background and career progression? I just summarized a portion of it, but what did you study to become an expert in this field? And then how did you end up gravitating toward baseball and driveline?

And then how did you decide to go private with the Dodgers and ultimately move on to what you're doing now? Oh, man, how much time do we have? It's a lot of ground to cover, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This could be a long story. I will try to keep it relatively brief, but please feel free to ask any details that seem interesting. I'll try to give a synopsis. It actually really started, you know, so I've always been one of those people who likes

math and science, who's pretty good at math and science and also likes sports. So it's always been in the back of my mind of how I can combine these two things. And actually, it's kind of crazy. But even when I was like growing up, I pitched a lot. But I've always, I've always been below the curve when it comes to height and weight. So when I was, when I was young, I was always obsessed with like trying to figure out how to throw harder and jump, jump higher and all this stuff. So I remember when I was little, I read a book by Tom House. I think it was called the science of pitching or something like that. So even when I was like, you know, a kid, 12 years old or whatever, this was in the back of my mind of like, how can I use math and science to be better at sports? And what's kind of funny and kind of crazy, it still blows me away, is like now Tom House has a competing company, which is crazy. I'm like, all right, Tom House,

you were an inspiration growing up and now you're a competitor. Here we go. That's what he gets for writing a book. Now he's got you to fend off. Yeah, yeah. Well, no. So that was kind of, you know, sort of my inspiration. My undergraduate degree was actually mechanical and aerospace engineering at Notre Dame because I didn't know that like sports biomechanics could be a thing at the time. And, you know, I figured math and science and I was kind of interested in airplanes, which it's funny that ended up being super useful when I was analyzing pitch characteristics also. So it was wild how all of like the things that I studied ended up coming together. But yeah, so originally a mechanical and aerospace

engineer at Notre Dame. Then I had an internship working on plane engines at GE Aviation in Lynn, Massachusetts. And I decided that airplane engines weren't actually my thing. And that's when I started to look into what else I could do. And that's when I discovered biomechanics. So that was the first decision point. And I said, yeah, let me see if I can go to grad school for biomechanics. So I looked into PhD programs and I ended up at Northwestern getting a PhD in biomedical engineering. Biomechanics was a focus.

What was kind of crazy is I still didn't know that sports biomechanics could be a thing. What was kind of crazy is I still didn't know that sports biomechanics could be a thing. So when I started out my PhD at Northwestern, I was studying prosthetic hands, actually. I was doing computer simulations of arm muscles and arm mechanics for the purposes of developing better prosthetic hands. And that is when I sort of came across baseball research and had a light bulb moment. Like, oh, these forearm muscles can also protect your elbow. And I can use this computer simulation to study that. So that was a turning point, like two years into my PhD. Actually, it was kind of crazy.

I gave like this PhD committee update like two years in. I gave like a 45 minute presentation on prosthetic hands. And then the last 15 minutes were like an aside on baseball. And my committee was like, Jimmy, those last 15 minutes were way better than the first 45. So they were like, we can see you're super passionate about this. So to their credit, they let me switch my project to actually studying baseball and pitching in particular. So I ended up starting to get pitching motion capture data during my PhD. And I started doing muscle driven simulations of pitching motions for the purposes of studying elbow injuries. So that is finally how I got to

sort of the thing that would turn into my career. But it's also like my committee was like, Jimmy, we have no idea what kind of job you're going to get doing this. But it's also like my committee was like, Jimmy, we have no idea what kind of job you're going to get doing this, but go for it. So to their credit, they let me do it. So then I, you know, I was doing my PhD. I published a research paper and to his credit, I'm pretty sure, I mean, one of the first people in the baseball world to reach out to me was Kyle Bodie from driveline back in like 2013 or 2014. He was like, Hey, dude, I read your research. And I was like, what? Who? Kyle? Who's Kyle? And why are you reading my research? He's like, yeah, I have this company, this small company, Driveline, and I'm really interested in it.

So that was how I got connected with Kyle. And that's what led into the consulting gig with Driveline. And that also was my first exposure to the pro baseball world. And then I started writing blogs for Driveline and through a random set of circumstances, the Dodgers reached out to me. And, you know, I think you mentioned the arm earlier, but, you know, in the book, I know there's a little bit about me in there. And that's kind of like what happened is I was, you know, consulting with Driveline. the Dodgers were talking to me. And I was like, Oh, man, like working for a baseball team has always been a dream. But driveline working with driveline is awesome. But yeah,

I mean, I, you know, I obviously ended up deciding to go with the Dodgers. And, you know, it there was a lot about that decision that was very difficult because I always wanted to make a really big impact on people, on the world, make the world a better place. You know, I know it's cliche, but it's something that I always wanted to do. And so, you know, I was like I was always like self-conscious about going to the Dodgers and like keeping everything a secret and wanting to make a bigger impact. secret and wanted to make a bigger impact. But at the same time, there are a lot of super smart people at the Dodgers that I really wanted to learn from and so many resources and just like working for a pro baseball team. And I was like, sorry, Kyle and Mike Rathwell guys, like, I think I got to take this opportunity with the Dodgers. And yeah. And so that's how I ended up getting to the Dodgers. You know, it's not like I set out to do this thing.

I just kept being open minded and open to possibilities, which is how I ended up where I am. It didn't really exist, I guess, long ago. So it wasn't as if you could set out to do it. Yeah, well, no, that's true. So again, so that's, you know, continuing the story. When the Dodgers first reached out to me, they were like, we have no idea what you would do for us, but if you can propose a job description, we'll maybe let you do it. And I was like, oh, all right, let's see.

So yeah, so Doug Fearing was my boss at the time. And to his credit, he gave me a chance. And my really good friend, Megan Schroeder, the Dodgers had already hired her to do biomechanics before they hired me. So I think Doug was like, Megan, do you think we could use a little bit more help and hire Jimmy too? And she was like, yeah, I think we could. So thanks to Megan and to Doug for giving me a chance. So then at the Dodgers, you know, I, it was my job to, when I got there, there was like, you know, no pitching technology whatsoever. So it was my job to sort of help build out the whole like pitching physics technology software suite from pitch characteristics and pitch physics to biomechanics. So, you know, I think I alluded

to earlier, like my mechanical and aerospace engineering background ended up being super useful as like we started to get into at the Dodgers, like Rapsodo and Trackman and all these pitch characteristics. And I was analyzing those. And then through a really useful coincidence, during my PhD, I met Tom Keppel, who was actually on one of my PhD research papers. Tom Keppel works for C-Motion. C-Motion works with Kinetrax. So are you familiar with who Kinetrax is? Yes. Okay, cool. But tell everyone else. Yeah. So Kinetrax is essentially a computer vision company. They go into a stadium, install a bunch of cameras, and then use computer vision technology to record how

the pitchers and the hitters move in a way that you can do biomechanical analyses. So I actually met Tom Keppel and Stephen Kedavid from Kinetrax during my PhD. So when I got to the Dodgers, I was like, hey, we should look into these people. So then we also at the Dodgers ended up purchasing Kinetrax, which I think I'm okay saying that because there's articles that have been written about it. Yeah. Yeah. And so then that led into analyzing pitch physics, analyzing biomechanics for the Dodgers for five years. And that was an awesome, awesome, incredible experience just like from being cool and from like learning a lot of things. But then I think to get to a sort of like present day, what I started to notice was all sorts of companies

like Kinetrax were popping up. I mean, I actually don't know if Simi came first or Kinetrax came first, but Simi was on the scene. Kinetrax was on the scene. Hawkeye was coming on the scene. Uplift.ai is coming on the scene. Pitch.ai is coming on the scene. Tom House's company, Mustard is coming on the scene. All of these computer vision motion capture companies are starting to pop up. And that's when I started to have a

realization, like going back to what I mentioned earlier, before starting with the Dodgers about how just having a desire to make a broader impact than just on, you know, Dodger pitchers. I was like, oh, man, the data that I analyzed in my PhD and then I spent four years learning how to analyze within the Dodgers, that's going to be available to a lot of people really soon. And I was like, I think that this is my opportunity to make a broader impact, And I was like, I think that this is my opportunity to make a broader impact, which led to my decision to leave the Dodgers a little less than a year ago to start this company with one of my best friends, Evan Demchik. And our whole hypothesis is that motion capture data is becoming more and more accessible and it will continue to become more and more accessible. And we understand, I personally understand how complex it is. So the idea is there's going to be a lot of this data in the world and the world is

going to need people to analyze it. So that is where Reboot Motion comes in as we are trying to become sort of the world's premier motion analysis company, where we're not necessarily doing the computer vision and the motion capture ourselves, but we will process and analyze any motion capture data source that you have for the purposes of helping your player perform better and avoid injury. And that's where we are now with Reboot Motion. I imagine that in your work with the Dodgers, the balance may have shifted depending on the personnel you were working with and what part of the organization you were working with, whether it was major leaguers or guys coming up through the farm system. But what was the sort of balance of focus on injury prevention versus helping players to better optimize their performance? Those are obviously linked themselves, but what was the balance that you were striking there? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how specific I can get

about the stuff in the Dodgers, but I can just speak to what the focus is right now and just my general perspective on the whole thing. I don't think that they're independent. Right. At least in the way that I think about it. I mean, certainly you can analyze them independently. And, you know, obviously we probably many of us have seen our fair share of these variables correlate with velocity and these variables correlate with

increased injury risk. And I tend to take a slightly different approach when it comes to that. You know, given my background in mechanical engineering, I approach things from a very like fundamental mechanical engineering, like physics perspective, where rather than relying on statistics to sort of infer cause and effect, I try to write the mechanical engineering equations. And the thing that I really like to focus on is actually movement efficiency. And I know people like throw around the term movement efficiency a lot, but I actually analyze it in a very literal sense, which is like, you know, when you move, you're drawing energy and momentum into your body from the ground.

And then, you know, your technique, the job of the technique is to transfer that energy and momentum to the body part you care about, whether it's your hand, if you're a pitcher, the barrel of the bat for a hitter. So the whole idea is to get more energy and momentum into the body part you're trying to maximize and less energy and momentum into the parts of the body that could get injured. So I think I'm hopefully I'm answering your question, but I actually don't think they're independent. Like in the way that I look at it, it's about improving movement efficiency, which actually

should both improve performance and reduce injury risk. And from the outside for fans or media members, when we look at teams, it's always hard to tell whether teams that had had fewer injuries are getting lucky in that respect or whether they're doing something either to avoid injury prone pitchers or to make injury prone pitchers less vulnerable to injury. So having been on the inside yourself and doing this now, how predictable or preventable are injuries in general? And I suppose how big a difference between teams do you think there is in that area these days? Oh, man, that's kind of a tough question because I think it, you know, I know this is probably an unsatisfying answer, but of course, like most things is it kind of depends. Um, because in, you know, in every movement, there are certain things that you can measure. There are certain things that you can't measure, right? For example, in the pitching delivery, it's still like more or less impossible to literally measure the force on the ulnar collateral ligament of the elbow, the UCL, which is the thing that gets torn that requires Tommy John surgery. You know, we can do things

to kind of like measure the load on the elbow, which, you know, can sort of help you like kind of get a picture of what's going on with the ulnar collateral ligament. But without knowing, you know, how strong the muscles are, the properties of the ligament, but without knowing, you know, how strong the muscles are, the properties of the ligament, it's still really, really hard to like literally predict injury, you know? So I think, you know, again, I just, I'm going to continue to just give my perspective on this because that's what I'm qualified to do at this point and able to do at this point. But what I try to focus on, and I think, you know, at least in my experience, I think, you know, the maybe the more advanced teams are doing is

rather than necessarily trying to like predict injury, which I still think is more or less, you know, a really hard thing to do, like in any meaningful way, just try to understand in a movement what body parts and joints are under the most stress. And if you understand that, then, you know, you can give information to the medical staff and the strength staff and they can do stuff to try to reduce risk of injury by strengthening those, you know, those joints and those body parts. And then maybe the coaches decide to like make a change in a technique to address that. But I think predicting is still really hard. So I think maybe, you know, what more advanced teams might be doing is just trying to understand as specific as possible, you know, what things a pitcher is like stressing or using the most.

And that's how I try to focus more on it. It's not predict injury, but like, let's figure out where the demands are on this pitcher's body. I'm sorry, was there a part two to the question? No, I think you answered it. It's, you know, I just, I wonder how much of it is just sort of, you know, can you look at a video or look at, you know, some of the data that you gather in these motion tracking technologies and say, oh, here's a red flag. I guess it's not as simple as saying there is a 30% probability that this pitcher will tear his UCL within the next five years or something. I don't know whether it's imprecise, because in the past, it would just be a scout looking at someone and saying, oh, I don't like his arm action, or it looks awkward or funky or something. Or you would

have people saying, well, if you have your elbow at this position at this point in the delivery, oh, that's a red flag or whatever. And you never know whether there's science to that or not. So that's just sort of what I'm wondering what the state of the art is. Because you do have people who claim that you can predict injury or at least you can predict risk factors or identify risk factors and so it's just hard to know from the public perspective how much truth to that there is yeah no no i i think like yeah literally predicting injury is still like pretty close to impossible for a lot of reasons is you just need to know so much information internally about how the pitcher's or hitter's body is working and then also like the databases for injury are kind of rough because you never know if an injury i mean it's unfortunate

but you know you you want we understand i think in in the public realm that a lot of injuries may be like phantom injuries. You don't know how much is truthful. So it's really hard to build an injury database, per se, to create these comparisons. But I think, like I said, I think the thing, at least like from my perspective, what I think is more useful is understanding like which parts of a pitcher's body are being used the most. understanding like which parts of a pitcher's body are being used the most which is made is not necessarily predicting injury but it's giving insight into like where the stress is in the pitcher's body which then you can respond to you know however you want it just adds more information when you make these decisions and i think another thing that that people don't necessarily always think about when when someone says like, I have a statistically significant result for like

these factors like lead to elbow injury. And I don't know, you find this in a lot of realms, but I think people tend to think in binary terms, like he's either or she is either going to get injured or they're not going to get injured. But really, it's a probability, right? It's like a percentage chance, in essence. And if your model says, well, this pitcher, his chance of injury is 35%, and this pitcher's chance of injury is like 33%. But a pitcher with a 35% chance of injury is also a better performer. I mean, like, what do you do? And like that, that difference in percentage, is it significant enough to impact decision making? You know, like, that's, that's sometimes what I think about is like, somebody tells me, hey, this person is at a higher risk of injury. Well, this person

is also our best player. So like, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to sit down our best player, and we'll put them in bubble wrap for like three weeks and then we'll lose, you know, 75% of our games, right? Like, so still also like even with, even if you were to have like very specific information, I think the decision making process on top of that is still a really interesting problem and difficult problem. curious sort of how early in, we'll stick with pitchers for a moment, how early into a pitcher's career, and we will not ask you to divulge any Dodgers state secrets when you answer this question, but I'm curious sort of how early you got involved with guys as they were coming through the organization. Were they undergoing a biomechanical assessment that you used to then make recommendations? Were you waiting for performance indicators to say, oh, this guy isn't doing as well as he used to? That

might be indicative of a coaching issue, but might also mean that he is stressing his body in a way that isn't allowing him to perform optimally. How did they sort of come into your scope? Yeah. So with the Dodgers, the collaboration was awesome. thankfully, very early on in my career, there was good synergy between player development and research and development. And so things just like got very much meshed together. And, you know, obviously, like I said, I can't go into too many specifics about that. But let's just say that, yeah, technology was involved like very, very early in, in players' careers and even before players' careers, you know, like during the drafting process. And I think in terms of like when or how to make an intervention

with somebody, I mean, I think that is, that is why I think like collaboration with coaching and, you know, the data scientists and the people trying to predict performance is all like so important because it is a very delicate balance because like one of the things that is still really difficult to do is, is like predicting what will happen when you make a change with somebody you know like it's just really difficult to say like i change make this change with like the rear leg and we expect it to increase velocity by 0.5 miles an hour but changing the rear leg actually accidentally changed the lead leg too and now we made velocity drop 0.5 miles an hour so i think there's always like a very risk there always there's always like a very risk. There's always a very

interesting like risk reward assessment that you have to make when like thinking about whether or not to implement an intervention. And again, I think this is where the collaboration becomes really, really important and working with everybody, like how do we think this person's, you know, current movement pattern, current pitch characteristics, how do we think this is going to play going forward? And you rely on, you know, the data science people with those predictions. And, you know, maybe they say, hey, we think that this exact profile is going to play really, really well going forward. And so now maybe we are very hesitant to change what the pitcher is currently doing because we feel pretty good that it's going to have success going forward. Or, you know, maybe now we look at a pitcher's profile and we say, hey, this is probably,

you know, not going to pan out. And so we can be a little bit more aggressive with changes. So it's always like a very interesting, I think, an important risk reward decision on whether or not to try to implement an intervention. But actually, it's not to say that, you know, if you decide the risk of implementing an intervention is too great to intervene, you don't do anything. Then I think you kind of switch from using technology to decide how to change someone and instead use the technology to figure out how to maintain someone and how to detect when things might be going awry before it's too late. Right. Because, you know, like I've seen on too many occasions where like, you know, it's unfortunate, but you don't catch something early enough. And now all of a sudden, like a new movement pattern is ingrained in somebody. And now it's really hard to get them out of that bad habit.

So the idea is, oh, we start to see someone going awry early and we can intervene before it gets too severe. Yeah, I was going to ask you sort of what the time frame over which some of these changes sort of unfolds over. Because, you know, bad mechanics can precipitate injury. I imagine that searching for new ones causes its own stressors and you want to be rigorous in your, in your approach so that you're testing both the efficacy of the intervention, but also it's biomechanical soundness because every, you know, pitcher's body is going to respond differently to your suggestions. So is this the sort of thing that you're measuring over the course of a season, over the course of a minor league career? What's the timeframe you're

typically working with? Well, yeah. So you're, no, you're absolutely right. And again, like a lot of things, it kind of depends on exactly what you're talking about. And again, this is also where, you know, I personally like rely on collaboration with coaches and strength staff and medical staff to figure all this stuff out. I mean, in general, you know, my lean is to measure as much as, as humanly possible, but then how often do you intervene is the question. And, you know, for certain things, like, yeah, I feel like there are certain parts of a delivery of a movement that are more like embedded and may have like more downstream effects that are and more ingrained that take longer to change. And you might want to wait longer before you act versus things that you're like,

oh, we need to change this now. So like, yeah, I mean, I guess always monitoring, but then deciding to intervene is more of a question. And when to intervene is more of a question for a coach. Because, you know, in particular, you know, in general, I like to generate analyses as often as possible. But then you talk to a coach, because, you know, typically, you know, in general, like now, or whatever, I'm not talking to the player every day, right? So you say to the coach, oh, this player's like, output was a little low today out of this body part. And then the coach says, oh, yeah, like I that's, you know, he had a bad night's sleep or this.

He had this personal thing going on and just give him some time. He's going to be fine. Or or maybe, oh, I don't know why that is. And now we should go assess him and figure out and try to make an intervention. And or like, you know, maybe the way the pitcher was like reaching and pulling with the lead arm today was a little different. And that is a pretty straightforward thing to intervene with. So immediately the next day, the next bullpen, you say, hey, hey, your lead arm changed. And like, let's try to get it back to where it was versus like something that's a little bit more intrinsic to the delivery where you're like, oh, I don't know if that is something that we should intervene on like so quickly. Let's just see how it plays out.

should intervene on like so quickly. Let's just see how it plays out. And did you get much resistance to that from players? I mean, is it hard to communicate that? Do you do that personally? Does that filter through someone else? And do you find this younger generation of players to be pretty receptive to, you know, being tracked or wired up or whatever and told to tweak this or that? Yeah. So in general, I like to approach players with a trusted coach and whether it's the pitching coach or the hitting coach or the strength coach or the trainer, all of the above, because I think that it's such a special skill set of a coach or a strength, any sort of coach, like the communication, I think is such a special skill set that I, you know, I mean, I personally do try to develop as much trust as I can with the coaches and with the players. And I try to do that by

asking more questions and really like,. You know really trying to. Serve the needs of the coaches. And the players by asking a lot of questions. And always being open to learning. As opposed to always like trying to like. Pop in with the answer. You know like. I don't have the answers right.

It's always a very special thing. Like coaching a player. Because like you know. I had the privilege of spending a lot of being like there with coaches while they're implementing changes with the players. And just like seeing that interaction is such a special thing that I, it's not, you know, that's not what my specialty is. My specialty is the numbers. So yeah, I mean, I think developing the trust is a challenge, but I tend to, you know, like rely on the coaches. You know, I try to gain the trust

of the coaches and then rely on the coaches to gain the trust of the players. And I think that's a very, very, very important part of this whole thing. And in terms of like, you know, gaining the trust of coaches, I think it's like, yeah, like I said, I think it's really, really important to just ask a lot of questions and be open-minded as a researcher. Because what has been awesome is as I've been doing all of this biomechanics research, like so much of conventional coaching wisdom is like spot on. It's wild. But like good coaches are good coaches for a reason because they know what they're talking about. And you just like learn so much just by asking questions and listening. Like one of my favorite things to do at spring training was to just sit in the coach's room and like listen and ask questions and participate in these conversations. And like coaches are so

passionate. It's so amazing. Like they sit in the coach's room, you know, until nine or 10 o'clock at night when they got to be up at 5am the next morning, just talking about baseball and talking about hitting and talking about pitching. And it's just I think, I don't know, it's all such a special experience. And I think it's all part of building this trust that you're talking about, versus like, I think where you get into trouble is if you are the type of analyst who spends all of your time behind a computer and then you know once a month pops in with a report that has quote all the answers that's when you get into trouble so in recent years we've seen los angeles have a draft approach that i don't want to say is indifferent to player injury history especially withers, because that's overstating things, but they have shown a willingness to spend draft capital on guys who either are injured at the time that they're drafted or have recent arm injury history. So Walker Bueller and Michael Grove and Morgan Cooper come to mind, and not all of the guys in that profile work out. But I'm curious sort of how the work that you have done and folks in baseball

organizations doing the kind of work you did, if you want to generalize it away from the Dodgers, sort of interface with that draft process and provide input on red flags that are especially concerning on guys where you think that you're going to be able to kind of work with the health of the player. I know that how much information you have about that leading into draft time can sometimes be variable also, but I'm just curious how the work you were doing interfaced with that draft process. Again, I don't want to talk too specifically about Dodgers, but I'll just speak more in general about how I view this process. And, you know, when people ask my advice, this is,

you know, from what I've seen, this is sort of what I, what I would say is I think it's really, really important and not just from a like numbers perspective and like data perspective, but to understand the capabilities of your organization to like, quote unquote, like fix certain things, whether that is like help somebody heal from an injury or intervene on a delivery inefficiency or intervene on a swing inefficiency. I think it's really, really important to understand your organization's ability to do those things. And then, you know, and that the ability to intervene, I think, is a combination of being able to analyze the data properly, but also having, you know, the coaches, the strength staff, the medical staff that is also

able to do whatever is necessary to implement those interventions or make those changes. So I think it's really important to understand the capability of your organization to do those things. And then also to, with the players, assess using data, traditional scouting, all that stuff, where those things match up, where the player is deficient in ways that you think your organization is really good at intervening. And I think that is where the, you know, in general, I think that is where like sort of that magic, that sweet spot is in like drafting, like you find inefficiencies that you think you can fix or you find whatever, you know, like things where that the outside world might think

is a red flag, but you actually see it as an opportunity. And that's kind of the way I try to view everything is how many quote unquote red flags are actual like opportunities. There don't seem to be a lot fewer pitcher injuries in general. Certainly if you go by days on the injury list, let's say it seems like that keeps climbing or hasn't gone down, despite the fact that teams are much more careful with pitchers now and pitch counts are lower and relievers don't get used on as many consecutive days. And so you have that. On the one hand, you're protecting pitchers. You're maybe not abusing their arms as much as used to happen. But you also have pitchers throwing

harder and throwing at max effort all the time, and maybe those things kind of counteract each other. So do you think that the industry is doing a better job in general of keeping pitchers healthy and on the field? I mean, is the fact that we still see so many injuries and so much lost time an indictment of the way teams are handling injuries? Or is it just that, well, pitching is not good for you no matter what you do, even if it's efficient, it's still going to subject your arm to some strain. And when guys are throwing as hard as they are now, and we know how beneficial throwing hard can be, so it's hard to tell someone not to do that. And you're bringing in guys and you're saying, okay, here's an inning, just go all out. Is there any way to change that trend short of, I don't know, bionic ligaments

or something? Well, there are like cutting edge things of like strengthening ligaments and reinforcing them. And, uh, but I don't, I don't necessarily know if that's the answer. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of factors at play here. I mean, it's such a really like difficult thing to disentangle. I mean, I think we all know that velocity just continues to go up. And also like people's desire to throw harder keeps going up as injury rates are going up. But also like strength and conditioning methodology is getting better and better. I mean, I think like where I've seen a lot of improvement happen is

not necessarily like innings limits, like not the back end, but like the front end. And you see this, I mean, I think people talk about like, as like pitchers are on ramping, like the acute to chronic workload ratio and like managing the progression in the acute to chronic workload. And I knew, I know a tool that people use to do this is the modus sleeve. And I think like that is a really important part of this is like actually managing the acute to chronic workload for a pitcher, you know, at like both, you know, on ramping to the season and off ramping out of the season. But yeah, I mean,

I think it's just really, it's a really hard problem because as velocity goes up and just like by definition, you're going to have higher forces in the body. So it's just going to get harder to prevent those injuries. I mean, the one thing though is, yeah, I mean, I do think though that it's possible to train the body to withstand stresses. I mean, it's just like a fact of physiology that if you progress stress in an incremental way, the body like responds by getting stronger. So that is where I think advancements can be made is continuing to figure out how to appropriately and incrementally increase stress on the body so that it can withstand the higher stresses of throwing harder. So we've talked a lot about pitchers and that's understandable given

your area of focus, but I'm curious what some of the applications of your research are for position players, you know, when it comes to their throwing arms, certainly, but just in general, what's sort of the next frontier of biomechanical research when it comes to other players on the field? Because it's not as if the Dodgers or any of the other playoff teams have been immune from some of the ill effects of soft tissue injuries and other position player injuries. So how are you seeing this applied to the guys who have to pick up a bat? Yeah.

Well, my, so yeah, most of my background prior to starting this company has been in pitching, but within the past, I don't know, two months, finally, Reboot Motion, we launched our hitting analysis. So it's been a lot of fun getting into hitting biomechanics for the first time. And it is like, I don't know, it's such a different problem than pitching biomechanics, just because so much of hitting a baseball is just like squaring up the sweet spot of the bat with the center of the baseball, which you can have the best biomechanics in the

world, but if you can't do that, like you're gonna strike out a lot. So yeah, that has been really interesting. But in particular, like, like I said, the way I sort of approach movement analysis is from improving movement efficiency. And that can apply really across any movement type and you know candidly like reboot motion we have aspirations to expand beyond baseball like we already have an internal golf prototype a soccer kicking prototype we've thought about jump shots sprinting things like that and and really it's just like any any movement that you can where you can imagine getting more efficient like i think at least with us like we can analyze those biomechanics and help you figure that out so whether that is making a swing more efficient

or stealing bases like making your sprinting technique more efficient or an outfielder outfielder getting a jump on a baseball, like making that first step more efficient. I think all of those are possible applications for biomechanics in the way that we implement them at Reboot Motion. I think why hopefully that will be somewhat easier for us than other people focused on biomechanics is because, again, we rely on raw laws of physics, you know, writing those equations as opposed to relying on statistics. So, you know, we don't necessarily need to build up a database of like hundreds and hundreds of movements to then get something

useful out of it. I mean, even with just a few movements, we can like write those equations of motion and then start to analyze efficiency. And I wanted to ask about the injury spike that we saw this season, which was widely attributed to the abbreviated ramp up to the season with the summer camp and spring training being suspended and then a long layoff. And I wonder whether you think that anything could have been done better to prevent ill effects from that and whether you think it is reasonable to conclude that there was some connection between that disruption of routine and the results that we saw.

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it relates to what I was saying earlier about like incrementally progressing stress on the body such that the body can appropriately respond to it. And I think that's like a really, really, really important thing, especially for something that is as high stress as pitching, you know, like I, I obviously don't want to and can't like call anyone out in particular, but you know, like the fact that there was spring training started and then completely shut down and then like the abbreviated spring training was like so abbreviated

and people didn't even go beyond their own teams which meant that adrenaline probably didn't spike too much and then you see like pitchers like just picking up a baseball and then like a few days later like throwing five innings and you're like huh i don't know if that's a great uh step up in the acute to chronic workload ratio as they say so yeah i mean again like you know it's hard to say any of this for sure but i do feel like a big part of it is that abbreviated you know spring where people weren't able to progress as they normally would. You know, people are very routine oriented, you know, like pitchers are very, every spring training, like this is what I do. I do this bullpen progression

and then this like innings progression and boom, I'm ready to go. And people are very routine oriented. And then just throwing them out of their routine, I think really has a negative effect. I mean, I think, again, I hate to say this so definitively because I don't know. You know, again, injuries are super hard. But in football, you kind of see an insane amount of soft tissue injuries. And I think like a week or two ago, there were more ACL tears like with prominent players in one week than we ever saw before. And same thing. They didn't have a preseason.

They just went from like nothing to, OK, you're playing games. And I think that's just a really, really dangerous thing to do. Yeah, half the 49ers roster was in jeopardy of losing time to ACLs. I guess things aren't getting any easier for these guys, right? to ACLs. I guess things aren't getting any easier for these guys, right? So I'm curious, given the relative dearth of scheduled off days this postseason, we've had this shortened ramp up, this very strange 60-game season, and then a postseason that is normally busy and sort of all hands on deck, but is taking on an even greater urgency in terms of its schedule. So I'm curious how you imagine teams that are still in a

playoff sort of balancing this, what has to be a very difficult decision, because on the one hand, they do have depleted staffs. And like you said, you can't wrap your best players in bubble wrap, because what's the point of them being there? But you also don't want to jeopardize anyone's long-term health or the long-term sort of future of your organization. So you're not in a position to have to advise anyone on this stuff now, but what approach do you think teams should be taking and sort of what should they be looking for in terms of flagging velocity or pitcher health that might cause them to rethink how they're deploying their staffs? Yeah, great question. It's a very nuanced question and you know i mean like winning a world series is awesome and to some degree i feel like if if a player like wants to and if a coach and a team

they want to make that trade-off of like we are winning at all costs i think that's a perfectly like reasonable thing to do i mean again like i i am very much of the mind of like monitor as much as you can, like get as much data as you can. And like just flagging like changes, like slight dips in velocity, slight changes in biomechanics, and just making sure the coaches and the players have all the information to like appropriately make that trade off. So that's what I would say is just having the information available to make that trade-off as opposed to turning a blind eye to it. And something that I kind of wish, and especially this year, as the schedule was so condensed,

I've always wished that, especially now that there are so many more, I think, good pitchers in the league and good relievers. You know, I think, you know, maybe however many 20, 30 years ago, whatever, the starting pitchers were so much better than the relievers that it made sense. You know, you have a few pitchers who you want to pitch as many innings as possible. And so like, yeah, like have a five man rotation and they pitch as much as they humanly can. But I think now that there are so many good relievers and so many good relievers, you know, everybody's throwing 100 miles an hour now. It's wild. Like everybody that comes out of the pen is like 95 to 100.

I'm like, wait, that guy throws 100? What? So I wish and I think some teams like maybe the Rays or the Brewers or, you know, I think some teams have started to do this, but I kind of like the idea of having more balance among, like, workload capabilities for your pitchers. Like, have relievers, you know, more relievers who are able to be quote-unquote long men, you know, have more relievers able to go three innings. men, you know, have more leavers able to go three innings. And maybe you don't need as many, like, if you just want like more balance across the, across the, your whole staff about how many innings people are conditioned to go. I mean, that requires a lot of foresight, but I think that especially in a situation where you have so many games and so short of a window, having more balance among sort of how people are

built up could be a really powerful thing. You mentioned how everyone seems to be throwing hard now, and I want to ask something related to that. I mean, there's been a lot of conversation about even, say, Clayton Kershaw regaining some of his lost velocity this season, and I wonder how something like that might happen. I don't want you to tell me how Clayton Kershaw did it necessarily because, A, you left the Dodgers just after last season, so you might not know and wouldn't want to betray the confidence anyway, I'm sure. But, you know, it's been reported that he went to driveline and that the team has altered his training routine in some way that has maybe improved his arm speed and enabled him to gain back a mile per hour or a mile and a half per hour after four seasons of losing. So how does that happen? I guess, how could you, you know, conceivably go about saying, yeah, you can throw harder than this? And can anyone throw harder in theory? You know, if they change something about their biomechanics or their

training routine, does everyone have the potential to do that or are there upper limits for just about everyone uh yeah yeah obviously i can't speak too specifically about clayton but i mean this might be sound like a bold assertion but i think just about anyone i don't want to say it has the ability to because part of it is like, can you then implement what needs to be implemented? But I think a much broader percent of people than you might imagine have the ability to throw harder because yeah, there are just certain like physics principles about how energy and momentum are transferred through the body that if you like, if you understand them, you can find these areas of inefficiency and then you can improve them like

i think like a very common one that people might talk about and i think you know maybe relatively obvious when i say it but something that coaches will say is like this pitcher like suffers from like forearm fly out which in a sense is you know like you cock your arm back and you have your elbow like bent and then the arm accelerates and then you start to extend at the elbow but you know what people i think sort of like some people kind of like inherently know and maybe some people explicitly know is like the idea is you want to build up energy momentum like in a sequence right you want the legs and then the torso and then the upper arm and then the forearm and then the ball and so like you know a pretty common flaw is like someone's

forearm will just fly out too early and what that means is that you are starting to accelerate the forearm before you're done accelerating the upper arm. And if you can like learn how to delay that forearm extension until the upper arm has built up, you know, more energy momentum, then you can get more energy momentum through to the forearm and through to the ball. And they're just, you know, there are certain things like this that when you analyze, like you can figure out, or even you can just see with your eyes. So I do think that a lot of people, I mean, I really, I've, you know, I've analyzed a lot of pitchers, a lot of big league pitchers. And I've not seen yet like one quote unquote, like 100% efficient delivery. Right.

And so in a sense, I think like you can find an inefficiency in anyone's delivery that they could work on, you know, and then, but then the question then comes down to, are you physically capable of implementing the fix, right? Like I'm sure people have seen plenty of still shots of the, uh, the postures that pitchers get their arms into. And I can, I mean, I guess I don't want to presume anything about you, Ben, but I certainly can't get my arm into those positions no no it makes me queasy sometimes even to look at it you see like the skin and the bones and it's just like oh that can't be good for you yeah so sometimes

we like bump into like physical like limitations like our joint literally cannot do this yeah but in general i do think that people more often than not have inefficiencies that can be worked on and we got a listener email last week that you're probably better qualified to weigh in on than we were do you think there will be lingering effects from pitchers reduced workloads this season either positive or negative i guess in terms of how much they can pitch going forward and how likely they are to stay healthy? And would you encourage pitchers to approach this offseason in a different way? That's a great question. Again, it's a difficult one to answer. So I think when we think about injuries, I think we're usually thinking about injuries to like ligaments more so uh and tendons more so than

we're thinking about like injuries to muscles and what's sort of different about those two those parts of the body muscles get more blood muscles are more active they can heal and change much more rapidly than ligaments and tendons because ligaments and tendons have less of a blood supply and in general like less ability to adapt so it takes a long time for like tendons and ligaments to change properties like weeks months even so my instinct is that the reduced workloads this season actually won't have a super strong effect on workloads in future seasons. But I do think it kind of depends. I think for a more veteran pitcher or someone who's been a starting pitcher their whole life and they're used to throwing a couple hundred innings every year, I think one sort of down season won't make that much of a huge difference I think where it could

make a difference is you know someone and again maybe maybe we're talking about like a young like a high school pitcher or a college pitcher who is just learning how to you know last over a full season and actually I think like in terms of like lasting over a full season, I also think a big part of it is not even just how you're like adapting your body, but I think it's also adapting like your routines and how you train and how you recover and all of those things. So I think like for an inexperienced pitcher or hitter or just player in general who has never like done a full season, I think, yeah, I mean, I think they're a season behind. But for the more established veterans and people who know how to do it,

my instinct is it won't have that huge of an effect going forward. Can motion analysis play any role in quantifying or even teaching deception? Because that's something I'm always really curious about. You know, you hear that certain guys hide the ball really well. You just don't pick it up out of their hands. Maybe something about their delivery looks so fluid that the ball seems to come out faster than it should. And so I'm not talking about the stuff necessarily or high spin or any of that. I just mean actually making the ball less visible to the hitter or more difficult to pick up? Yes, I definitely, definitely think that it can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how much specifically I can go into here, but

yeah, I mean, again, I'll just talk in sort of general terms. I think there's been pretty good research done showing that the batter picks up information about the pitch from the pitcher's delivery. So I think if with motion analysis, you can connect the delivery to something, to what the baseball is doing, you know, like this, this type of delivery tends to, you know, create a rising four- fastball, or this type of delivery tends to create a sinking two seamer. If you can start to quantify that, then I think you can start to say, you know, maybe the batter, like we have a prediction model that is saying like this delivery is tending to create this, these pitch characteristics. So the batter's

mental model is probably also doing the same thing. This delivery is tending to create these pitch characteristics. And so then if you see a pitcher where the pitch characteristics don't align with what the model would predict, I think that it could be where deception lives. And there are also, I think, really interesting things you can do,

like literally analyzing the quote unquote tunnel of the ball. Like what path does the ball take from the pitcher's hand to home plate? And what does that look like to the batter's eyes? So yeah, for sure. I think motion analysis could play a really big role in deciphering deception. So you obviously have this very impressive resume and a ton of experience. And I know the driveline guys are very keen on publishing research and sort of being transparent with their methods, even though some of it is obviously proprietary. But there are a lot of gyms and trainers and different groups and companies

that are trying to occupy this space to help individual athletes or coaches think about how best to train themselves for baseball or train their players for baseball. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on what parents or coaches or athletes should be looking for when they're trying to assess the rigor that those various programs might be bringing and the benefits that they have, how scientifically sound they are. And you don't have to call anyone out. But it just was such a keen interest in this space and an understandable one given the ramifications if you can

successfully stymie injury. It also seems like there might be some really good science, but also some snake oil. Definitely a lot of snake oil, but definitely also good science. Yeah. Yeah. This is a really tough one. Cause I, I understand that not everyone is, is trained in interpreting data. Um, yeah. So, I mean, I think first of all, if someone, if a, if a gym or a coach, you know, like driveline does just put it all out in the open. It's like, this is our data. Like, take a look at it. I think like that's a really, really good sign. And if someone says, no, we can't tell you anything about it, I don't know. That might be something I'd be hesitant about. I always, with Dodger, like young Dodger pitchers, with young pitchers

in general, I just always encourage, and parents or whoever, I just always encourage them to ask why. And just, you know, listen to the answer and as much as you can, like, try to figure out if that makes sense. And try to poke holes, you know? Like, if the person is confident and humble, trying to poke holes won't insult them. Like, I think that that's a really, really important thing is, yeah, like just ask questions, ask a lot of questions. Something that I have found, I think, which is a really good, I don't know, indicator of, you know, someone who is, who uses quote unquote science responsibly in a, versus someone who just uses it to sell products, is if they are willing to say, like, I don't know, or like willing to be open minded. Because I often

find the people who are trying to sell the snake oil are also the most confident in themselves. And it's kind of funny, but I don't know, I feel like in general, like the more you learn, like the more you learn, you don't know. And I don't know. I always find someone who is able to speak confidently about a lot of things, provide supporting data. But if you continue to prod, they're also like willing to be humble and say, yeah, I don't know, or I haven't gotten there. It's not something I thought about. I think, I think that's a really good sign of when you're trying to find a coach who is using data responsibly and who is like, who doesn't know what they're talking about and they know what they don't know. All right. Well, you know more than we know. So we're glad that you could come on and share some of it with us.

And people can find you on Twitter at James H. Buffy. They can find Reboot Motion on Twitter at Reboot Motion or at rebootmotion.com. Thank you very much for coming on today. Appreciate it. Yeah, no, my pleasure. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Meg.

I really, really appreciate it. This is a lot of fun. Okay, that'll do it for today and for this week. As I record this outro, I know three of the four championship series teams. The Dodgers did in the Padres. That series was a sweep, which was somewhat more competitive than the other sweep on the NL side. The Braves are just a shutout machine. No one can score on them. So thanks for playing, Marlins. The Marlins have finally lost a playoff series. And on the AL side, the Astros are through. I know everyone's happy to hear that.

And the Rays and the Yankees are going to Game 5 with two starters on short rest, Garrett Cole and Tyler Glasnow. That should be a fun one. And really, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that there was really nothing strange or wrong about the Yankees' pitching plan in game two, which will probably be sort of the story of this series, at least from some Yankees fans and media members perspective, if the Yankees don't win game five. The Rays and the Dodgers basically did the same

thing with their pitchers on Thursday. Started a righty, took him out, brought in a lefty. The Rays and the Dodgers doing it doesn't mean it's right, but it does mean that it's not anomalous in today's game, and those are two pretty smart and successful organizations. It just seems to me that the whole case against doing what they did rests on Jay Happ not being comfortable in that role. And he's been in that role before. His last outing of 2019 in the regular season came in a game against the Rays where he relieved a righty after one inning. And he went five, gave up one run, struck out six with one walk. He was fine. He's pitched well in the playoffs in relief. I still think way too much was made of that decision because it backfired and because it was slightly

unconventional. Not saying it was brilliant, but I don't think it swung the Yankees' chances of winning that game significantly in either direction. I just see A-Rod criticizing them for not doing it the old-fashioned way, and I see people making cracks about the Yankees' calculus crew and sultans of the spreadsheet. Those are the same sultans who recommended that the Yankees trade for Luke Voigt and sign DJ LeMayhew, so that approach seems to work out well some of the time. Anyway, it may be moot if the Yankees advance, but we will see on Friday. So farewell to the Padres, perhaps the most fun team of 2020. Farewell to the Marlins, perhaps the most surprising team and in some ways most inspiring story. And farewell to the A's. We're not able to stop the Astros, but did at least win a playoff series. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to

patreon.com slash effectively wild. And again, I'll remind you that if you sign up at the $10 level or above, you'll be able to access our upcoming Patreon-exclusive postseason livestreams. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Tim Rawlings, Jose Luis Cubria, Jeff Tuartes, James Morris, and Derek Wisner. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg and Sam coming via email at podcast.fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. I got every right, and now they need me to know Won't pay me to do November, and right now I'm still broke

So I'm asking, who's hiring? Who's hiring? If you employ and hit my line, I'll get right to work at nine Outro Music