Imagine that a Twins athletic trainer scientifically proved a link between pitchers who blew out their elbows, and the sunflower seeds they chewed between starts. Would the Twins' logical next move be to announce the discovery to the world, and warn millions of potential professionals about the danger the kernels posed? Or should they keep quiet about it, ban sunflower seeds from the dugout and secretly instruct their scouts to focus exclusively on gum-chewers instead?
That ethical quandary isn't as absurd as it sounds. Major league teams are doing advanced research into a variety of factors that may affect their won-loss record, and they're not doing it for the greater good.
"The more resources teams devote to research, the more they try to make the information theirs and theirs alone," said Jeff Passan, a baseball writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of "The Arm," an extensive and thoughtful examination of what he calls "the most valuable commodity in sports." In the past, Passan said, "teams were all working with the same data set, interpreting it their own way. Even if you spot something, advantages don't last very long. But when you have your own data, do your own studies, you might develop an advantage that lasts for years before anyone catches up. That's the hope, anyway."
One recurring theme of Passan's excellent book: As critical as the health of pitchers' arms can be, an understanding of how to utilize and protect those assets is astonishingly scarce. As Passan wrote: "Today every team treats players in whom they've invested tens of millions of dollars — and on whom they'll spend hundreds of millions more — with all the solicitude of a goldfish getting a sprinkle of its daily flakes."
Now teams are devoting great sums to correct that. And as the Twins search for their new czar of baseball, an executive who will determine what the team's priorities will be, it's worth examining the lengths to which teams are going to find a competitive advantage.
Several teams have emphasized statistical analysis, with the Cubs, Astros, Indians and Angels prominent among them. But perhaps no team has devoted itself to brain power like the Dodgers, a team that employs six executives who have run their own teams previously. The Dodgers have also created a research and development department that includes mathematicians, computer engineers and, perhaps most intriguing, a team of biomechanics experts.
They set up an experiment this summer with about a dozen pitchers who were on the verge of being out of the game, and put them through 10 weeks of proprietary training with Driveline, a Kent, Wash.-based facility that devises training programs to maximize velocity and sharpen mechanics. "They were helping them try to rescue their careers, but were also gathering data on what works and what doesn't," Passan said. "They were guinea pigs, but a lot of them saw significant velocity gains."
Research is also ongoing over what usage patterns best protect elbow ligaments and shoulder muscles, into whether there is an alternative to Tommy John surgery, into how sleep affects performance, and the vision required for optimum pitch recognition. And probably some areas that remain top secret.
