Sox seeking “Sports Biomechanics Analyst”

[Frater Perdurabo]

Lip has related to us that Hahn said the Sox were undertaking a study of player injuries and organizational training practices, to see what they might do differently/better as an organization to prevent injuries from happening.

I know that some might expect the Sox to produce some sort of public report, complete with a press conference for reporters to grill them, but I don’t see that happening. This is a cutthroat business; they aren’t going to be transparent with every last detail of their findings and thus give away for free to competitors what they have spent their resources attempting to learn.

That leaves it to reporters (if they are so inclined) and fans to interpolate trends and events, and it seems like the Sox are already making some additions to their staff in this area. Specifically, they are seeking to hire a “Sports Biomechanics Analyst.”

The job description includes:

As a Sports Biomechanics Analyst, you will lead and coordinate the collection and analysis of motion capture data at the team’s Glendale pitching and hitting labs while also integrating markerless and wearable technologies and data sets. The analyst will work closely with the player development, sports science, and R&D teams to develop actionable training and insights to accelerate development paths, achieve peak performance, and reduce injury risk.

[34rancher]

Interesting. I’m sure a complete analysis is being done by a lot of people in baseball as the entire league is seeing this. Cool post and thanks for sharing.

[ChiTownTrojan]

Interesting that they’re posting it on the FanGraphs blog.

[Dumpjerry]

Interesting that they’re posting it on the FanGraphs blog.

It is probably posted in many, many different places.

[Frater Perdurabo]

One of the interesting and positive developments that has been evolving over the Rick Hahn era is the increasing openness to all sorts of analytics.

The Sox (in)famously had been a very traditional scouting-oriented organization up through the Kenny Williams era.

What most fascinating is that the Sox aren’t abandoning traditional scouting, but rather adding analytics, in an effort to gain as much useful information as possible.

And we’re seeing the results, from more draft picks making greater contributions, to getting better results from existing pitchers like Rodon and Cease, etc.

“Coop’ll fix him” used to be a sincere mantra around WSI from 2003-2010 or so, then it gradually became a punch line as his thinking ossified and the game and training practices evolved.

Maybe we can start saying, “Katz’ll fix him!”

And maybe additional “analytics plus eyeball” approaches will yield improved, individually-targeted training practices that reduce player injuries.

[longtimefan]

I view it as a positive and proactive move to fix a problem. Something has to be done to keep players on the field. The only thing I still worry about is outside the Sox control. That is, that velocity is the major focus for young pitchers. But certainly the Sox can work within a system to hopefully minimize leg injuries of positional players.

[Lipman 1]

Anything to help curb what's been going on since 2018 is welcome.