Latest / The Layback Podcast / Dr. Mike Sonne, Chicago Cubs Pitching Scientist (Ep. 88)

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Dr. Mike Sonne, Chicago Cubs Pitching Scientist (Ep. 88) · The Layback Podcast

0:00
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Laid Back podcast.
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Joining us today is Doctor Mike Son.
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Doctor Mike Son is the pitching scientist for the Chicago Cubs.
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I know he's had about 30 different titles it seems like
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in his very short stint with them.
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What is this year for year three-year 4?
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Just finished up year 4. OK.
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Yeah, with a seemingly you're in the same role with a different
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title each year, just controlling everything on the
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performance science side of the game for them.
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But it's been really fun to follow.
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It's been really fun to work with you, Mike.
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And I was telling you when you came on the call, seeing the
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Zoom background I just became so accustomed to during COVID when
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you first became a part of my life, even if we had never
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interacted. I just got used to seeing you on
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Zoom after Zoom. Whether it was, I don't know,
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some webinar with like baseball development group.
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I think you did a couple with them being like the number one
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Canadian development group for baseball and then stuff with
1:00
Casey or stuff across the board. I just got very used to this
1:04
brick background. If I didn't see it today, I was
1:07
actually going to ask you about it.
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So I'm very happy that I actually got to be in your
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household with you. Yeah, it's a it's a great spot.
1:15
I do have to do the occasional walk through the background just
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to prove it's not like a fake one.
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But great spot to live. And I appreciate the product
1:24
placement with the flex Pro grip case over the left shoulder.
1:28
The the glove you had there was pretty there it is.
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That's a. Beautiful thing.
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Yeah, it's a beauty. Yes.
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And does that glove make an appearance on the softball
1:38
diamond, or is that specifically a paperweight on the table?
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No, that's, that's one, that's that I that's a work glove.
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The, the softball ones are, you know, we've got a denim Rawlings
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and a nice 44 with some, some, some limbo stitching on it.
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And that, yeah, we've got a good host of gloves.
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It's a it's been an inadvertent start of a collection.
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It'll match the guitars behind you as well.
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So without making this too much of A lifestyle podcast, I
2:06
definitely want to get into the weeds with you today.
2:09
Seeing how you you're definitely competing for smartest person
2:14
that we've had on. Yes, I'm here to pump your
2:17
tires. I'll break you down later, but
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early on I have to make you feel good before I make you feel like
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shit. Mike, thanks so much.
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Again, once you start making me feel like shit, we'll just go
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straight to the hair comparison thing and then then we're.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's all right.
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I, I'm used to that one. I own that back in 2016 when I
2:34
decided to shave it all off. I thankfully, I can tell people
2:38
that this was your choice because I shaved it before I
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officially went bald. So as far as I know, I, I could
2:45
have hair. I just shave it every other day.
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So who really knows? So yeah, that's why I just
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brushed that one right off. I, I beat it to the punch.
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I don't need to look at genetics and see that my dad is bald and
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my mom's dad was bald. My dad's dad was bald.
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I don't think that's how it works.
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So I would have been fine. But Mike, let's get into the bio
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a little bit now that we've done the classic bullshitting.
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But then again, this is most of our conversations anyways, so
3:12
please tell us about the pursuit of the doctoral degree,
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ergonomics, and I guess ultimately how you even found
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your way into the world of baseball.
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Going back to to high school, very first day of grade 9 as we
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we call it here in Canada, the the head football coach was my
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gym teacher and I was like 5 feet tall.
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And they said we're looking for somebody to be the athletic
3:37
trainer for the football team. And we'll send you down to the
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University of Windsor where you can learn to tape ankles and
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they'll get you your first responder training.
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I said, well, I'm not going to play football, so that sounds
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like a lot of fun, so I'll do that.
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So I kind of got into that world like really early on, did that
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all my years of high school and then had basically a choice when
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it came to going to university. Got accepted into kinesiology
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and got an offer for performance saxophone.
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And yeah, took the kinesiology route, obviously.
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So I kind of thought that's what I was going to do, do athletic
4:12
therapy. I got into the Co-op program at
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Windsor. So I did a bunch of work
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placements throughout my my undergrad.
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Then right at the end did one at a nuclear power plant in in
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Toronto and it was in ergonomics.
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So trying to study the workplace to look at what things might
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cause injuries to workers, what types of things could make the
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workers more fatigued or find ways to make them more
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productive just by how you can manipulate their their body
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movement. Really enjoyed it.
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Kind of at that time the program I was looking to go to is like a
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post grad went to be like a four year program as opposed to A2
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year for athletic training. I said, well, you know, I want
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to kind of get out and start working, so I'm going to go down
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this, this ergonomics route worked for two years.
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During that time, realized everyone around me had a
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master's degree. I was lucky enough because of
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my, my charm to, to get in for my master's back at University
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of Windsor. I went the internship route
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there, which was to actually, you know, start a company, which
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I did lead ergonomics, did some software development for like
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office ergonomics there. But during that time I got
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exposed to like doing research. And the second I started doing
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it, I was like, this is what I want to do.
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Like I want to ask questions and I want to come up with a really
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like good impactful ways to answer them.
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And I ended up doing my internship and my thesis during
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my master's, which I don't know if the that's still the record
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at Windsor. I don't think anybody else ever
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did both. But during that time, yeah, like
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I said, completely fell in love with doing research, Talked to a
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professor of mine from my first few years who had moved on to
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McMaster University, Talked to him, Doctor Jim Popman, about
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doing my PhD with him. Moved up to Hamilton, about 3
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hours away from from Windsor, where where my family was and
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where my my undergraduate masters were and began studying
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like muscle fatigue, both from like an ergonomics perspective
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and also from like a basic science perspective.
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During that time, funded by the automotive industry, a
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conglomerate called US Car, which was Ford, GM and Chrysler
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pooling resources for non competitive issues, as they
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called it. And one of those was like
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ergonomics, like it's good for the entire industry for workers
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to remain healthy. They funded it.
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I created a a model that you could put in like a human
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simulation of somebody working on an assembly line and it would
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tell you how much certain joints of the body would lose strength.
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So publish that paper. We did that work, all the while
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still being very active and, and interested in sports.
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And kind of around that time it kind of leaked out that baseball
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was looking at putting in a pitch block.
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So I used that fatigue model and showed that like, hey, if this
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isn't handled properly, we might see guys start to get more
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fatigued and they'd lose strength of those flexor muscles
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and, and the elbow might see risks of injury in that.
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So you got to take that into consideration.
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So yeah, it kind of got into the the writing world for baseball,
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wrote for Fan Grass, the Athletic Baseball Prospectus.
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Toronto eventually started another company that was doing
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some computer vision stuff in the the ergonomics space.
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Remember filming somebody just throwing a baseball with that
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technology. And we said there might be
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something here and created the company Pro Play AI, which
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eventually turned into 3 Motion AI.
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We were doing that for for quite a little while.
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And then Craig Breslow kind of came along and asked would you
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like to do some of this along with the Cubs?
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And first time he did it was like March of 2020.
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So that that went a different direction and pro play became
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something that was really helpful for people training
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remotely. But eventually the opportunity
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came up again and was really enamored with just like how
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intelligent the the Cubs like pitching group was their R&D
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group was they asked such like good questions.
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It felt really, really like stimulating felt like the part
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kind of missing from my professional life was like that
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one unified goal of like, let's go try and and win together.
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So join the Cubs in 2022. Like AI think it was like a
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baseball science fellow on like a part time type of basis.
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And then did that for a year, played a lot of golf and went
8:14
and watched minor League Baseball and went to Wrigley and
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and then went into a full time role as a baseball scientist.
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Kind of more holistic throughout the organization, both on like
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the hitting and pitching side in the R&D space.
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And then this past year moved into player development as the
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pitching scientist and have to go and play catch with the guys
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and, you know, be a little bit more on the field, a little bit
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more in the line of fire at times.
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But it's helped out a lot with like making sure those
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initiatives get off the ground, the players trust that we got
8:41
their best interests in mind and we're we're able to do some
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pretty fun and and really exciting things.
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So that's where we are now. Probably a weird question, but
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I'm sure you've thought about it a good bit.
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How much is player perception changed of you now that you wear
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a uniform when you're at the complex?
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Well, the, the one thing that's kind of interesting is like, if
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you like go back to like like Sig Maidal when he was with the
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Astros and then with the Orioles, like he wore the
9:09
uniform when Brez wanted to hire me that even when I was in the
9:12
part time role, that was something that he wanted to do
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if I was around the guys who wanted me to be in uniform.
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And it's like, it's so silly and like I kind of lean into it and
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make sure that I wear high socks and all of that.
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I'm not necessarily making the, the, the Cubs uniform look the
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best that it, that it could. I think the perception is that
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like I'm willing to do something uncomfortable.
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That means that I'm willing to do something uncomfortable for
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the players, like with their best interests in mind.
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And I, I do really like care a lot, really want to make sure
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that the guys like get the best. And if being able to throw
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something at me every now and then is is what they need to to
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trust me, then I'm willing to put it on the on the line for
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that as long as I I can get my my glove in front of it.
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I'm sure the 91 mile an hour sliders that you're trying to
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catch now are a little bit different than playing catch
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with the big yellow ball in the softball field.
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Well, here, here, I got to show you this because we're on the on
10:08
the glove topic. And this, this is my my
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reminder. Don't die.
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This glove, this is my reminder. It's fun.
10:17
We're doing this for science, but don't die.
10:19
So everyone on the audio side, please check in visually to get
10:23
a beautiful view of Mike's catcher's Mitt.
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That is a constant reminder that life is very fragile, especially
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when you're trying to catch things that move faster than the
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speed of light. At least it seems that way.
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It's. Very bad.
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Going going back now on your pursuits academically and I
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guess kind of how they've been applied to the baseball world.
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So getting started in ergonomics and then the ultimate
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application. So you utilize those principles
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or at least the ideas of fatigue when you started writing in the
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baseball world, then you shift to kind of the bio mechanic
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space. Did you always operate with this
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ability to like, pick and mold together?
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Like pick from different areas and mold together?
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Did you ever feel like things were siloed for you or what?
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It was everything in your mind, always this big project really
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like, oh, that kind of fits with this thing over here.
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How would those two play out if I could actually put them
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together? Yeah, I think like the way my
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brain has kind of always worked is like I need to be able to
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relate one thing to another thing to to make it make sense
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for me. And when you're like just trying
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to solve like a physics problem and it's just an equation in
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front of you like that, it doesn't really register with me.
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And I will always say as an undergraduate student, I don't
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think I was the strongest student because it wasn't the
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best at like memorizing or the best at at math or anything like
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that. But like when it came time to
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have people understand things better, like I was one of the
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better ones that like leading tutorials and connecting the
12:00
dots and like being able to take what we learned in exercise
12:04
psychology and apply it to the use and abuse of drugs course or
12:07
like the neurophysiology course or the clinical bio mechanics
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course. I think being able to like call
12:13
on different things and apply them even from music or
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something like that. There's always little things
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that you can do to like better understand another domain
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realistically, like I see this all the time in in baseball,
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something that we think is new has been done before in some
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other space. And the more that you can be
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able to connect the dots like the more access you have new
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novel, exciting things that might help solve some of the
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problems we're we're looking to solve.
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Knowing that the majority of the stuff that we think of as new
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has likely been done elsewhere, does that ever hurt the kid
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inside of you thinking that you made this amazing discovery?
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Or do you kind of like put on your archaeologist hat in a way,
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more like you discovered something from the past and now
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you can give it a whole new life?
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I think about it a lot when I was working with with Pro Play
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AI. We'd like talk to teams and
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everybody kind of thought they were doing something that was
13:08
like so new and so novel and like they had to be so secret
13:11
about things. The reality is, is like every
13:14
team has really smart people and everybody has really good ideas
13:18
and everyone's creating like novel things with, with the data
13:20
they have access to or the data that they create out of building
13:23
something new. How you apply it and like
13:26
actually change outcomes on the field is the most important
13:30
thing to me. I, I don't think it's
13:32
necessarily that super important to be like, oh, I'm the first or
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I'm the most novel to do this one thing.
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When you go out and you see somebody make it through a Major
13:42
League season or you see that somebody's increased the number
13:45
of pitches they've thrown over the course of the year, like on
13:48
average by like 3 pitches and they stayed healthy and their
13:51
arm feels good. Seeing it actually get executed
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and, and come to fruition. That's the part that's the most
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exciting. It's not really a contest to see
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what we can be new or first to. I mean, even with this with Flex
14:05
program, like we've been talking for three years about this,
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right? And it, it's kind of taken that
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much time for this to really kind of hit critical mass.
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And for us to have to order 10 more units and getting players
14:17
to want to buy them in the offseason and and use it in
14:20
their training. That's the more exciting part
14:22
than the part at first where it's like, Oh my God, I found a
14:24
technology that's really going to help us for first to find
14:27
this technology or one of the first teams to use it.
14:30
That's not as important as when it starts changing outcomes for
14:33
players. I guess along the lines of
14:35
changing outcomes, want to take a mild shift here to talk a
14:39
little bit less about you and a little bit more about what
14:41
you've done. So it's specifically, I guess,
14:44
the jump into pro play AI in giving people bio mechanics in
14:49
the palm of their hand. I don't remember what the exact
14:52
tagline was, but I think it was pretty close to that.
14:55
The fact that you could legitimately have motion capture
14:58
on your phone. I got to play around with it a
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couple times. Obviously a very cool
15:02
technology. What to you was kind of the
15:05
driving force in bringing bio mechanics to the masses?
15:10
Yeah, I think like when I whenever I would read bio
15:13
mechanics papers, we would see small sample sizes of 20
15:18
pictures, 30 pictures or something like that, and
15:21
everybody would be marked up and in their underwear in a lab.
15:25
And the overwhelming results from all these studies were
15:28
like, no significant injury risk factor like factored in or no,
15:34
nothing like super interesting would come out of it.
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And the priority was always on, like, let's make sure this data
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is like the absolute most elite top quality.
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But the reality is it's like it might be really accurate from
15:45
like a measurement perspective, but it's not measuring the
15:48
player when they're in a position that like could be
15:50
causing injury. So trying to find a way to like
15:55
still get really good quality accuracy and good research data,
15:59
but being able to get it out in the wild was something I thought
16:03
was really important for us to be able to actually find some
16:06
way to predict injury in the future.
16:08
So it was kind of motivated by when I was writing for fan
16:13
graphs, we had a pretty good idea of like what the stuff was,
16:16
what the velocity was. We had a pretty good idea what
16:19
like the workload was in season for players and we could track
16:22
in innings pitched and pitch counts and all that.
16:24
With all the stack cast data didn't really have much in the
16:26
way of the mechanics piece. So finding a way to capture that
16:31
data reliably and at scale, that was really the motivation for
16:35
for starting pro play. And then what were some of the
16:39
biggest learning moments or takeaways for you?
16:43
Like what data really spoke to you that maybe was a surprise or
16:48
kind of changed the way that you thought about the pitching
16:52
motion? Yeah, I think it's the way that
16:55
I think we need to view mechanics has like really
16:58
changed. I think we thought of it as like
17:00
an input for performance in the past, like your mechanics led to
17:04
your performance. I think like it's more of an
17:07
output now. People can get into certain
17:10
mechanical positions because they're strong enough or they're
17:13
mobile enough or they have the capacity to get into those.
17:16
Those positions. And looking at like kinematic
17:20
data, like anything you've captured from Pope play or
17:23
anything else, and looking how it changes over the course of
17:26
the season or over the course of a game, I think is possibly more
17:30
important than being like, OK, if he gets into this position
17:34
and lay back, he's going to throw harder.
17:36
But realistically, I think what's more important there is
17:38
like how does that lay back change over the course of the
17:41
season or from pitch one to pitch 100 in a start?
17:44
So now if I can digest that, the beauty of having the bio
17:48
mechanics in your pocket or being able to assess them in a
17:51
phone in your pocket. The idea is that now an
17:55
individual can track trends if they know what they're looking
17:58
for. If external rotation is
18:01
decreased from 100 to 82° to 175° over the course of however
18:09
many outings, that might be something to address or lead leg
18:13
extension velocity. I don't remember all the metrics
18:17
that were in pro play AI versus doing it on a force plate mound
18:21
with all the markers and 14 cameras and all that.
18:25
But I'm assuming based on what you're saying, the biggest thing
18:29
was giving people the ability to look at trends as opposed to say
18:34
look at this hip shoulder separation you through 94, we
18:38
should do that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
18:41
And I also think there's like another like part of it, which
18:44
was we saw such a boom in like baseball analytics because Major
18:49
League Baseball put out the pitch FX data and people with
18:54
all these different backgrounds had the opportunity to go in and
18:58
look at pitch data and create models for performance.
19:02
And it created an entire industry basically.
19:05
Like people got jobs out of that.
19:07
Bio mechanics data was a lot harder to come across.
19:09
And like this is before like drive lines, like open data set
19:12
and that sort of thing came out. I've talked to numerous people
19:15
at like sports bio mechanics conferences over the past few
19:19
years that come up and said like, hey, like, thanks like for
19:23
for doing that because that was my first exposure to bio
19:27
mechanics data and now I'm doing a master's in it.
19:29
It gave people who had very different backgrounds and going
19:33
to school for bio mechanics, it gave them the ability to
19:37
experience how these data would possibly lead to performance or
19:40
injury. It just put the data in the
19:42
hands of people who didn't traditionally have access to it.
19:45
Did going down a path like that immediately bring you to then
19:51
the workload tracking side of things?
19:53
Because I know you're very passionate about that as well.
19:56
Yeah. And honestly like I feel like I
19:58
was almost more down that workload side of things before
20:02
pro play. In a lot, I guess with the
20:03
ergonomic stuff, it makes sense When you were already looking at
20:06
fatigue tracking, it might not have been the same vernacular
20:09
that you were using then that you were now in the baseball
20:13
world, but I guess that makes sense.
20:15
I I didn't even put two and two together on that.
20:17
Yeah. And, and long before like pro
20:19
play through fan graphs, they created a metric called fatigue
20:22
units, which was basically like inning after inning.
20:26
You would predict what the maximum fatigue level would be.
20:29
And then you would add that up, multiply it by like a factor
20:32
that like was the velocity and how hard the person threw, how
20:36
many days of rest they had and create like a new workload
20:40
metric. And it more heavily like
20:42
weighted what we saw out of relievers, you know, back to
20:46
backs or back-to-back to backs. Like that's extremely stressful.
20:50
And it was kind of influenced by back in the, I think it was like
20:53
2016, the Blue Jays had a good run here and they were
20:57
suggesting to move Aaron Sanchez, like their young
21:00
starter to the bullpen. I was like, I don't know if
21:02
that's a great idea because now he goes from an environment
21:05
where he knows what his routine is every single day.
21:08
He knows when his next start day is.
21:10
He knows how much much time he needs to get ready on that start
21:14
day. He's got this routine all in
21:15
place. And as you know, like pitchers
21:17
are creatures that have it. And now that he's being thrust
21:20
into an environment where he's probably going to throw harder
21:23
because he knows he's just got to go out there and turn and
21:24
burn and punch three guys out or whatever he needs to do.
21:27
But he might go again tomorrow. He might go three out of four.
21:31
You know, relievers who are really good have really good
21:33
workloads because they're the guys they turn to to to get outs
21:36
and and high pressure situations.
21:38
So I think like the fatigue in the workload tracking was the
21:44
kind of first foray into this and then trying to take that
21:47
information and apply it to the bio mechanics of like if this
21:51
guy experiences a really high workload due to his mechanics
21:54
change that. That's the type of thing that I
21:56
think we're able to get to with with pro play.
21:58
On this workload tracking side of things, what was your first
22:02
venture into it? I guess beyond just looking at
22:06
data that was available to you on Pitch FX or some log just
22:12
going on to MLB.com and looking at innings pitched.
22:15
But when you actually really got into it and wanted to either
22:20
develop models or assess what an individual is experiencing, what
22:26
was that first project? Yeah, I, I believe it was like
22:29
the fatigue units, OK. Like it was taking that fatigue
22:33
model I created in my my PhD thesis and applying that to box
22:38
score data essentially. And there's enough papers
22:42
written around that time and I forget the name of the lead
22:45
author and apologize for that. But you know, we saw that like
22:49
on a game day, like 60% of throws that a pitcher makes are
22:54
not tracked by in game stats. It's their warm up throws, it's
22:59
their bullpen before it's their long toss.
23:02
They do. It's possibly even like defense
23:05
like BF, PS or pick off throws. Like there's a lot of
23:08
unaccounted for workload in there and fatigue units doesn't
23:12
necessarily get at that. So around that time, after I put
23:15
that version of fatigue units out, started talking with with
23:18
Ben Hanson, who was the CTO of of MODIS at the time.
23:23
Shout out MODIS till till I die in a pulse now.
23:26
But you know a MODIS OG there and we embedded fatigue units
23:31
into the MODIS application. And what it would show you is
23:35
like if a player went out and kind of speed run through his
23:41
his bullpen or his catch play, he'd be experiencing a lot more
23:44
fatigue than somebody who kind of like pasted out went nice and
23:48
slow matched the demands of the game.
23:50
Like how many times did we see a guy go out and throw a bullpen
23:54
where it's like rapid fire and it's like, dude, you're going to
23:56
have 20 seconds between throws. Like let's actually, let's
24:00
actually use that time. That was kind of the next one to
24:03
like track more holistically. All the throws was some of that
24:07
initial work with, with Modus and Ben.
24:09
And then since being with the Cubs, we've used wearables on
24:12
the pitching side and on the hitting side like primarily like
24:16
with with catapult and what they do to track throws and, and
24:19
pitches and and swings. And then kind of just mapping it
24:22
out from there, establishing what somebody's done in seven
24:25
days, comparing it against what they've done in the last 28
24:27
days, try and progress guys at reasonable rates and see
24:32
objectively how many pitches is somebody available for that that
24:35
next day. This might start to get into the
24:39
algorithms that you've created in the equations and all that.
24:42
So I totally understand if you need to put your foot in the
24:45
ground at some point and just be like, OK, we can't go any
24:47
farther. But I always thought of Catapult
24:52
just as this really fancy GPS tracker.
24:55
So was this something that you built out for the specific like
25:00
rotational capacities or throwing workloads?
25:03
Or is this something that Catapult has always had?
25:06
Yeah, Catapults had it. I'm not sure for how, how long,
25:09
but like their device has Agps for sure, but it also has like
25:13
an inertial measurement unit in there.
25:15
So they can detect when that thing's been rotated and how
25:20
much intensity has been rotated. And they can detect if it was
25:23
like a throw or even if it was like a pitch.
25:26
So when it's processed up in their, their cloud or or
25:29
whatever on your local console, you get a very good idea of like
25:33
how many throws, how many pitches, and it compares back
25:35
against things like Pulse relatively, relatively decently.
25:40
You know, that all goes into the cloud.
25:42
And that's where our, you know, secret sauce and algorithms are
25:45
what we do with the data after it comes in from from Catapult.
25:48
Now, are your guys wearing the catapults in game as well or
25:52
just during practice session? Primarily in the minor leagues,
25:55
they wear them for every single throw they make in game.
25:58
And we can compare it against, you know, the Trackman data we
26:02
get from in stadiums at the Major League level.
26:04
I'd say it's like a little less frequent that they wear them in
26:07
games where they just wear it all the time for all their
26:10
bullpens and and catch playing that.
26:12
But when that's the case, right, like we know how many throws
26:14
they meant, we know how many innings they pitched.
26:17
So that's probably another eight warm up throws that they made in
26:20
there. So we're pretty good at
26:21
estimating that workload if we don't have it from their actual
26:25
catapult. So if you have enough non game
26:30
data and you can kind of extrapolate that he throws
26:34
bullpens at 89 to 92 mph, we have a good idea of what this is
26:40
going to look like when it's 92 to 94 mph and add the extra
26:45
pitches into it. And then is there a way on top
26:48
of that that you can look at either central nervous system
26:52
fatigue or adrenaline spikes? Because obviously when you have
26:56
the crazies at Wrigley screaming at you or if you guys go on the
27:01
road in the playoffs to Petco, for example, I guess that series
27:05
was at home this year. So if you if you just go up the
27:08
road to Milwaukee and that stadium sounded just as loud, if
27:13
not louder than any environment that I heard.
27:15
Unless they just actually let the crowd noise go the way that
27:18
they're supposed to on the TV. Because we can get into that
27:22
separately. But the fact that some of those
27:23
broadcasts were cutting crowd noise, absolutely insane,
27:27
especially at Wrigley. I know that was that was one of
27:29
the direct sites, but are you able to add in or do you have
27:34
your own kind of mechanism to account for those I guess like
27:39
extracurricular or added on fatigue units I guess that
27:44
aren't directly from the throw? I mean, the more like when we're
27:48
we're looking at some of like the throwing metrics, a lot of
27:52
intensity scales directly with velocity.
27:54
And you know, looking back at like a bunch of articles Enos
27:57
Eris wrote like 10 years ago. Are we watching like players in
28:01
the playoffs pitch closer to their actual physiological
28:03
limit? That does kind of get captured
28:06
in there, right? Like when somebody all of a
28:08
sudden now is throwing a tick or two higher than they did in the
28:11
regular season, like that gets captured, right?
28:13
And then using things like like flexible grip off the field to
28:17
actually monitor like are certain things fatiguing jump
28:20
testing and that like all those things factor in to say like
28:24
what's actually going on with with this guy?
28:26
Well, I'm really glad one selfishly that you brought up
28:29
Flex program, but that was actually where my next question
28:32
was going to go. Then how are you pairing this
28:35
with off the field tracking? So it is obviously Flex program,
28:39
you mentioned it, we see it over your shoulder.
28:41
Appreciate that the plug is very, very kind of you.
28:45
But then you said force plates. Anything else you guys are
28:48
looking at? Do you do you guys use wearables
28:51
like HRV, sleep data or anything like that?
28:55
I think our baseball science group is very eager to test out
28:58
any technology that we come across.
29:00
So if something exists, we've probably tried it at at some
29:03
point in time. We've got people whose entire
29:06
role has been to go find new technology and, and, and figure
29:10
out what we can do with it. I mean, that's how we, we found
29:12
you guys years ago. So anything that we can, we can
29:16
do, I think we will do the, the challenge.
29:19
They're kind of like what I was saying before about it's one
29:22
thing to find a new technology, it's another to like deploy it
29:25
and deploy it at scale. Because if you want to make good
29:28
decisions off of something or some new piece of data, it's got
29:31
to be at scale so you can assess how reliable it is.
29:35
You can find out what a minimum detectable change is.
29:38
Anything like that, we're going to we're going to try and throw
29:41
in there. But there's also a lot you can
29:43
get out of stat cast data to look at running speeds.
29:46
You can look at pitch velocities and how they change.
29:49
All those things can usually be paired with some sort of
29:52
physiological measure to to get an idea of what's going on.
29:55
I am now going to ask you to go through the difficult task of
29:58
simplification. So now let's say you aren't
30:02
afforded all the things you are afforded with the Cubs and
30:06
you're trying to do this in a high school program, in a low
30:09
budget collegiate program. Because I'm sure you can guess a
30:12
handful of the listeners of this podcast kind of fall into that
30:15
boat. So how would you recommend
30:18
creatively addressing a few of these things?
30:21
Or what do you think suffices as a minimal tracking system?
30:27
I remember I saw it on like Kyle Bodie's Twitter at some point in
30:32
time, but it's like science is just like messing around and but
30:35
you write it down, right? Like there's, there's a good
30:41
number of questionnaires on like arm health ratings of perceived
30:45
exertion, ratings of perceived fatigue.
30:49
Like there's a lot of like paper checklist that you can easily
30:53
turn into a Google sheet that if you ask your players regularly
30:58
these things and write them down, you can make good
31:02
decisions. And then once you found that,
31:05
like writing it down and getting all your pictures to just kind
31:08
of say on day one after they've started, what's their rating of
31:13
perceived fatigue on a scale of 1 to 10 or something like that?
31:16
You could kind of start tracking now like who's available on
31:19
short rest, who needs like a few extra days or whatever it is.
31:23
You don't have to go full blown tech all the time and spend a
31:27
lot of money. Google Sheets or Excel or
31:29
something like that is probably like most people's initial foray
31:32
into sports science and it's a perfectly reasonable tool.
31:36
And the more data you collect and the more consistent you are
31:40
in your collection of those data, the way more useful it's
31:44
going to be. So anything like that, write
31:47
down how many pitches there were and then as the player comes out
31:50
of a game, ask him how fatigued they were and ask him it in the
31:54
same way. The most important tool you can
31:58
have is like a coach that wants to use data is like discipline
32:02
and consistency. Ask at the same time, ask in the
32:05
same way and your data is going to be there and more reliable
32:09
and and you can start making good decisions off.
32:11
If I can stress anything there, the the discipline aspect with
32:15
the ask in the same way. Yeah, specifically asking in the
32:19
same way is so valuable because you need to ensure that you're
32:23
not influencing an answer, right.
32:25
I know this isn't the exact direction I want to go entirely
32:30
with the podcast, so I will eventually just say stop, we're
32:33
going to shift here. But I do want to address that if
32:38
a question sounds leading whatsoever to an athlete, I
32:42
promise the athlete is going to give you the answer they think
32:45
you want to hear. Yeah.
32:47
Also, if the athlete thinks the answer that they give directly
32:52
impacts their ability to have their name written in the
32:55
lineup, they are going to ensure that their name is written in
32:59
the lineup. So do not lead.
33:02
Try to find neutral language that is more supportive of their
33:06
health then supportive of a perceived quote UN quote correct
33:11
decision. We did a paper with Jim Poppin
33:14
and Rachel Whitaker probably 10 years ago now, if not longer
33:17
than that, which looked at like a rating of perceived fatigue.
33:20
And the way that we did it was like you presented it to the
33:23
athlete or the worker or whatever.
33:25
It's like, imagine you just ran a 100m race and you've got 30
33:30
seconds. You run it again and you're 10%
33:33
slower. That would be 10% fatigued.
33:37
How much do you feel you're fatigued there now?
33:41
So instead of it being like, are you fatigued or not, which
33:45
you're not going to get a good answer to it like it's like I
33:48
could still do the race. It should might be a bit slower.
33:51
You know, that's a bit of a different way to be.
33:53
It doesn't tie directly into you can't play today.
33:56
It's just like how? How much are you lacking right
33:58
now, right? Yeah, I, I suppose contacts
34:02
really matters there. Absolutely.
34:04
Now I'm going to challenge you again.
34:06
I don't know, maybe self admittedly will not be the best
34:09
person to answer this on behalf of the Cubs organization.
34:13
But one of the things that I think the Cubs have really taken
34:17
on this year, and I would love to watch it on social media,
34:20
witness kind of the growth in the high performance side of
34:24
things and experimenting with new movements, kind of bringing
34:29
in some gymnastic style training into the weight room.
34:33
How much of that is connected with the data and the outputs
34:38
that you're seeing on the field? Or is it just kind of expanding
34:43
the creative brain on the performance?
34:47
I guess the performance training side of things to think, well we
34:51
have to rotate, we have to handle 4, so we might as well
34:53
just do these things. Well, first and foremost, like
34:56
our S&C group rate from like Blaine Kinsley to like Steph
35:01
Simmons, Nate Garza, you know, Alan Cooper Rooney, like Alexei,
35:06
like that whole group Zeus. They are like the best in the
35:10
business and it's like not particularly close in my
35:13
opinion. They push everybody else in our
35:16
org to like try new things and like be better.
35:19
They are just, they're, they're cut from a different cloth.
35:22
They're a bunch of dungeon rats that just like lurk in their
35:25
little shady office and try to scam our internal system to buy
35:28
new coffee machines. And these guys are just like,
35:30
they're so freaking smart, but they put themselves on the line
35:34
with just like everything. They would not recommend
35:36
something to an athlete that they haven't done themselves.
35:39
And I think the one thing that we struggle with as a an
35:43
industry is baseball appears to be something that's like, OK,
35:47
this is just going to be repeated over and over again.
35:49
But it is very dynamic. And the more dynamic capacity
35:53
you can build in an athlete and the more like motor skills that
35:57
athletes can kind of take on, the more they have a toolbox to
36:02
pull from. When it's like, oh man, I got to
36:05
make this crazy jumping catch. Or I got to take this swing at
36:08
something that isn't in a location that I thought it would
36:11
be at the last minute, or I'm sliding in a second to steal a
36:15
base or I got to come back or hit at me.
36:17
Like putting them in positions to explore different like
36:21
movement strategies. I think it's just like huge.
36:23
And the other part of it is like, baseball's a grind, man.
36:28
It's a long freaking season. And you look at the length of
36:32
the season alone and you're like, OK, this is this is long,
36:35
but you got January camp, you've got performance camp after the
36:39
season, you got spring training. And then in reality, guys have
36:43
like two or three months off. And some of those guys, they go
36:46
live in Arizona so they can go into the complex every day to
36:49
work out. You got to find a way to like
36:51
keep the athletes engaged and competitive in everything they
36:55
do. And like I said, that group of
36:57
guys in our SNC department, like they keep those guys engaged and
37:01
invested in what they're doing like as good as anybody.
37:05
And they want to make it fun and challenging and competitive.
37:09
They don't really care about your PR for something like that.
37:12
They care about your on field performance and that's, that's
37:14
what they're chasing. And if you get APR along the
37:16
way, then you know they're pretty happy for you.
37:19
Along those lines, are there any KPIs, to use the industry phrase
37:26
that you guys have noticed in the weight room or in the
37:32
performance training side of things that are directly
37:35
impacting on field performance? I think like kind of back to my
37:39
like mechanical answers before it's like you want to build as
37:44
much capacity as possible, and that could be from like jump
37:47
testing and like looking at their their relative peak
37:50
powers. That's a pretty important thing
37:51
to look at. It's a big dude that's able to
37:54
produce a lot of force relative to his body weight.
37:57
Like it's a strong, powerful athlete, but also like helping
38:01
them build the capacity to maintain that over the course of
38:03
a really long season. Like those seem to be like the
38:06
biggest KP is that I would say that we notice and the rest of
38:09
the industry notices. So we're not going to get some
38:12
Nuggets stolen from Mesa that you guys are sitting on.
38:17
Just what the industry knows already is the safe answer
38:20
there. Like it's a safe answer, but
38:23
like in all honesty, it's like it's the real answer.
38:25
Like from what I was saying earlier, like data's so much
38:28
easier to come by nowadays, 10 years ago, like having a bio
38:31
mechanic system was just like a massive competitive advantage
38:35
because we were getting bio mechanics data and you weren't.
38:38
Every team has access to bio mechanics data, pitch tracking
38:43
data. They've got the same central
38:46
scouting databases, like everyone's got access to the
38:49
same data and the same metrics. You bring somebody in from rugby
38:53
or soccer or football or any of these other sports, like chances
38:58
are they're going to be using the same metrics as well.
39:00
They're acute to chronic workloads and all that stuff.
39:03
But how you action it is, is the way more important part.
39:05
And like there's not even like a thing I could say on a podcast
39:08
to be like, this is how you should do this and you'll get
39:10
buy in. It comes from building good
39:12
relationships and and having people you trust and having
39:15
people that trust that you're all kind of pulling together and
39:19
and building one thing together. And that's really the part
39:21
that's like, you can say it all you want, you can, but if you're
39:26
not willing to go and like do it and like live it, like, you
39:29
know, creating buy in and trust with athletes and the athletes
39:32
wanting to do these things is there's no easy way to do it.
39:35
You just got to do it. Then is it safe to say the true
39:38
competitive advantage now is just who has the people that can
39:41
apply information better? 100% and I think like we've,
39:45
we've kind of swung that way back in the industry, right
39:48
where it was like, you know, we were at a point where they're
39:52
getting rid of scouts or they were getting rid of certain
39:54
people that were more old school to bring in more analysts.
39:58
And now it feels like it's gone back the other way, where now
40:00
you want analysts who are able to communicate, speak the
40:03
language, actually get ideas and and information in athletes head
40:07
and have it stick. So it's like it always, it
40:10
always comes back to communication at the end of the
40:12
day, how you're able to communicate with the athletes,
40:14
with the coaches. Between the athletes, all that
40:17
stuff, that's always going to be the most important thing if you
40:19
want to actually execute on something.
40:21
Is there a potential frontier that we could be running down
40:26
where it comes a time where we can actually grade out
40:29
communication with objective measure?
40:32
I'm sure you could. How you do that I'm not 100%
40:35
sure about, but like tracking KPIs of like how long it took
40:40
from like when a technology gets introduced to the industry to
40:43
when it actually makes an impact and some on the field
40:46
performance, like pretty good KPI.
40:48
And, and, you know, I could say like there's been challenges
40:52
that when with us and like FPG, like, you know, it's been a
40:55
while. We've been pushing this hard for
40:57
years. And it feels like we're kind of
40:59
hitting a point where like guys want it, they're looking for it
41:02
now they're seeing it on social media, like they're going, OK,
41:05
well, maybe that is something I really want to do right.
41:08
And they get saturated with the the information and eventually
41:12
they get to a point where like, yeah, this, this is, this is
41:15
right for me. Well, along those lines, what do
41:18
you think is next in the industry?
41:21
Yeah. I mean, when we think about all
41:24
of the different technologies that are kind of transformed
41:28
baseball from like a data perspective, all of them are the
41:31
ones that are like passively collected, right.
41:34
It's pitch tracking data, it's the bio mechanic systems in
41:38
stadium. The more that you have to rely
41:41
on like an athlete to go to a space and to do a thing, the
41:45
more you're not going to have data on every team.
41:48
You're going to have fewer data. You know, somebody's going to be
41:50
like, Nah, my girlfriend was here.
41:51
I'm going to go right after the game and not do their test
41:54
right. Like they're going to take off,
41:55
see the family or their friend or, or they're just pissed off
41:58
because they gave up a home run. They don't want to be there
42:01
anymore. Finding ways to like get some of
42:03
the data that we really value with less kind of intrusion.
42:09
I think is, is the biggest, the biggest thing for, for the
42:11
industry. And I think that comes from like
42:13
computer vision technology, right?
42:15
You you're able to get stuff, but you don't have to put
42:19
sensors on or whatever that may be, even if the sensors more
42:22
reliable. But the more that we can make
42:25
those things passive and the more that we can pass it on to
42:28
like the athlete, like if the athlete really, really wants to
42:31
do something like FPG is the example there, getting it into a
42:35
place where it's so user friendly and easy for the
42:38
athlete to do that you're just like, it's over in the corner
42:41
there, dude. Like it's in your locker.
42:43
They go in, they do it. Like those types of things allow
42:46
you to collect at scale. And that's what can
42:48
revolutionize baseball. I'll take it.
42:50
That seems reasonable to me. Eliminate the difficulties,
42:54
right? If you take away the obstacles,
42:56
you are going to get more done. It is that simple.
43:00
Now my brain is starting to turn on potential computer vision or,
43:06
or different kind of things that we can do beyond just
43:09
biomechanical tracking. And I'm trying to think, I guess
43:11
the really exciting thing is going to be one day when under
43:16
the batter's box on the field and the actual game mound have
43:21
force plates and you, you just get all that data all the time.
43:25
Yeah. I mean, hey, when do we get to
43:26
the point where we're like putting in fiber optics into the
43:29
players or buckle transducers? We get real time stress on
43:33
ligaments? Go completely mad scientist on
43:35
this. It would be so cool for people
43:37
like us that don't get to play the game anymore so now we we
43:41
get to play fantasy on the side one way or another.
43:45
Yeah. That would make for the best MLB
43:47
The Show version yet. Of course, I might buy a new
43:51
video game system if that's possible.
43:53
I haven't played since MLB 06 when David Wright was on the
43:56
cover. OK, so I might.
43:58
I might have to get that again. Yeah.
44:01
But all right, so now, now we're going to take one last shift to
44:05
talk about the other title you hold Director of Player
44:09
development for the Steel City Inclusive Softball Association.
44:12
I thought you were commissioner, manager, something like that.
44:16
And then you hit me like a ton of bricks telling me that you
44:20
are the director of player development.
44:21
And my jaw was on the floor knowing that a recreational
44:25
softball league has members, players, affiliates that want to
44:31
get better. And the fact that you said they
44:34
actually are. And now you have drill sets and
44:37
series progressions that all these individuals are working
44:41
through. So please tell me a little bit
44:44
more about how you are getting a community of rec league softball
44:48
players to care about getting better.
44:51
So Sisa started in Hamilton, tried to start during COVID,
44:56
obviously couldn't happen, started the the next year and we
44:59
just celebrated our our fifth season.
45:02
This past year, we've grown from about 100 players to to close to
45:06
400, a little over 400 now. It's primarily from like the
45:10
LGBTQ community, but it's expanded into a lot of people
45:14
who maybe are neurodivergent or maybe just didn't have really
45:18
great relationships with sport when they were younger.
45:21
And now they've found a community that doesn't get mad
45:23
at them for when they screw up or there's no dad to yell at
45:26
them because they, you know, weren't paying attention in the
45:28
outfield or whatever. And they found it's like, this
45:32
is a fun way to get some exercise, be outside with your
45:34
friends and, and, and meet some new people.
45:36
So any opportunity that the players have to get on the field
45:40
and try new things and figure out why can't I hit the ball far
45:44
or why can't I throw it far or they come to me.
45:46
And you know, we do like once a month, like league wide
45:49
practices or anybody's welcome to come and last I think two
45:53
months ago, we did a bio mechanics assessment for any
45:58
players that wanted to do it and raised money from each
46:03
assessment to donate to like the native women's shelter here in
46:06
Hamilton. So it's become a fixture in the
46:08
community. And I've got a limited skill set
46:11
of things I can do. And if I can apply it in ways
46:13
that can help people and help people that maybe have not had
46:17
the best relationships with sports in the past.
46:19
And it's connected to a lot of people who maybe never would
46:22
have been friends or never would have even interacted with each
46:25
other. And now you've got people who
46:26
are working in the trades, working with people who are on
46:29
TV shows or reality TV shows and Greg Queens all the way down to
46:34
arborists and people who, yeah, like I said, wouldn't have had
46:38
anything to do with each other in in previous lives.
46:40
And they're they're brought together by the the love of
46:43
baseball and softball and being able to go run around and have a
46:46
beer together after. I did say that was going to be
46:50
our last shift, but you got me thinking when it came to
46:55
creating this environment where people actually want to go get
46:59
better, have a better relationship with the game and
47:02
create the community. Now tasking you with kind of
47:07
bringing this into a youth setting.
47:10
Do you think that is something that is missing in the youth
47:13
game and potentially why we're seeing this massive shift in
47:18
youth baseball development? It's either you go all in
47:22
spending all the money on travel ball, or you just don't play and
47:25
you don't get better. Like right now rec leagues, they
47:28
still exist but it is literally for either the kids who cannot
47:32
afford to play baseball or I hate to say it, are so bad at
47:36
baseball that they can't play for the travel team.
47:40
Yeah, I mean, I I think without going down an entire Rd. of
47:44
disparaging capitalism and all all that, you know, trying to be
47:48
a little less socialist than normal.
47:51
I think what we end up seeing when when money starts to talk
47:55
more than anything else about where you get to play is like we
47:57
no longer get to see the best athletes get into the sport.
48:00
We no longer like get to see what happens when somebody who
48:04
never would have been exposed to baseball gets to try and they
48:08
they end up being an incredible player just because they didn't
48:11
have the money to play on this travel team.
48:13
So that part of things like I think I have seen examples of
48:17
these travel teams and that were like, it looks like they're
48:19
having fun. They're doing really novel,
48:21
interesting things and their practices look fun.
48:25
It looks like the way that things are being done is with
48:27
their best interests in mind, but it should ultimately be,
48:30
especially at a younger age is like this should be you like
48:34
exploring movement strategies and like learning about what you
48:37
love and being able to apply it to other things like play
48:41
different sports, play baseball, don't just pitch, don't just
48:45
play shortstop, play anywhere. Try new things, go play soccer,
48:49
go play golf, do all these things.
48:52
And at the end of the day, it's going to make the young athletes
48:54
better. And yeah, the more that there's
48:56
financial barriers to keeping young athletes from from trying
49:00
new things, the less likely that sport succeeds on like a, a
49:03
bigger level, right. If we talk about national teams
49:06
in the future or something like that, we see it here in Canada a
49:09
lot with hockey. It's such an expensive sport to
49:12
get into and we probably don't have the best athletes playing
49:17
hockey at a young age because it's just so expensive for them
49:20
to play it. So it's a certain demographic
49:22
and our national team is probably suffering as a as a
49:24
result of that. Now that we address something a
49:27
little on the somber side, I guess, with the nature of youth
49:30
sports, I I'm now going to again ask you to stick on for one more
49:34
shift. It's me again asking for more.
49:36
I apologize. But now, now we're going to talk
49:39
about a bright, hopeful future. So when we look into the dreams
49:45
and desires of Doctor Mike San, what is the ultimate
49:51
accomplishment now for you in baseball besides winning the
49:56
World Series with the Chicago Cubs?
49:57
I know that is one of your goals.
49:59
So if we can pull that because I know that is the cop out.
50:02
Easy answer. What is the other goal that we
50:06
are striving for? I think like this was Year 4 for
50:10
me with the Cubs. So we're starting to see a lot
50:12
of graduations like guys that we drafted, like seeing guys that
50:18
went from, you know, maybe being like NDF A's or later round
50:22
draft picks, getting chances to make it to the big leagues,
50:25
seeing all of the guys and how hard they work, being able to
50:29
make that debut. Like it's, it's a great time.
50:31
Just like pause and reflective. Like, man, so much hard work
50:34
went to this. How much of A village it takes
50:37
to raise a big league or all of that stuff is like, you know,
50:40
seeing all these guys graduate and make the big leagues is like
50:43
the ultimate goal for all of us in in player development.
50:46
Those guys being able to play for a few years or more than
50:49
just like a quick cup of coffee like that changes outcomes for
50:52
families for like their entire lives.
50:54
And that's kind of the always the goal is to find guys with
50:58
talent and work ethic, give them everything we can on the science
51:02
side so that they have every opportunity to play long and
51:05
healthy and hard and have as much success at the big league
51:08
level as they can. Not that your answer wasn't
51:10
great, because it definitely was, but I was fully expecting
51:15
you to, say, be a member of a World Baseball Classic team for
51:19
Team Canada. Yeah.
51:20
I mean, I haven't really talked to anybody with Baseball Canada.
51:24
I remember at one point having to make like A blog post to tell
51:28
people that, hey, I don't work with the Blue Jays.
51:30
Just because I'm in Toronto doesn't mean that they talk to
51:32
me. And then teams were like, okay,
51:35
we thought you just because you were there, you'd be talking to
51:37
him. We didn't want to talk to you
51:38
because of that. So you know, it's like just cuz
51:40
I'm in Canada doesn't mean that they've reached out.
51:43
So, you know, it would be cool. That would be very cool thing to
51:46
do. I remember going to the World
51:48
Baseball Classic a couple years ago in in Arizona and went to
51:52
the USA Mexico game and that was probably one of the coolest
51:55
sporting events I've I've ever been to and went to the the
51:58
Canada USA one. That one didn't go quite as good
52:00
for for us, but Tim Anderson pimping walks off a dude that's
52:05
in low a, you know, kind of a tough scene in that case there
52:10
so. You need to bring back Jason Bay
52:12
or something. You know, we got, we've got a
52:15
nice bright future. You got the Naylor brothers, you
52:18
got some very quality baseball talent coming out of Canada.
52:22
Owen Casey, he's a, he's a elite power guy with us right now from
52:26
Burlington, just down the road from me.
52:28
There's there's a lot of really good young Canadian talent out
52:31
there and it's going to be exciting to see what they do in
52:33
the big leagues in the next little.
52:34
Bit I can speak to a couple prospects.
52:36
Tristan Peters his debut with the Tampa Bay Rays this year and
52:42
plays Gold Glove caliber outfield in any of the three
52:46
positions. He he is a maestro with the
52:48
glove, lefty back gets on pace. So look for him hopefully to
52:53
make it back to the big leagues and stick.
52:56
He just had a quick cup of coffee this year.
52:59
And then Garrett Hawkins, a prospect pitcher with the
53:01
Padres, if I'm not mistaken, one pitcher of the year at the
53:05
affiliate in Fort Wayne for the Padres this year.
53:09
He's a flamethrower, 65 throws from a crazy high release
53:13
height. It kind of gives me some Pete
53:16
Fairbanks vibes. So I, I don't know, maybe you
53:18
got some good stuff coming down the line for Team Canada.
53:22
Yeah, yeah, that'd be, that'd be awesome.
53:24
Yeah, those are just a couple guys that I know from Canada
53:27
that I needed to mention. Well, I guess Tugboat for the
53:30
Guardians as well. He he pitched in Lake County
53:34
this year. Matt Wilkinson is his name, but
53:37
he is he's a hoss that I think Team Canada might be a force to
53:42
reckon with if you get all these guys together and really focus
53:46
on winning something. We're doing some fun things up
53:49
here and guys are getting opportunities to get their
53:51
education paid for and go play pro ball, and that's really
53:54
exciting. Definitely.
53:56
Well, Mike, thank you so much for the conversation today.
53:59
It was great hanging out with you.
54:00
Don't know how active you are on your social medias these days,
54:04
but if you want to plug them I'd love if you plugged them.
54:07
Sure, it's it's it's at Doctor Mike's on.
54:09
Yeah, maybe some limited posting, but you can probably
54:11
see some good stories from Wrigley of guys doing dumb stuff
54:15
when they're they're just horsing around.
54:18
So. Yeah, that's right.
54:19
Or a quick little Instagram story if you get a new glove.
54:22
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Well, there's one every
54:24
year, so it'll be good. Yeah, I'm excited for what this
54:27
one's gonna be. Mike, thanks again.
54:29
This was awesome. And to all the listeners out
54:32
there, thanks for laying back with us.