A Physical Therapist's Guide to Pitching
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The following is the second post in a series on the Wake Forest Bridge Seminar, which was put on by Wake Forest Dec 17th and 18th 2022.
While nothing matches being there, I wanted to share what I learned for those who missed it, and to set the stage for an ever bigger turnout in 2023.
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“The numbers start out as tools for thinking. They wind up replacing thought.”
I’ve written about this Michael Lewis quote before, and it was all I could think about as Emily Ferree- a doctor of physical therapy and the clinic director at Movement First- spoke at Wake Forest.
Within a minute of getting on stage, Emily warned against the baseball world over-relying on KPIs (aka numbers) to break down a pitching delivery.
As Emily explained, she is not against KPIs. Rather, she is against using them as a replacement for thought.
Instead, Emily starts with first principles. By relying on foundational physics, she breaks a delivery down holistically- describing her reliance on rotation planes below:
Prior to looking at data, Emily already has a strong idea of what matters. By trusting fundamental concepts like the conservation of momentum, she knows rotation planes matter. She can then dive into the data to measure it.
The numbers don’t replace her thinking. Rather, they are tools to enhance it.
The Good and Bad of KPIs
At Reboot, we agree with Emily on the importance of rotation plane alignment, which we’ve researched in the past and wrote about in Measure What Maters.
Like Emily, we started with a first principles insight, then used data to 1) hone the insight and 2) take action.
Unfortunately, too often people are too quick to simply go from data → action, without understanding the why.
As Emily discusses below, this overreliance on data can lead to poor results:
Emily explains why total ground reaction forces are not a great predictor of velocity- even if there is some evidence of correlation.
Instead, based on her knowledge of physics, she’d prefer pitchers focus on rotational force and lateral force because those are the forces generated in the directions that impact velocity.
As Emily notes, the easiest way to improve total ground reaction forces is to “jump out of mound”, which increases linear force but not angular momentum.
Emily dives further in the following clip:
Confusing correlation for causation is one thing for scouting. It is another when it leads to coaching with flawed KPIs.
Holistic Coaching
If I could sum up Emily’s message it would as follows:
Too many people are too quick to from data → action.
We would be better off taking a step back and thinking about each person holistically. We should evaluate their delivery, we should be aware of their physical capabilities, and we should know their current performance and future goals.
Then, we can use first principles to gather a hypothesis and see if the data backs it up.
Only then, can we be confident in the outcome.