Biomechanics as a Service
Come for the analysis, stay for the organizational alignment
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“We help coaches organizations help athletes move better.”
From day 1, Reboot built for the coach.
But in Major League Baseball, we did not see major traction until we opened the books and built for the organization.
Of course, we still help coaches help athletes move better. We offer daily optimization reports, on demand comparison reports, weekly calls, constant slacks, and more.
But we also help biomechanists help athletes move better, providing clean skeletal data so more of their time goes to research, not infrastructure.
And we help data scientists help athletes move better, with a whole new data set to innovate on.
Our broad approach deepens our impact- allowing each group to leverage their work, knowing the entire organization is aligned on how to view movement.
While we love the wide coverage we offer, it does leave us with a dilemma: if we offer something for everyone, how do we get our foot in the door?
Pitching People that Don’t Use the Product
Eventually, we think coaches, biomechanists, and data scientists will all be Reboot evangelists. However, it is important to know who we could best prove value too early on.
Last year, I would have predicted coaches were our best entrant into an organization. But more and more, a new group enters the mix: Front Office Executives.
Explicitly, this is not a group we build for. However, it may be the one with the most to gain, for two major reasons:
We make the people they rely on- coaches, biomechanists, and data scientists- better.
We provide the infrastructure for these groups to 1) speak the same language and 2) leverage the work the rest of the organization is doing.
We may never build a product that front office executives directly use, but we can absolutely show them a better life.
One where their Major League coaches, Minor League coaches, and scouts have access to the same daily and on demand reports, creating better organization wide decision making.
One where their data scientists are always a step ahead of their peers because they have access to data from across the organization.
And one where their biomechanists discover key insights that can immediately be brought to the field.
And that better life is delivered by Biomechanics as a Service.
Biomechanics as a Service
So how do we pitch front office executives?
First, we tell them our philosophy- that we want to be true partners with anyone we work with.
We understand that at this level the stakes are too high to simplify things to a single score, or to ask anyone to rely on a black box algorithm.
Rather, we are an open book looking to educate and empower our partners.
And after we say we are an open book, we…open it:
The Pipeline
Reboot Motion built baseball’s best biomechanics pipeline.
In its simplest form, all a team has to do is send us data, and we will deliver back actionable biomechanics reports.
While we know the coach looking at the report likely doesn’t care what happens between data upload and report retrieval, we think others in the organization do.
And for a GM tasked with getting the most out of their staff…exposing our platform and allowing different people to get off at different stops is a huge differentiator.
Logistics
Logistically, most of our MLB partners automate daily uploads to our system. After each game we receive an alert and our pipeline gets to work, ensuring data and reports are available before coaches and players get to the field the next day.
Additionally, our pipeline is always ready for ad hoc uploads from affiliate teams, scouts, MLB’s data share, and more.
Skeletal Data
Step 1 of the Reboot Motion pipeline is turning motion capture data (e.g. KinaTrax, Hawk-Eye, Simi, etc.) or raw video into skeletal data.
For biomechanists, they can get off here.
This step is harder than it sounds as not all mo cap data is the same. The majority of our partners focus on in-stadium markerless systems like Hawk-Eye, KinaTrax, and Simi. (And with the MLB data share they may use more than one.)
Additionally, some clubs want the flexibility to utilize marker based systems or more mobile solutions like Qualisys, Uplift, Proplay, and even raw video from a single camera (ex: iPhone slow motion video).
Integrating with everything takes work- work we’ve already done.
Empower and Collaborate
Biomechanics is the future of player development- and understanding how athletes move to truly discover causation, and not just correlation, is a monumental task.
Rather than building infrastructure, we allow biomechanists to focus on developing the next wave of metrics- concentrating on takeaways that GMs, coaches, and athletes will marvel at.
We believe this is Moneyball two decades later, and we want to help biomechanists do what they do best: discover how best to measure what matters.
Processed Data
Step 2 in our pipeline is turning skeletal data into processed data consisting of joint angles, energy values, ranges of motion, momentum trends, and more.
And for the non-biomechanists within an R&D team- data scientists, developers, etc.- we expect them to get off the train here.
These CSVs- which include pitch by pitch data, as well as time series data within a single pitch- are the backbone of what we use in our reports.
Additionally, they are sent to our partner organizations so team data scientists can build their own models with proprietary insights for better scouting, decision making, and player development.
Empower and Collaborate
Just like with biomechanists, our goal is to make the rest of the R&D team better.
While we take this data and turn it into Reboot Reports for coaches, we also know teams have a lot of data we do not see, as well as a lot of incredible talent analyzing it.
We want to provide clubs with a unique data set their competitors don’t have. This data set, whether on its own, or in combination with other proprietary information, can be the backbone of incredible models clubs can use to gain an edge in player development, drafting, free agency, and more.
(And for the biomechanists still reading, we would love for you to get off at this stop for a bit as well, and use what we came up with as an example to build something better!)
Actionable Reports
The final step in our pipeline is creating actionable reports for coaches.
Our daily Reboot Reports, which are created for each pitcher and hitter, recap the previous outing and show coaches summary metrics, trends over the course of the game, deviations from past performances, and more.
We expect coaches to get off at this final step:
(For the R&D team members still reading, we also deliver the individual images and sections that make up the report for teams that want to customize the visuals or pull specific parts into their internal front ends.)
The Vision
So what is our pitch to front office execs?
Computer vision has enabled us to collect data we could not dream of a decade ago. The spoils will go to those who 1) understand it and 2) can work collaboratively throughout the organization to implement their findings.
For teams that want to go from 0 to 1 today, we are here to help.
And more importantly, for those looking to build a more innovative future, we are here to offer 1) your coaches x-ray vision 2) your data scientists better information to build on and 3) your biomechanists freedom to innovate.
We are entering a new world in baseball. For the first time, data is not king. Every team is equipped with Rapsodo pitch-tracking, Edgertronic cameras, Blast Motion sensors, force plates, and more.
And in short order, everyone will have Hawkeye and KinaTrax systems installed- not just in their Major League park- but in Minor League affiliates as well.
For the very first time, there will be too much data. And the winners will be the ones who best know how to use it.
They will be the organizations that excel at finding micro advantages over and over again. The ones that know the league will catch up, but also know they will already be onto the next thing because their real advantage is innovation.
Our goal is to help clubs innovate.
To help them push forward.
To help them measure what matters.