[情報] THE ATHLETIC 搬運工
Cubs continue to push the envelope in player development with both technology
and the human touch
MESA, Ariz. — Off in the left-field corner of Field 3 on the backfields of
the Cubs’ spring training complex is a simple setup. Three Edgertronic
cameras are lined up behind three pitchers throwing off flat ground to three
catchers. Behind each catcher is a Rapsodo unit. It is all part of the
technology that’s helping push player development to another level.
While teams like the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Indians
and New York Yankees get much of the public love in this area, those around
baseball suggest the Cubs are also among the organizations pushing the
envelope as they try to find every edge in any department.
The Edgertronics are high-speed cameras that work at a much higher frame
rate, capturing images that otherwise might have been missed, especially in a
pitcher’s arm motion. The images aren’t anything out of the ordinary;
coaches and players have been digging into video for decades. But now they’
re clearer, and even baseball traditionalists can buy into clearer video that
shows aspects of mechanics that had never been able to be picked up so
visibly. The players are able to see more and understand themselves better. It
’s an easy win for player development.
Where the images are taken to another level is when they’re combined with
Trackman, Statcast or Rapsodo data. As defined on their website, Rapsodo “
provides instant data on pitch velocity, spin rate, true spin rate, spin
axis, and spin efficiency as well as strike zone analysis, horizontal and
vertical break, 3D trajectory, and now release information.” Each bit of
data on its own is useful to a degree, but marrying these technologies is
what really helps teams learn more about their players.
This was possible with older cameras, but the detail with high-frame-rate
cameras takes this to another level. It’s particularly useful in analyzing
the pitching motion — especially the arm path — given it happens so fast.
On an older camera, the arm can go from cocked to finished in one frame,
omitting a lot of detail. With the newer technology, the entire arm path is
clear, so no piece of information is missed.
Working with the pitchers during January instructs, and throughout the spring
and into the summer, is minor-league pitching coordinator Brendan Sagara.
Sagara was born and raised in Hawaii and as a 5-foot-7 pitcher, he jumped at
the first Division I offer he received from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Following college, Sagara pitched a few years of independent league ball
before a labrum injury ended his career. That opened another door as a former
manager helped him get into coaching in the independent league. He worked on
the same staff as former Cubs assistant hitting coach and current Milwaukee
Brewers hitting coach Andy Haines. One season, current Cubs hitting coach
Anthony Iapoce was the center fielder for Sagara’s team.
Eventually, Sagara got into scouting, working for the Mets and then the
Braves, while still keeping his coaching gig. In 2012, he joined the Miami
Marlins organization, coaching short-season ball and eventually becoming the
assistant minor-league pitching coordinator. After his previous two
predecessors, Derek Johnson and Jim Brower, left for major-league jobs,
Sagara was named minor-league pitching coordinator for the Cubs prior to the
2018 season.
In a little more than a year with the organization, Sagara has impressed even
some big leaguers with his knowledge and organization skills. He spent time
with the major-league club toward the end of last season and multiple
pitchers valued the little tidbits he would share. Sagara is known to have
what one pitcher referred to as a pitch-grip index. Sagara takes images of
pitchers’ grips from the high-speed cameras throughout the season. As the
year progresses, the pitcher can go back and look and see how his hand was in
relation to the ball — was he on top of the ball, under it, holding it
differently in some way? — and compare that with how effective that pitch
was at different points in the season. Seeing those images lined up over time
helps the pitcher understand exactly what he’s doing when things are going
right on the field compared to when they’re not.
Now expand that to the entire body and that’s the impact these high-speed
cameras combined with other data can have on player development. It’s these
little bits of knowledge that can help lead a pitcher to find more
consistency as they work toward a long and fruitful big-league career.
“You’re connecting the dots between analytics, R&D department and really
connecting it to the human being on the field that’s executing the action,”
Sagara said. “I think that’s been the biggest thing for me. Being able to
accelerate growth and development with the players by grasping the overall
development picture and then finding ways to use technology to accelerate it.
We’re connecting departments and making it a more collaborative effort. You
have to be open-minded to all things. The buy-in from staff has been great.
All the pitching coaches see the benefit of what we’re doing.”
The Cubs have taken heat over the years for their inability to develop
home-grown pitching. In an offseason defined by a constrained budget, that
the Cubs have nearly $100 million invested in six starting pitchers stands
out. A homegrown starter or two ready to impact a playoff rotation would have
made this winter a lot more palatable to those who were hoping for more
activity from this front office.
But to the Cubs’ credit, they’ve acknowledged their failures and have been
open about how they’re looking to address the issues. Senior vice president
of player development and amateur scouting Jason McLeod spoke to the scouting
aspect of it all at Cubs Convention, addressing how perhaps they were being
too rigid in what they were looking for both mechanically and results-wise
from amateur pitchers. And when they had them in their organization, he
wondered if they weren’t being aggressive enough in promoting them through
the system. They’re addressing those issues along with attempting to be as
progressive as any team in baseball when it comes to the techniques and
technology used in player development.
With the Cubs holding instructs in January, now is the time when Sagara can
use the data they’ve gathered to try to implement any changes with their
players. This is where the buzzy phrase “pitch design” comes into play.
Whether it be adding a new pitch, a mechanical adjustment or altering pitch
usage, the groundwork for these changes begins now.
“Right now the point of where they are in their throwing program is they’re
about to transition to bullpens,” Sagara said. “So we’re trying to put
pitches in their hands, pitch design. A lot of the first part of the
instruction of this camp is how the delivers, releases and grips affect the
ball in flight. So the instruments we’re using help us round out pitcher
profiles. If their fastball plays a certain way, what’s their complementary
pitch and how do we design a better one. Some guys who were lacking a third
pitch, we’re trying to put it in their hands. Guys that need to improve
their second pitch that tunnels off the fastball off of their natural traits
to the pitch. So that’s what we’re using the instruments for.
“For me, it’s like, the smallest change — like what side of the rubber he
stands on, what kind of fastball we go to, what breaking ball we’re
transitioning to — I basically put together a case. Essentially, it’s a
presentation for the player — every reason, how it ties to them, what they
do best. Then it turns into a discussion. For example, we could say ‘We see
this in your fastball and we think if you add a breaking ball with more depth
it gives you more separation at the plate. This is what we see, these are
your pitch traits.’ Then we go through historical video, ‘You’ve always
done this well and this tells us you should be able to do this.’ And then we
go to a major-league comp and we break that guy down and sometimes we even
look at that player’s development process to see how he got to the finished
process. And then I just say, ‘Tell me exactly what you feel.’”
Sometimes the player just isn’t emotionally or mentally prepared to make the
change and they reject it. Sagara said when that happens, it’s fine. They
know they can get to it at a later date. But for the most part, when it’s
presented in that fashion, they’re “extremely ready for it,” he said.
Still, it’s not all data and numbers. While teams are shedding scouts
throughout baseball in favor of bulking up research and development
departments and relying on high-speed cameras in favor of in-person scouting,
the Cubs have no intention of following suit.
“As a player-personnel guy, as a scout at heart, it breaks my heart,”
McLeod said. “That’s not going to happen here. We feel that with all the
information — the way teams are building infrastructure in front offices
with a lot of the data analysis that’s going on — most clubs are going to
have just a very marginal (chance) to have something that another club doesn’
t have.
“Our scouts are really the currency. Those guys that get to know players,
get to know people, have the right contacts and have the ability to evaluate
character, drive. And have the ability to evaluate upside. That is hard for
certain tracking systems or certain pitch data. For us, the scouts are just
the backbone of the organization, no matter how much information you have.”
Sagara takes pride in his nearly 20 years as a coach and credits his
extensive history of working directly with players for having a human touch.
He also knows that despite all his time in baseball, he can’t be rigid to
the changes that are coming to the game, especially in player development.
“So much of development is philosophical,” Sagara said. “Before it was
real militant and form-fitted. One organization did it all the same way. But
for me, you just lose so many guys if you cast a wide net. Individual
development takes a lot more work and time. But way more dividends. The
people in our department are sold out to making big-leaguers. I’m obsessed
with it.”
Outside observers might look at the 59 innings pitchers who were drafted and
developed by this front office have given this organization and see no
progress. But behind the scenes the Cubs are excited. They see development
and progress and continue to try to make tweaks in all areas to better
streamline their processes.
While many organizations have come to the same conclusion as the Cubs — that
instructs in September and October defy common sense — and done away with
the practice entirely, the Cubs took a different path. They still see value
in instructs, and thus far, their change to January (only the Giants have
done the same, but their day-to-day seems to be a bit shorter and less
intensive) has been met with praise from coordinators and players alike.
And while the human element will never be discounted with this front office,
the more information they can gather, the better edge they believe they can
build. Some like to say that with all this technology, there is no more
guesswork. It might never be possible to determine exactly what creates the
perfect ballplayer, but front offices are spending less time with opinions
and more time testing hypothesis. They can determine what’s right — build
on that — and what’s wrong — try something new there — more than ever
before. The processes used by the Cubs and other forward-thinking front
offices are better than ever before, and the belief is that the opportunity
for improvement never ends.
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※ 編輯: Zamned (59.115.133.141), 02/06/2019 10:14:28
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