By Gwen Peace
Cleveland Guardians scout John Manuel remembers a time when analytics had little meaning in the world of baseball.
In fact, when technology started to develop there was often pushback against its use, in favor of more traditional methods.
“Scouts in 1981 were like, ‘I don’t need a radar gun. I can just eyeball it,’” Manuel said.
But slowly, the usefulness of the technology began to outweigh the old-timers’ pushback.
Scouts across the country started to recognize that using tools like radar guns and tracking analytics like pitching speed were useful in identifying future talent for their teams.
Sentiments were shifting.
“Why wouldn’t you use a radar gun?” Manuel said. “Why wouldn’t you want more precise information? So, every time there’s been a new tool to evaluate players, there’s been resistance to change in baseball. Now, there is so much data.”
It didn’t come all at once. It was a gradual buildup year after year. And then in 2015, it exploded.
Major League Baseball released StatCast, a centralized database full of information and statistics about every team and every player, all accessible to the public.
Players began chasing higher and higher numbers, spurred on by the tangible tracking of improvement made visible through the data. Scouts began relying more and more on what they saw on screens versus what they saw with their eyes.
Slowly, these new methods trickled down from the majors to the minors and into the college game, where the use of technology has surged in recent years. The shift reshaped player development, unlocking unprecedented performance gains, but also quietly introducing new risks.
Not everything that has resulted from the boom has been positive, however.
While analytics can be used to prevent injury, they also are a driving factor in the steady rise of sports injuries over recent decades. Numbers give athletes something to chase. And oftentimes, the chase does not end well.
This is something that former Atlanta Braves orthopedist Dr. Joseph Chandler saw grow over his more than 30-year career.
“They’re chasing spin rates,” Chandler said. “They’re chasing vertical movement; they’re chasing horizontal movement across the plate. They’re chasing those factors. Well, there’s a downside to that. Huge downside injury.”
Most of the time, this injury comes in the form of a torn UCL, which has to be repaired surgically. This process — known as ‘Tommy John surgery’ after the first player to successfully undergo the operation — involves replacing the torn elbow ligament with a tendon graft. While successful most of the time, the process is becoming troublingly common among younger and younger athletes every year and often has to be repeated more than once over a pitcher’s career.
This then results in a shorter pitching career — in 2000, MLB rookies had an average career of almost seven years. By 2020, that number had shrunk drastically to just over three years, according to research conducted by New York Yankees head physician Christopher Ahmad.
“I’m not saying analytics are bad, but I’m saying if pitchers start chasing that very early, they’re at a much greater risk of injury,” Chandler said. “And that’s — that’s sad. It has changed the game of what people look for, but unfortunately, from a medical standpoint, it’s changed the game too, because the injury rate of shoulder and elbow, particularly elbow injuries, is just sky high now, because the No. 1 factor for that is velocity, so it comes with a price.”
And now, the other thing that comes with a price is the players themselves.
“Seeing players as financial assets really started with statistics,” Manuel said.
That shift traces back, in part, to the philosophy popularized by the movie “Moneyball” — small-market teams using data not only to evaluate players, but also to compete with bigger budgets. It began as a way to outsmart the system, but the system has caught up.
Front offices today have more information than ever before, allowing them to project performance, evaluate risk and assign value with remarkable precision, according to Manuel. In many ways that have made the game more efficient. Players have clearer paths to development and more tools to help them reach their goals.
But as the numbers have become more central to the sport, so has their influence. At every level of the sport, players are chasing measurable gains. It has elevated performance and opened new doors, but it has also contributed to physical strain.
There is no going back to the days where scouts relied solely on instinct. Numbers are now embedded in every level of athletics, shaping how players are recruited, valued, and how the game is played.
“Technology has completely changed how we think about it,” Chandler said.
The question now is not whether analytics belong in the game, but how they should be used and how the sport balances the pursuit of performance with the realities of its cost.
How well it finds that balance may very well define the future of the game.
