My Introduction to Data Analytics

Throughout my relatively short baseball career, data and analytics were never something I thought about often or cared to learn about. Batting average was pretty much the only statistic that concerned me when gauging my success, or success of others. I was first introduced to systems like Blast and Rapsodo during my senior year of high school. My hitting coach implemented these systems with me personally and with my high school team. It was then, that I first learned about the importance of data and what it can do for players. Machines such as Rapsodo, Blast, and Diamond Kinetics can give instructors more insight into what is going on in a players swing. Coaches and instructors then have more information to relay to hitters about what they are doing right, and what they can improve on. With all the data available now a days the conflict that comes with it, is how to use all of the information that is thrown at you. One of the many things I have learned since working with Ohio University's baseball team is that the key to communicating data, is being able to relay the information to 26 different players in 26 different ways, because each player is different.

Some "old school" coaches and scouts are slow to embrace data analytics as a vital part of today's game. A downfall of this philosophy is almost an oversimplification of analyzing a players game and swing. At the same time a downfall of this "new school" coaching philosophy with incorporating data available to us is, making things more complicated than they have to be with this excess of information. People who can find a middle ground between these two will have success.