2025 SABR Analytics: Watch highlights from How MLB Teams Utilize Biomechanics Big Data Panel
At the SABR Analytics Conference on Friday, March 14, 2025, in Phoenix, Arizona, a panel discussion was held on How MLB Teams Utilize Biomechanics Big Data, presented by the American Baseball Biomechanics Society.
Panelists included Arnel Aguinaldo, Point Loma Nazarene University; Michael Sonne, Chicago Cubs; Megan Stewart, Milwaukee Brewers; Will Vandenberg, Los Angeles Dodgers. Moderator: Glenn Fleisig, Research Director, American Sports Medicine Institute.
- Watch: Click here to watch a video replay of the 2025 How MLB Teams Utilize Biomechanics Big Data Panel (YouTube)
Here are some highlights from the panel:
On what they use biomechanics for
- Aguinaldo: “Biomechanics is a tool. It’s not any different from what you’re doing for grip testing, ball testing, performance testing that they do on the field. The tool is only as good as those who are using it. … We pick up things here and there and try to understand as a biomechanist what we feel would be helpful and make recommendations. But I always go in and I tell every student, ‘Don’t be a coach. You’re not a coach. You’re not the pitching expert or hitting expert, you’re a biomechanist. Provide the information and then give your contributions.’ Hopefully it’ll benefit the player in the long run.”
- Stewart: “I think the really cool thing about biomechanics over the last couple of years is that you can collect so much data that you don’t always get to use it right away. And pitching has had the ability to have research published on it for many, many years, much more before hitting, and so they’ve just come so much further in the time that we’ve had this technology. With that being said, I think as with every team, pitching is probably the main focus of biomechanics with us as well.”
- Fleisig: “One of things with the new big data we could also look to see if someone gets hurt, what they looked like before they got hurt, and then what might have led to the injury. But also, if they’re rehabbing, you have a baseline of what they’re trying to get back to. Likewise, if someone goes into a slump, batting, pitching, whatever, you could always try to look back at their old data. So that’s one of the benefits of new biomechanics.”
On who sees biomechanics data
- Stewart: “I think it’s really important to make sure that all parties, departments, are involved in the process of the biomechanics data. Most of the time if you’re seeing something on this end, they’re probably also seeing it in the weight room or in the training room in some front. So having a conversation with the strength staff, and the medical staff, or your high-performance staff, your sport scientist staff, is really informational just so that you guys have a better picture of what you’re looking at.”
- Vandenberg: “We emphasize that the data is open to the players whenever they want to see it. Come in. And so players are often asking to see it themselves, too. It varies from player to player, some guys want nothing to do with it, some guys want to see every graph and every number. So we’re open to it. We’ll talk them through it as much as they want, but generally we go up to the coach because they have more context than we do to deliver it at the right time, in the right messaging.”
On merging biomechanics with kinesiology
- Sonne: “I think all of the three things, the return to performance, injury prevention and durability, and overall performance, they’re all hand in hand. I think people very traditionally have thought of them as three separate pillars but they’re all the same concepts, really.”
On sharing data with other teams
- Sonne: “The way that teams have done with collaborating on data, I could see a future — particularly with this MLB injuries report coming out — where teams maybe do move toward working together to publish something if we can keep a better product on the field … I would say if I find something that’s really, really an advantage for us, that definitely stays in-house. But I think there’s broader things, particularly data that can be shared with the greater population like here, that can help move things forward in the future.”
On what makes a winning team versus a losing team
- Fleisig: “I’ve been around a lot of major league teams, and I think one of the things that makes a winning team versus a losing team, is some teams have great interdisciplinary communication, and some teams have really sucky interdisciplinary communication, where the coaches don’t know what the strength coaches are doing and they don’t know what the doctors are doing. But the winning organizations, I think, have better communication.”
Transcription assistance from Emmy Mattingly.
For more coverage of the 2025 SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics.
Originally published: May 1, 2025. Last Updated: March 21, 2025.