Applied Sports Science newsletter – March 12, 2021

… The 23-year-old Trammell is on the third organization of his career despite regularly being regarded as one of the top 100 prospects in baseball. He was one of the main pieces when Seattle traded Austin Nola and a pair of relievers to the San Diego Padres last season as the Mariners continued to stockpile young talent.

Trammell is hoping he finally finds stability with one team this time. He was a first-round pick by Cincinnati in the 2016 draft but was sent to San Diego as part of a three-team trade before moving on to the Mariners last summer.

“I think it’d be good. I don’t have to go through another pair of cleats, or another wardrobe for the most part, so I think that’d be pretty cool,” Trammell joked. “But in all honesty, it’ll be great. I think it’s something we all understand is what comes along with business and everything like that. It’s just how it goes sometimes.”

Last year, Mirai Nagasu realized if she was going to keep figure skating, she would need to seek help from a place where she has seen both the best and the worst of times: Boston.

Now, nearly a year after a complicated hip surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital, she has no plans on leaving.

Nagasu, a two-time Winter Olympian best known for a clutch triple axel that led the United States to bronze in the team figure skating event at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, can now be found at a wide variety of rinks in the area, indoor and outdoor, Metro West to North Shore, skating and coaching. For the first time since last March, she is working on the triple jumps she was known for and relishing every moment on the ice.

… The 63-year-old coach spoke recently with ESPN about the lessons he has learned throughout more than three decades in the league, including nine as a head coach, how they’ve shaped a career renaissance in New York and why he’s excited about the direction of the Knicks’ young roster.

… General manager Joe Douglas said the team did a thorough review of its sports performances areas and decided to create a centralized department that will help improve the players’ health — and the Jets’ overall success. Douglas said the team was impressed by [Brad] DeWeese’s proven track record and vision.

Why? because HR monitor data showed that they maintain ~90%+ HR while they are on the mound. Cardiovascular fitness is relevant in baseball pitchers and should be monitored.

… “Oftentimes, if we were to talk to a child and say, ‘Do not touch that stove,’ they don’t really process all that; it’s just too many words,” Punyanunt-Carter said. “So, we need to learn how to condense that in a way that children can understand. Children usually remember the first and the last thing you say, so it becomes ‘Don’t touch.’ You break it down like that, and they’re more likely to understand. If you say, ‘Don’t touch the stove because it’s hot,’ then they really only remember ‘don’t’ and ‘hot.'”

… In summary, sport has the potential to influence the long-term outcomes of performance, participation, and personal development (Côté et al., 2014). However, it could be argued that these outcomes may be difficult to obtain simultaneously without sacrificing one outcome over another. For instance, the development of expert performance in the long term may come at the cost of athletes’ positive sport experiences or personal development (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2008). Studies have investigated isolated cases that have been successful in the development of long-term participation or performance (Balish & Côté, 2014; Henriksen et al., 2014); however, a dearth of research remains regarding cases that have been successful in developing multiple outcomes simultaneously (e.g., participation, performance, and positive development). Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to conduct a case study of a team that had individual athletes who had achieved a high level of performance or long-term recreational participation and successfully navigated life challenges (e.g., personal development), to understand the characteristics of the physical settings, social dynamics, and sport activities that may have led to these outcomes. [full text]

Forget your smartwatch: Google is adding a new feature to the Fit app that will allow Pixel phones to measure your heart rate and respiratory health. Google said that these new features take advantage of sensors that are already built into Pixel phones, including the microphone, camera, and accelerometer.

The researchers employed a machine-learning algorithm to tease out the heartbeats from other sounds and signals such as breathing, which is easier to detect because it involves a much larger motion. The algorithm was also needed to zero in on erratic heart rhythms — which from a health perspective are generally more important to identify than a steady “lub-dub.”

“If you have a regular pattern, it is easy to find,” said Dr. Arun Sridhar, assistant professor of cardiology at the UW School of Medicine. “If it’s all over the place, it’s challenging.”

For the past four decades, Tom House has worked with some of the word’s best athletes, using biomechanics research and data and video analysis to improve their throwing and hitting mechanics and stay healthy. His clients through the years have included Hall of Fame pitchers Nolan Ryan and Gregg Maddux as well as future Hall of Fame quarterbacks Tom Brady and Drew Brees.

Now, House, a former major league pitcher and coach, is looking to share some of his insights with children 14 years old or younger and help them remain engaged with sports at an age when many quit. He is the co-founder of Mustard, a motion analysis app that allows people to upload videos of themselves pitching. The app, which incorporates data that House has collected over 40 years and uses artificial intelligence, then provides feedback, tips and drills to perform.

A year after the pandemic temporarily shut down the NHL, a handful of roadblocks remain to handing out the Stanley Cup again this season — including the U.S.-Canada border.

The border remains closed to nonessential travel, an issue the NHL addressed before the 2021 season began in January by realigning its divisions. All seven teams in the North Division are based in Canada and they play against only each other through the first two rounds of the postseason.

But the league has a decision looming on what to do when a Canadian team faces a U.S. opponent in the third round of the playoffs. Talks are ongoing with Canadian government officials, though nothing needs to be settled yet since cross-border play won’t happen until mid-June.

US Olympic chiefs said Wednesday they expect athletes participating in the Tokyo Olympics will be vaccinated against Covid-19 “well before” the Games as US immunisation efforts surge ahead.

In a conference call with reporters, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief executive Sarah Hirshland said the pace of the US vaccine rollout meant athletes may now be vaccinated even before trials and qualifiers for Tokyo.

“We are more optimistic than ever in hoping Team USA athletes will be readily and easily vaccinated well before the Games, and hopefully, some likely even before their trials,” Hirshland said.

With the business end of the FPL season approaching, captaincy choices are becoming more critical – if you’re unsure how to distribute the armband, who better to learn from than the elite?

By studying 1,000 managers with multiple top-10,000 finishes to their name, we’ve analysed how the elite have tinkered with their leaders this season.

… Which of the new rules do we most look forward to seeing in action? Which of the new rules could we do without? Just how many of these rules could really be used in MLB some day? And when exactly should fans plan on seeing robot umps in action at major league stadiums? We asked ESPN MLB experts Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers and David Schoenfield to weigh in on Thursday’s announcement that could have major implications on the future of the sport.

… The Pelicans are a different story. They are in developmental mode like OKC to an extent. They are stuck between tearing down the old team and building a new one like Sacramento to an extent. But with two young All-Star caliber players already, one of whom might be a top-10 weapon right now, and given the vagaries of the market, the coach and the franchise’s history, the situation is just different.

The Pelicans had a wildly uneven season as Stan Van Gundy figures out what to do with his roster, particularly the backcourt and Steven Adams. Continuing to figure it out for the rest of the season — trying things, continuing to shape the offense around Zion Williamson’s unique excellence primarily instead of around Brandon Ingram’s attack, determining the optimal frontcourt partner style for Zion — is a worthy objective. New Orleans will have lots of decisions to make at both the trade deadline and in the offseason, and getting as many answers to unresolved questions in the lead-up is smart. That sure rules out tanking: you want to test successes and lean into them to rule out flukes. You want to try to win every night to build upon the foundation of Zion and Ingram but mainly Zion. You want to start erecting a temple to his greatness that can stand for a decade or more.

Scott Galloway is an NYU Stern Business School professor and a podcaster. He recently published his thoughts about an “attention graph” which explores how companies are jointly accumulating consumers’ attention and dollars, and letting the results drive their business models.

The overlap between attention graph and sports science is, in one word, Peloton. Galloway believes that Peloton is a corporate acquisition target for Apple, “Is an additional two to four hours of attention per week from the most influential people on the planet worth $36 billion to Apple? Yes, in a heartbeat.”

Elite athletes are a niche market with a small but influential consumer population. WHOOP has engaged this market successfully for years. WHOOP competitor Garmin has not, opting to seek and, in some cases, define all sorts of niches which can realistically benefit from wrist-worn GPS. Garmin’s latest product, a shared GPS for ATVers and snowmobilers called “Tread,” has little to no fitness benefit.

The economics of the attention graph is for high-status luxury products, not for mass market technologies and their core constituents of aspirational wannabes. Consumer sports tech business models are, as a result, low margin and a challenge to sustain. And I suspect that they will stay that way for some time.

Thank you for reading the newsletter. I am glad to have your attention.
-Brad