What Baseball Can Teach You About Using Data to Improve Yourself

An athletic mediocrity by most Major League measures, Trevor Bauer became a $13 Million-a-year All Star pitcher thanks to his singular talent: a relentless, data-driven focus on self-improvement. Bauer’s declaration captures the credo and ethos of ‘The MVP Machine: ‘How Baseball’s New Nonconformists Are Using Data To Build Better Players,’ a recent book by sports-nerd journalists Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik. Its essential message: Next-generation technologies and analytics radically transform top-tier talent development and technique. From accelerometers to wind tunnels to high-speed, high-resolution digital cameras, the data for getting better at getting better is getting better. With personalized data, analytics, and training, motivated mediocrities can literally become All Stars. That insight is far bigger than baseball.