For most baseball coaches at the youth or high school levels the constraints in budget, time and resources limit their use of data and technology in the player development process. The learning curve of using new technology and the tools for processing/analyzing the resulting data are enough in most cases to deter coaches.
In this article we wanted to introduce the use of Microsoft Power-BI in conjunction with Blast Motions swing sensors as a way to incorporate data/technology into hitters development process with limited time, budget, and resources.
Implementing Blast Motion Senors
Blast sensors (or any other bat sensors) are one of the most cost effective tools when trying to implement technology to develop hitters. They’re affordable enough that they open the possibility of using multiple sensors at a time, or in some cases a team set. However, we are presenting here a feasible plan for team data collection and analysis when only one sensor is available.
Once you get the sensor it is important to understand what you want to get out of it. There are 10 swing metrics and 3 swing quality measures, so trying to track all of these by hand can be time consuming and a little bit overwhelming. Therefore it is very important to develop a system for data collection and to simplify the data processing.
Here are a few ideas and tips
Blast offers a plan for each individual to have an online profile to track every swing they take with a blast sensor for about $6.95/month a player. However, each profile has the capability to have multiple bats. Instead of paying for multiple profiles, one thing that can be done to track multiple players in a budget is to name bats using your players names. This will allow for changing players (bats) during each session to identify each player swings in the data collected.
Test/Retest model - Perform a pretest, starting the first week of practice and set an interval for performing retesting. It will be ideal to retest every 2 weeks, however, with only one sensor the retest interval should be derived from the number of players and the time available during practice.
It will be best to have the sensor connected to the app with an iPad and tested before practice starts. It can be time consuming to get everything setup and tested the first time and you don’t want to take this time away from practice. Have a few metrics you would like to look at shown in the iPad screen so the coaches and players can see them.
Make sure you change the player (bat) name every time a new player takes swings or it will be hard tracking whose swings are whose at a later time.
Once you have completed the data collection, you can pull the CSV data file from the Blast Motion website. An example of how this CSV data file would look like can be seen in Figure 1.
It’s very important to analyze the resulting data, simplify it as much as possible for the players. The data can then be used to develop a plan for improvement and retest to see if the plan is working.
To get started with data processing, analysis and visualization we recommend to start with familiar tools (e.g. Microsoft Excel) and progress to more advanced tools (e.g. R programming) if needed over time. An easy to use tool that can be used to analyze and visualize the data in a simple way is Microsoft Power BI Desktop.
Figure 1 - CSV File with Blast Motion data identifying players in the equipment column.
Power BI Desktop for Data Visualization and Analysis
Power BI is Microsoft's business data analytics solution that lets you :
Connect to data, including multiple data sources.
Shape the data with queries that build insightful data models.
Use the data models to create visualizations and reports.
Share your report files for others to leverage, build upon, and share.
For beginners, Power BI is a great and simple tool for data visualization and analysis since it has the very familiar look and feel found in Excel, Word or PowerPoint reducing the learning curve. In addition, Power BI Desktop can be downloaded for free (you can use this link).
Figure 2 below shows examples of visualizations created in Power BI based on Blast Motion data.
Figure 2 - Examples Visualization in Power BI Desktop from Blast Motion data.
What Next? Where do we go from here?
You can go to the Microsoft Power BI Desktop page to get started and learn more on how to load, visualize and analyze data. In our next post we will follow up with a short guide on how to create visualizations similar to the ones presented here.
Use the the Blast Motion sensor data to provide objective feedback to the players on their swing, decide on which metric(s) to focus on. You can divide players in groups based on their needs and create a training plan for the groups. Don't forget to retest to see what is working and what is not.
Other Resources
Driveline Baseball (August 9, 2018), Data-Driven on a Budget: Baseball Analytics For High Schools and Colleges
Jonathan Gelnar (September 22, 2019), Medium, Becoming a data driven program- Part 2: Blast Bat Sensors
Joshua Rodrigues (October 1, 2018), Medium, How you should use your Blast Motion?
Microsoft Power BI, Get started with Power BI Desktop
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