Was Biomechanical Analysis the Key to the Baltimore Orioles’ Winning Season?

The San Francisco Giants swept the Detroit Tigers in the World Series a little over a fortnight ago. They also managed to be the buzz in the social media-sphere with more than 1.2 million comments in the last game.

And while the Giants became the story of Major League Baseball’s postseason, the Baltimore Orioles’ run in October should be examined further, too.

The Orioles finished the 2012 season with a 93-69 record, which earned them a spot for the one-game playoff versus the Texas Rangers. Ultimately, they defeated the Rangers and advanced to the American League Division Series, just to fall short against the New York Yankees in five games.

Bearing in mind that their previous year record was the reverse, 69-93, it leads one to question –  what was at the root behind this incredible turnaround?

One plausible answer: biomechanical analysis.

All big-league Orioles pitchers, 37 total, partook in biomechanical testing by Dr. James Andrews’ American Sports Medicine Institute this past spring for the first time ever.

Biomechanical analysis is a four-camera, pictorial process that assesses a pitcher’s throwing action through capturing 1,000 frames per second. According to ASMI’s website, this evaluation intends to “minimize risk of injury” and “maximize performance” for a pitcher.

As it relates to the former claim, the Orioles placed six pitchers on the 2011 disabled list, which amounted to 165 combined days missed. This past season, however, they had seven pitchers on the disabled list, with a total of 152 days absent.

With regards to the latter, the following chart illustrates the Orioles’ performance level from the last two years.

There wasn’t a significant impact when it came to preventing the likelihood of injuries. Yet, it’s evident that a tangible spike occurred in the pitchers’ performance between these two past seasons. The propulsion into the top half of the team pitching rankings suggests there may be something to this biomechanical testing.

“Every pitcher that has ever had an arm problem wants to know, how can I avoid this? If there is something I can do to avoid that and possibly increase my velocity? And the track record of this system increasing velocity and keeping guys healthy, it’s right there. I’ve studied this my whole life and there is nothing I know that is better,” Rick Peterson, the Orioles’ Director of Pitching Development, told masnsports.com.

Still, the direct correlation towards efficacy is very much debatable on two fronts: how beneficial this process is and what are the specifically enhanced pitching aspects involved?

The Boston Red Sox’s  new Manager, John Farrell, discussed his experience with this issue back from his Toronto Blue Jays days to the Calgary Sun,“In and of itself, it can be useless if it’s not interpreted correctly and ultimately applied at the field level. It’s a catch-22.”

What remains clear is the general belief that great pitching always trumps great hitting. As such, there shouldn’t be a coincidence when MLB clubs have spent more than $1.2 billion in pitching salaries the last decade, while Tommy John surgeries have skyrocketed north of 700 percent in the process, per Peterson. The recently championed Giants paid their pitching staff $74,142,683. That’s the steep price they doled out to contend for a title.

The 2012 Orioles couldn’t afford that pitching budget—their success can be attributed to another way of “keeping up with the Joneses”—regardless of the degree of ambiguity to support it.

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