Human Performance: Baseball’s New Pathways to the Big Leagues

Tuesday, July 28 | 12:30 PM ET

Player development in baseball was at a crossroads even before COVID-19 shut down the minor league season. MLB was already planning to contract the size of the minors while new technologies (wearable sensors, high-speed cameras and much more) were streamlining a ballplayer’s pathway to the big leagues. Training has now become more purposeful and personalized, and clubs are investing more in R&D and hiring outsider perspectives. We’ll examine how the confluence of more tech, fewer farm clubs and a global pandemic are altering the future of the sport.

Speakers

Bobby Basham is the Director of Player Development for the Chicago Cubs and has been a member of the Cubs front office since 2012. As Director of Player Development, he manages the Cubs Minor League System with a focus on internal innovation, business development, and technology exploration efforts for the baseball operations department. Prior to the Cubs, Bobby had both a seven-year minor league baseball career and worked in the healthcare industry as a product manager. 

Kyle Boddy is the Minor League Director of Pitching Initiatives and Pitching Coordinator for the Cincinnati Reds as well as the Founder and current President of Driveline Baseball.

Rick Strickland is the Hitting Consultant for the Texas Rangers. Rick has also spent much of his life focused on the swing of a baseball bat. How it slices, what effect it has on the ball and on the game. He has had an illustrious career in America’s favorite sport. He was drafted by the New York Yankees in 1989 and played with the world’s most famous baseball team until 1993 as both an outfielder and an infielder. He then founded the St. Louis Pirates, a nationally recognized College Development Program, in 1996. Due to the program’s efforts, hundreds of student athletes have received college baseball scholarships and many have gone on to play the sport professionally.

Registration is free. All registrants will receive a link to watch the recording once the session concludes.

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Human Performance: Next Level Body and Mind

Bigger. Stronger. Faster. More resilient. Athletes are constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, mesmerizing us not just with their exploits but also their longevity. Human sweat will always rewrite the record books, but technology is now collecting troves of data that can give athletes the best chance of success while allowing us to reverse-engineer how the elite keep evolving. From every conceivable angle, we’ll explore what’s new and next (and futuristic) when it comes to human performance on the fields of play and in everyday life. Sessions are Wednesdays at 12:30 PM ET.