Colby Morris

@RobertStock6 It's the question of forward dynamics--we still need to 'guess' what impact a change will have on an athlete's performance: We can only say 'X' change might bring outcome 'Y'. This applies to pitching/jump shot/sprinting and is why there's art to coaching/knowing a player

What is the mental cue it takes to throw it faster, healthier, more control, etc? That seems obvious, but you still have coaches not agreeing that focusing on velocity is valuable, caring that pitch shape is important, etc. Once that’s baseline we can return to “real” coaching.

What’s going to happen in the baseball coaching world, is that the analytics are going to be standard and everybody will know the same things. Pushing for the last ~1% of analytics frontiers will be unimportant compared to the ability to coach a player to ACHIEVE the metrics.

I love the game theory thoughts and I see both pros and cons with the application in game environments: -You are totally right and pitchers give up their advantage when they are repeatable (PitchCom can absolutely gamify this as well for randomness and I think it should be used more) -I think historically, however, baseball has overvalued 'changing eye level' etc. as good hitters will still hit a bad pitch after a 'different' pitch -While variance is crucial, there's a point of diminishing return in throwing your low RV pitch even if unexpected instead of your 'sat-on' high RV pitch

TL/DR: Don’t strategy yourself out of your best inherent strength: the hitter has to guess what is coming, so don’t give him anything to expect.

I consult weekly with college coaching staffs. I’m fascinated by hitter approaches. Most offenses say: “We are sitting __” But pitching staffs actively pitch to their opponents’ weaknesses. A thread on pitch-sequence variance and game strategy:

@tangotiger Yes any kind of review, play type grouped on X-Axis along with score ranges. Y-Axis is # of outs and # of runners

@Colbasaur08 Are you just doing any kind of replay review challenge, not necessarily for ABS? If so, I'll need some time to review (no pun intended) that chart The score is irrelevant for starters, for reasons I've stated in the past

ABS Challenge Breakeven Chart Make this your screen saver or background for your phone or computer For any combo of bases, outs, strikes, balls, this shows how certain player has to be in order to challenge As you can see, bases loaded 3-2 count should be heavily challenged

Un equipo, una nación...Vamos Nicaragua!

Elite mover, easy to dream on this projection and preexisting non-teachable traits. Can’t wait to see how his time at UCLA plays out!!

I'm excited to be part of Team Nicaragua as Head of Analytics & Advance Scouting during this year’s @WBCBaseball Currently in Nicaragua before heading to Miami for the WBC! ¡Vamos!

FT Global MBA Ranking 2026: which schools ranked the highest? ft.trib.al/VyufwzK

@tangotiger In my experience with ABS, the player's hubris and service time was a big factor. Service time/experience led to accuracy, hubris led to angry teammates

Whatever value a catcher is going to lose on Framing because of the ABS-Challenge system (say 10%), a new skill will emerge, the Challenge Skill It will be impressive if a particular catcher is so well-respected that pitchers with their massive egos will defer all challenges

Next steps are to increase video sample size and bucket shooters based on their shot type preferences (jumper vs paint vs 3PT), size, and biomechanical preferences

Video quality is imperfect and sample size needs to be larger, but clearly less ROM on the shot from Curry suggests a shorter stroke is needed in real time. Bigger, non-ball handlers likely have more time to catch and shoot and still get the shot above defenders

NBA Biomechanical Analysis Part II: I dove deeper into what makes a good shooter using Google's MediaPipe and slo mo NBA videos of a few shooters and the same techniques as the SPL Open Data to see if non-free throw elbow extension played as big a role as free throw:

Right-handed submariner Josh Hejka and the Texas Rangers are in agreement on a minor league contract, a source tells ESPN.

I was very confident Ken would get back to 95+ this winter--he was restricted from any drill work in his rehab process, had little mechanical guidance, and picked up some bad habits. Off to the races now, great work @TurnerGivens 👏

@JLucroy20 There's a reason why pitchers trust certain catchers more than others. I agree on the importance of the human factor. Catchers/coaches need to filter data from the front office with 'wellness' information (How the pitcher feels, sleep, batter approach/movement in the box, etc)

I’d be interested to see how this applies to pitch calling and game strategy. I’d also be interested to see how this accounts for factors like a pitcher not feeling his best or not having the feel of his slider etc that day. I’ve seen guys with plus pitches not have them work the way they usually do because of different factors. Emotions, lack of sleep, or even anxiety. Baseball is a human game with human factors involved. Much more than just running data although it does help give a good idea of an approach. That approach has to be balanced out with pitchers stuff that day, their emotional/mental state, their physical state, and their strengths/weaknesses in the repertoire. Maybe they are tipping pitches or maybe they can’t feel the ball because the weather is cold. Again, no perfect game calling/pitching strategy exists, and hitters get paid a ton of money to hit for a reason. Pitching well requires psychological, communicative, and mental aspects that data can’t quantify. (A lot of these things a great catcher can help to navigate) However, to your point, data is important for getting a good idea of a pitchers strengths and out probabilities against a hitters bat path (or swing shape as you put it), but it’s just a part, not the whole story. Final note. During my first big league camp, Jason Kendall ( who caught 15 years in the MLB) pulled me aside and told me that my number 1 job as a catcher was to get the best out of a pitcher on his worst day with his worst stuff. It’s easy to catch a guy when he’s locked in, it’s much harder to do so when he’s battling something, whether his arm, his emotions, etc and he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Free throw biomechanical analysis: Just wrapped an analysis on free throw biomechanics using the open source SPL dataset. Thought hip drive would be the key driver but turns out elbow extension ROM is the strongest predictor of makes. Shorter players especially rely on full extension to get necessary arc. github.com/colbymorris08/… Interesting cross-sport applications could be the influence of other distal kinetic chain drivers on 'command' and optimal arc/angle such as knee extension in a soccer kick and wrist extension in the throw. Maybe looseness and accessing full ROM at this stage could be a strong predictor of motor control?

@pcyadog @Chase_Senior yeah this didn't quite do the same numbers as @hreinertsen55

@Chase_Senior If my apartment is in the north end zone, do I get season tickets when I’m evicted?

Many 49ers fans would love to see the Niners move back to San Francisco, throwing it back to the Candlestick Park days, when the 49ers won their five Super Bowls. How would you feel about a stadium design like this? Golden Gate Bridge as the backdrop, still an outdoor stadium with a natural grass surface. #49ers

@RobertStock6 Totally agree- it’s drastically sped up my development recently

Claude is soooo superior to Gemini for me (a noob) because it tries to troubleshoot things with logical solutions outside of generating new code. Gemini was only tries to give you new code and Claude is like "did you try hitting the right button?"