by: Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik
Like many Philadelphia sports fans, I have a fake Twitter account.
Mine is a parody account of the Philadelphia Phillies manager Gabe Kapler. It’s neither funny nor successful, but while live Tweeting a Phillies game from the account, I saw baseball writer and stat nerd Ben Lindbergh was promoting his new book through a contest.
So, I retweeted, and low and behold, I was one of the three winners. I woke up to a DM from Lindbergh asking for my address and if I wanted a special inscription in the book or just a signature. If it weren’t so early in the morning, and I wasn’t so surprised I had actually won, I may have asked for something witty in the inscription, but instead it just came with two signitures.
I read Lindbergh’s previous book, The Only Rule is it Has to Work which I enjoyed. I also enjoy the “Effectively Wild” podcast he hosts. Sawchik is another accomplished baseball writer, so I had high hopes for their collaborative effort.
Lindbergh and Sawchik’s book is about players getting better at any point in their career through innovative technologies and unusual training regimens.
This is not a book about front offices wheeling and dealing, and they make it a point almost immediately that this book isn’t Moneyball part 2.
Whereas Michael Lewis’ Moneyball focuses on finding value in players through combing their stats and eschewing outdated scouting logic, The MVP Machine explores the idea that players can make themselves more valuable through, well, essentially practice.
The authors use the story of Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer as the piece of string that holds the book together, and some of the most interesting passages in the 341 page book come from Bauer.
Bauer comes off as a prickly individual who questions everything and is very set in his belief that his way of doing things is the correct way, and no one will change that. On the other hand, he may be a genius.
Many of the stories about Bauer transforming himself from a non-athlete, to a good pitcher to an ace are used as jumping off points to explore the new methods of practice the authors are interested in.
For example, Bauer trains at Driveline Baseball in Seattle, where super high tech cameras record every pitch he throws in incredible slow-motion so he can see each split second of movement which can be the difference between a good pitch and one that a professional hitter would smoke.
Driveline is just one of these baseball “gyms” that we get an inside peak at in the book. Others focus on hitting, where we get a facinating chapter on hitting guru Doug Latta and his work with Mookie Betts and Justin Turner. Side note, if you don’t recognize the names Mookie Betts or Trevor Bauer, this book may not be for you. While you don’t need a working knowledge of the MLB and it’s players to enjoy The MVP Machine I think it would help.
The high-tech methods utilized by some of the biggest names in the game are very well explained and easy to understand, but the most interesting part of the book is where Lindbergh puts himself through some of the tests used by Driveline and the like.
While everyone reading knows Lindbergh will not test like a professional baseball player, it’s interesting how in some cases through utilizing technology to expose the inefficiencies in his approach, he actually improves rather quickly.
The MVP Machine has many entertaining pieces, but it becomes rote. It begins to feel like each chapter is the same as one you’ve previously read with a player going to one of these new-fangled baseball workshops and improving their velocity or launch angle.
An overly long chapter about how the Houston Astros use many cutting edge training methods and proof that it shows on the field seems like a love letter to a team we already know is good, but it’s followed by stories of college and high school clubs beginning to take advantage these innovations which is thought-provoking.
It’s the story of Bauer that kept me interested throughout the book. The mental makeup of Bauer is probably more interesting than any of the weighted-balls, cameras or motion capture sensors in book. Without giving anything away, I’ll leave you with the words velo slap.
No, it’s not Moneyball, but a scene from the Brad Pitt film based on the book stuck in my head while I read The MVP Machine.
Pitt, playing Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane takes a meeting with John Henry of the Red Sox. Beane is upset from being ousted from the playoffs early once again, despite his statistics based approach to building his team.
Henry is reassuring, telling him that “the first guy through the wall always gets bloody.”
That is Trevor Bauer. While he may not be at the forefront of this new way to practice, he is certainly the most active participant in it, and he takes some lumps because of it.
Whether it’s using cameras that would make James Cameron blush to record every pitch he throws in the off-season, or the “tube” he uses to loosen up on game days, Bauer a black sheep when it comes to baseball practice.
Of course, not everyone is in lockstep with Bauer. Baseball to many is a just a beautiful game that’s been played the same way forever, and new technologies and physics have no place in it.
If you want a book about green grass, the crack of the bat and the smell of steaming hot dogs, The MVP Machine won’t deliver.
What it will give you are interesting insights into a game that is mechanical and vicious, coated in the mask of beauty.
Read Options 