Data and Discipline...and Dingers
Pontem Performance (Baseball): A Rockie Journey to Cooperstown
With 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) Opening Day just around the corner, we wanted to share a bit about our own team of baseball prospects here at Pontem.
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball…It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. (Field of Dreams)
For as long as I can remember, baseball has been part of my life (and my family’s life) - from watching, to playing, to a brother who played in college, to my fleeting thought of trying out for the Detroit Tigers during a strike-shortened season in college - and now to coaching. In a post last year, I mentioned one of the reasons I left ‘Corporate America’ was the desire to have more free time for things I wanted to do, which included coaching youth sports. Not sure a business startup gives you MORE time, but it gives you some control of YOUR time. 10+ years in and I have more memories (and stitches) than I can count from my coaching days.
At some point along the way, I got tired of working within the larger community organizations. Don’t get my wrong, I really enjoyed getting to work with ALL kinds of personalities (both kids and their parents). But - in what seems to be a common theme with me - the idea of working within someone else’s structure wasn’t that appealing. I wanted some element of control. Plus, training was getting more specialized and the better talent was already leaving for higher-end programs, sometimes as early as 6 years old. I wouldn’t have believed that if you told me years ago. But, that is today’s reality. Adapt or die.
So, what do you do when you have access to (a) talented kids, (b) their supportive parents, (c) some subject matter knowledge in the sport, (d) the time/energy to build something from the ground-up, and (e) and the willingness to suck at something new…you start your own team.
Five years ago, we started KTX Heat - a youth baseball organization across multiple age groups out of Katy, TX (i.e. the KTX…), which gave an opportunity for kids to play and be trained/developed at an advanced level. And stay together to develop as a team. On our own terms. I thought starting companies was hard - it was NOTHING compared to starting a youth athletic program. Numerical simulations / client presentations were a breeze compared to setting a weekend batting lineup / pitching rotation!
Professional Sports vs. Oilfield Owners
Being in Houston, we have a very multicultural city with kids from all backgrounds. And, our teams have been no different - smart kids, multi-sport athletes, teachers’ kids, band nerds, mathletes, immigrants, and of course oilfield kids! We have often served as a home for oilfield families, sharing the burden of them being away (onsite / offshore / on-rotation) and taken a community approach to shuffle kids to practices, games, and tournaments. The oilfield community has played a big and supportive role within the KTX organization. In fact, as last count, we have coached 52 of my professional LinkedIn connections’ kids/relatives! In fact, some of the very first boys I ever coached will be getting internship offers this summer with Pontem. Oof.
After all, isn’t it the dream of most oilmen to ultimately own sports teams?
National Football League (NFL): Lamar Hunt (Kansas City Chiefs) and Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys). You can almost count Steve Biscotti (Baltimore Ravens), as he had a staffing agency for aerospace engineers.
English Premier League (EPL): Roman Abramovich (Chelsea FC) and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Man City FC)…but maybe we should leave Abramovich off this list..
Major League Baseball (MLB): Ray Davis (Texas Rangers / Energy Transfer). Although, I am personally partial to pizza magnate Mike Illitch (Detroit Tigers / Detroit Red Wings) of Little Caesar’s Pizza fortune…
Sponsorships
Ever since our first company, we have used our platform to support /sponsor youth athletic teams. Shameless branding for sure, but also a way to give back. In fact, we made it open for all employee parents that we would help sponsor their child’s teams. And give them the time to volunteer. In those early days, we chose the Colorado Rockies as our adoptive team / spirit animal. Ironically, two of our very first players where Colorado transplants - because, well, oilfield… In the years since, I believe our win/loss record is better than theirs.
For a Good Cause
We have been fortunate to support bigger causes than our own, annually sponsoring and playing in charity tournaments that raise awareness for bigger issues. Getting the kids to wear pink (Breast Cancer) was always a highlight of our season, but also teaching them about why we are doing this and making them understand there is a bigger purpose. Definitely an opportunity made easier when you are in charge (of both the team and the company).
Side note: Without naming names, this one hits home especially hard for one of former kids and co-worker just now. We are thinking about you…
Community Involvement
We also partnered with the local Houston-area minor league baseball team since inception, sponsoring the Sugar Land Skeeters (Space Cowboys, now), cementing our commitment to youth sports and community involvement. We even came up with - in my humble opinion - the most unique ballpark signage . Shout out to the marketing team at MoxieSozo for coming up with the graphic below. There are nine (9) baseball movies embedded in the signage - can you find them?? This was always a great talking point with our clients. Only a few people have found all 9…but they would always text/call with their guesses. Super exposure.
We even had company personnel featured on their social media posts for Thirsty Thursday - perfect opportunity for team building, which really helped solidify our own company culture. And, a pretty spot-on representation of the company culture at the time.
Thinking Beyond the Drill Bit
Continuing the company/baseball theme, we held several technical seminars out of Denver…most of which ended up at a baseball game. Some of the first oilfield industry events to focused on unique experiences. From 2015 until our last company event in 2021, we invaded Coors Field five times (out of 7). Those baseball-themed collaborations on Blake Street led to meaningful client interactions and development of so many valuable friendships. Definitely a bittersweet day at that last Rockies event, but still met amazing people that day. “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” (Moneyball)
Pontem | Cooperstown (Summer 2024)
Now, we have a new company adventure with our baseball / oilfield kids:
In June 2024, the Pontem-sponsored KTX Heat baseball team has been invited to play against the “best of the best” at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
If agreeing to coach / develop a group of 12-year-olds isn’t ambitious enough…try agreeing to take them all to New York for a week. Out-of-office notification will be rolling out 31-May.
For any of those watching social media closely, this is the same tournament celebrity Alyssa Milano recently asked for support to fundraise (and was properly roasted). For this summer, Pontem has covered the cost for our kids to stay/play. Continuing an oilfield community trend to support our own, we are fortunate to have the financial support needed to send our kids there…and not pass the hat like poor Alyssa.
Baseball and Analytics
You're not solving the problem. You're not even looking at the problem. We've got to think differently. (Moneyball)
Ok, back to Data and Discipline. There may not be a sport that has been more of an early analytics adopter than baseball. Due to the high number of ‘events’ (games, at-bats, pitches, etc.) that are measurable, baseball lends itself to a data-driven approach to help optimize performance. When to swing, where to stand, what to throw, etc. Its a bit like card counting in Vegas.
John Dewitt Interview
We sat down with Dr. John Dewitt, Director of Applied Sports Science at Rice University. Dr. Dewitt has 30+ years of sport science consulting with professional and collegiate programs in various sports utilizing evidence-based biomechanics, and data analysis to achieve optimal athletic performance and full potential. He also has 20+ years as a Senior Exercise Scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center, charged with leading research to improve astronaut health and performance.
Specific to baseball, we wanted to discuss all things analytics, technology, and sports performance, particularly looking at youth sports.
What are some of the biggest mistakes you see coaches make when it comes to handling elite-level youth athletes?
This is a great question. Coaches must try things to help players improve, mainly because individuals are different requiring specific instruction. One of the biggest mistakes made, however, is treating the youth athlete as if they are an adult. I mean treating them as if their body has fully matured. We often deal with a team of players maturing at different rates in youth sports. Science tells us that as we go through puberty, our Skeleton and Physiology change, and various tissues change at different rates. It is possible to develop muscles through strength training or field-based exercises that are strong enough to pull themselves away from their insertion in the bone. The exercises the coaches give the player may be appropriate if done at a lower volume or intensity. In our society, we often think more must be better, which can be a mistake. We can easily overload players, especially those at the youth level.
How has technology helped (or hurt) development of youth players?
I want to say that technology has helped the development of youth players. I played baseball growing up and was coached and taught by my father, who was drafted into the major leagues out of high school when he was young. This was back when signing bonuses like today didn't exist. He did not sign, and he went to college and studied engineering. He was a great baseball coach in Ohio, winning many youth city and high school state championships. I was a decent baseball player from the hitting side, but my arm was weak. Having simple technology that we take for granted today, like our cell phone camera, would have made a world of difference in my development. The ability to assess the errors in throwing techniques using video and compare one player to another or to themselves earlier can help accelerate development.
What are the most easily preventable baseball injuries that you see and how can technology/data be used to help reduce those?
This is a hard question to answer, because in youth and amateur baseball, injuries vary. From the pitching side, we are always concerned about elbow injury. Elbow injury will occur if the forces and torques at the elbow are larger than our tissue can endure. force and torque increases when we throw faster. Stronger muscles can help to protect against injury, but we have that trade-off of too much strength for our younger players could actually hurt them. this is where physical testing and Technology can help us to better understand current capability and potential injury risk. there is technology available both on the video side, and on the elbow measurement side, that can help to quantify loads at the elbow and to identify if a player is at increased risk. On the non-pitching side, a potential injury factor that can occur is a pulled muscle. Pulled hamstrings are one of the most common injuries that science says can be prevented by increasing hamstring strength. Pulled hamstring occurs when the muscle is eccentrically creating force but the required force is greater than the muscle is capable of, so the muscle tears. Technology like force plates and Nord boards can help to quantify in balances and weakness in the hamstring, which can be beneficial in helping to reduce injury risk.
What does the future look like for those 6-10 year old athlete just starting out, as they progress to the collegiate level, as it relates to technology? Where are the next advancements in data-leveraged training going to be?
Right now, we're in the position where we are collecting an immense amount of data, but we aren't using it to its full advantage. Nothing is wrong with that; it's just that the influx of data is greater than the rate at which we are making the data useful. The following advancements will be in machine learning and AI to help process data faster and lead to better uses of the data. We'll always need experts, like coaches and biomechanics specialists. The technology will get the data processed faster, so more significant impacts can be made with insights generated from the evidence. A major issue with sports performance data is that it gets stale fast. Collecting info from a pitcher throwing today but not being able to coach him until weeks have passed due to data processing makes the data stale. We need to keep the data fresh.
With things like sabermetrics, baseball is perceived to be at the cutting edge of data analytics for player evaluation. How have you seen the game evolve over time in terms of incorporating technology into player development in baseball, as compared to other sports?
Baseball is a beautiful sport that lends itself easily to statistical analyses. The simple fact that the game involves actions with a defined start and stop makes it easier to quantify with stats than games like basketball or soccer, where the game continues without stoppage. Interestingly, it took until the Saber metrics guys started doing their work for people to realize how data can be instrumental in understanding the game. Statistics show us many things already known by the eye but are frowned upon because they weren't expected in the game. For example, when I was growing up, batting average was prioritized. To score, you have to get on base, and it doesn't matter how you get on base as long as you get on base. Using on-base average or something similar to quantify effectiveness makes more sense. But it took decades for baseball to grasp this. Baseball has evolved to a place where good and evil exist over time. These are all based on statistics. Statistics that are easy to learn are pitch velocity and spin rate, leading players to try to maximize one or both of these areas. This is a positive because it provides a quantitative method to compare players. But it's also a negative in that it has led to the development of pictures that are over-reliant on velocity. The same happens on the batting side, where run production is prioritized over putting the ball into play. We end up with games with home runs and strikeouts. The overall match remains the same, but the enjoyment for the fan has changed. The same thing has happened in other sports. Football teams are going for it on 4th down and short. I chuckle when commentators refer to this as analytics when, in fact, it's just playing the percentages and taking the risk of gaining the few yards that you typically would gain on a similar place. In soccer, the game has become faster with the quantification of player movement on the field. Still, there is a price to be paid for creativity because stronger, faster players become prioritized over smaller players who may be more creative.
What are some of the most underrated predictors/metrics of a player’s ability to perform (and/or stay healthy)?
We tend to focus on what happens on the field, but our athletes live 24 hours daily. One metric that science has shown to significantly contribute to success in any sport is sleep. It's not about getting more sleep as much as it is about getting the sleep you need to recover. The science shows that any potential protocol can be created to help a player recover. Still, if they don't have adequate sleep, it doesn't matter. Another under-rated predictor of success is the ability of a player to work repeatedly on the areas of their game that need improvement. The best at the game, any game, are typically the ones who spend the most time in the gym, on the field, or on the court. It's easy to think that they have to spend this time because they're the best, but the truth is that they are the best because they spend this time. This time does not have to be hard physical work. It's more mentally challenging because players don't like to practice things they're not very good at. But this is a massive separator between the great and the good - the capability to repeatedly embrace struggle and work on weaknesses.
For more information from Dr. Dewitt, check out his website: https://dewittmethod.com/
Leveraging Computer Vision
Being a data-driven company that is sponsoring (“owning”) a baseball team, was there any doubt that we wouldn’t go full engineering nerd and use advanced data techniques in our training?? Not Ivan Drago / Rocky IV-level training, but we are embracing the tools available to improve performance.
We have incorporated technology into our team’s training, bringing high-end analytics into everyday tools (i.e. our smartphones). Below are a couple videos taken and analyzed using Aikynetix AI-powered human motion capture…which they have repurposed in this case for baseball analytics.
The power of the technology as a training tool is limitless: remote training (i.e. mom/dad are onsite and can’t be there), consistency (how are we improving), mapping vs. ideal swing (how does this compare to Jose Altuve), coaching (coaches can see/review all of our kids and spend enough time with them), self-assessment (our kids can review their own videos), etc., etc. All of this from a simple iPhone camera…. Click the videos below to see some of the captures / statistics.
The fact that now, the ability to get portable and on-demand analyses is so simple, even a 12 year old can use it, is game-changing for the way we train and coach. Sports-aside, this showcases the early adoption - and expectation - of technology coming with the next generation, at-home and in the workplace. The need for details, the ease of accessibility, the visualization - all of this ‘gamification’ is going to be so engrained in our youth that it will undoubtedly filter through our workplace of the future in some form or fashion. No more yelling “keep your elbow up” - we can (a) decide if that is a smart statement from a biomechanics perspective, (b) we can show it, and (c) kids/coaches can watch / rewatch / repeat on-demand. And sometimes, we have to get our reps in wherever we can (including a messy garage, Shoeless Joe-style). Isn’t technology wonderful!?
For more with what Aikynetix is going, visit them at https://aikynetix.com/
Startups: Business and Baseball
Like most startups, the KTX Heat lost a lot in the early days. Fun fact - did you know there is a mercy rule after 2 innings? No, me neither, but we found out there was. And I made a lot of mistakes. More than I care to count.
But, we kept showing up. Trust the process. Play the long game. Its easy to run-and-hide when things get rocky (or should I say Rockie?). Baseball is a sport of failure (3 out of 10 gets you paid millions), which is a hard concept to grasp. The resilience, grit, and hard work demonstrated by the kids (and parents who bought into the culture) is now finally starting to show up in the product on the field. In this culture of “Gettin’ Mine”, job hoping, and social media humble brags, we saw the benefits of often-overlooked qualities such as honesty and loyalty. That’s the great thing about kids that you don’t always get with adults - brutal honesty! We were committed to feedback (even when it would hurt), pushing everyone’s limits, and wining/losing together as a team, allowing us to build a cohesive culture. We kept the team intact, tweaking only when necessary and not looking for greener pastures during hard times. Is it any surprise that the 3 kids remaining from our very first practice are all oilfield kids?? I can’t say enough about their determination and tenacity to stay with the program and see it through to the end.
I have probably learned more about building teams from this, as compared to anything in the business world. Much like a startup, the early growing pains ultimately turn into those satisfying victories when you have the right team around you. And the patience to see it through. Time spent laboring for something you love (and people think you are crazy because of it). With our Heat teams nearing their twilight and Pontem still in its infancy, I see so many parallels between both ‘startups’. Mastering a new pitch, defeating a difficult team, and late-night team meals at Denny’s are juxtaposed against winning a new client, taking on a difficult project, and late-night brainstorming sessions with your inner circle. And the occasional adult beverage to get through both. Its the journey, not always the destination, that gets remembered. And that’s so hard to forget when you are in the mud, building something.
In the case of the Heat, the ultimate byproduct is not wins/losses, but the development of outstanding young men who are respectful, understand the value of hard work, ;learn to overcome failure, and all have bright futures outside of the sport. Maybe they will go on to be doctors or engineers (Pontem?!)…or even D-1 athletes. But for the next few months…they are all baseball kids!
As the 2024 MLB baseball season kicks off and every team is tied for first (0-0), there is always hope that your team will stand alone in October as World Series champions. But, if you don’t have a rooting interest in one of them - or if you just want to get behind a scrappy team with a bunch of oilfield kids - then feel free to cheer on Pontem’s KTX Heat kids as they make their way to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer. Queue the Peso Pluma walk-up music and let’s go…
Let’s have a toast. Here’s to baseball: and to the start of great careers.
And for me, here’s to one more good year in the sun (Jake Taylor - Major League)
