The Dodgers are bringing in new technology to try to prevent injuries:

Kitman Labs, a sports technology company with a history of providing European teams with data regarding athlete management and injury prevention, has worked with the Dodgers for a year to develop a comprehensive program specifically tailored to baseball players. Stan Conte, the Dodgers’ vice president of medical services, said that he hopes to use biometric measurements with other workload metrics to identify players who might be at risk for injuries. He noted that the system had proven effective for professional soccer and rugby teams, and thinks it could work for baseball, as well.

“We’re extremely intrigued by the concept and the potential of this system and now it’s off the drawing board and into application,” Conte said. “We’re interested to see: Will it alert us to problems before they occur?”

Here’s an interesting blog post from Kitman Labs on baseball injuries. In general, I like the idea of developing machine learning algorithms to detect fatigue and changes in motion before a human can pick up on the difference. Getting a pitcher out of a game before he’s pitching too tired may be the best way to prevent the elbow injuries we see far too much.