BOONE, N.C. – One of the most important components to team success is chemistry – the science of substance and matter. When App State baseball steps into its new laboratory this season, it will mix biomechanics and mathematics into its winning formula.
The new state-of-the-art pitching lab is an exemplary lesson in collaboration. A vision of head coach
Kermit Smith six years ago, the lab is now a reality, thanks to pioneers within the athletics department and academic leadership, combined with the generosity of some of the program's biggest supporters.
"I don't know that this isn't the definition of higher education," Smith said. "What an opportunity to collaborate on, not only ways to serve our student-athletes and ways to serve our baseball program, but also ways to serve our students and ways to serve our professors. That's what's really exciting."
While there might not be any beakers or test tubes in
this lab, the process could not be any more scientific. The technology helps break down the unique makeup of every pitcher on the team, utilizing advanced data and analytics, combined with high-tech slow-motion cameras, to improve performance and minimize injury.
"A pitching lab is a bunch of fancy toys that diagnose how the body moves in space," App State pitching coach Ricky Meinhold said.
This lab not only has proven tools, but also a proven teacher. Meinhold, who was hired in July, has 13 years of baseball coaching experience, highlighted by his time as the New York Mets assistant Major League pitching coach in 2021. He has used this technology at multiple stops along his baseball journey and is well-versed in the best practices of its utilization.
"There is a performance side that deals with the results of baseball, and then from a health standpoint, we try to diagnose and understand the individual better," Meinhold said. "We are trying to maximize the efficiency of how they get the energy from the ground through their body, out their hand and through the ball, to throw the ball over home plate. We're also using it to assess the athlete from a physical standpoint – to find proficiencies and deficiencies in their athletic movements."
Meinhold acknowledges that every student-athlete learns differently, and part of his job is figuring out which method of teaching is optimal for each of his pitchers' understanding. But having the lab at his disposal allows him to show them exactly what he sees and where they can improve.
"It takes a village; it's not just one pitching coach," Meinhold said. "We get them into the lab to assess them initially, and we find their finger print on a biomechanics side. The first assessment figures out what each pitcher is made up of athletically, from a movement standpoint."
From there, a comprehensive performance plan is devised to help each pitcher improve his body and mechanics in a variety of areas. Meinhold uses the intel produced by the lab readings to collaborate with members of the App State baseball support staff. The data is used create a strength and conditioning plan for each pitcher, based upon each player's muscle build and mechanics. The plan also dictates preventative athletic training treatment, bases on identified inefficiencies and deficiencies that could lead to injury.
On the pitching side, it is used by Meinhold and Jim Leggett, the Director of Baseball Operations – Pitching Performance, to help pitchers maximize efficiency with their mechanics and grip on the baseball. Throughout the season, there are assessments to monitor each player's progression and inform necessary changes to his individualized development program.
The difference between App State and Meinhold's previous stops is that the lab in Boone is brand new – and his to mold.
"It's super invigorating," Meinhold said. "That's what you want to do as a coach — you want to make players better, and if you have every tool to do it – it's awesome. Then, you're in Boone, and it's beautiful, and you have the community aspect of Boone and all the people around us that we get to work with. It's pretty cool."
The lab opened for business on Sept. 8. Right-handed pitcher
Bradley Wilson climbed atop the mound, and eight KinaTrax cameras mounted all around him locked in on his every move.
One camera behind him zeroed in tight on his fingertips right at his release point. A small sensor in a skin-tight sleave on his pitching arm captured the movement of every muscle, while the Mountaineers' TrackMan machine measured each rotation of the baseball from his hand to catcher
Braxton Church's mitt.
Pop!
Church's laces snapped as the fastball hit the pocket. On a TV screen behind the mound, each piece of data from the pitch was displayed – velocity, spin rate, vertical and horizontal movement – and the slow-motion video played back the intricacies of his delivery. It was poetry in motion.
All eyes were trained on Wilson, and each App State pitcher who followed throughout the afternoon. And as each pitch landed in the glove, everyone turned back to the monitor for instant feedback. It was impossible not to notice the entire village at work.
"At one point in our first day of capture, we had about 10-11 people behind the mound, and only one of them was a part of our coaching staff," Smith said.
Students in App State's exercise science and data analytics programs were running the data capture, led by professors Dr. Travis Triplett and Dr. René Salinas, respectively. The two of them began collaborating with Smith on his vision six years ago.
"As a coach, you have high ambitions for everything you want to create," Smith said.
While the conversations may have spanned six years, the biggest hurdle was funding. That changed when one generous Mountaineers supporter rallied the troops to come up with the funds needed to make Smith's ambition a reality.
Kermit Smith (center) with Travis Triplett (left) and René Salinas (right)
Over the last five months, Smith, along with Triplett, Salinas, and other influential members of the App State athletics department, formed a team to get the project to the finish line. This involved many zoom calls and even a site visit to a similar lab at another institution.
This team was not only working toward the installation of the lab itself, but the formulation of a plan for how to integrate baseball with academics.
"It is truly great to be a part of a university that is blending athletics and academics," Triplett said. "The future of sports performance is dependent on the ability of academic and athletic departments to collaborate because sport science is the merging of science and application (coaching)."
Smith and Salinas began working together in 2017 to develop an analytics program for students. Since the program's implementation, seven App State students have earned a certificate, centered around the use of the TrackMan radar system. Now students have even more tools in their arsenal.
"Having a cutting-edge biomechanics lab will give our students an experience they could only get at a few universities, Salinas said. "Analytics, in a nut shell, is manipulating large data sets in creative and meaningful ways to find patterns in the data. Our students will work with the coaches to develop creative visualizations of the complex data to benefit the players. It's real-world experience."
The lab will be used primarily for internship-type academic courses, with students running the capture of analytical and biomechanical data and collaborating with the coaching staff on the utilization. This isn't just a state-of-the-art tool for pitchers to improve their craft, but a vehicle to give future scientists the hands-on experience necessary to set them up for success beyond their time at App State.
"With the types of technology being used in sports now, the ability of students to utilize the latest equipment and software to analyze complex movements and translate that information into practical application for improving sport performance provides valuable learning experiences that will make them very competitive for sport science positions in collegiate and professional sports," Triplett said.
The lab is one of just a handful across all of college baseball. Some Major League organizations don't even have the technology that the Mountaineers are utilizing.
"We're going to recruit really good baseball players to come here because they want to be a part of this, but we're also going to recruit really good students to come to our university to study this," Smith said.
The App State coaching staff is firm in its belief that this addition will not only accelerate App State's pitching development, but also separate App State in recruiting, not only within the Sun Belt, but across the entire country.
"Guys know that they are going to get the best state-of-the-art player development because we have all the tools they need to succeed," Meinhold said. "And then you combine the human piece of who is leading it – with Kermit and our staff – you get the coaching aspect as well. It just adds layers of player development that you can't get everywhere.
"You'd want to play for that, right?"
