The baseball pitch is a repetitive, full-body throwing motion that exposes the elbow to significant loads, leading to a high incidence of elbow injuries. Elbow injuries in pitching are often attributed to high external valgus torques as these are generally considered to be a good proxy for the load on the Ulnar Collateral Ligament. The aim of the study is to contribute to elbow load monitoring by developing a prediction model based on the pelvis and trunk peak angular velocities and their separation time. Eleven male youth elite baseball pitchers (age 17 ± 2.2 years) threw 25 fastballs at full effort off a mound. Two-level varying-intercept, varying-slope Bayesian models were used to predict external valgus torque based on (inter)segmental rotation in fastball pitching with pitcher’s weight and height added to strengthen the individualisation of the prediction. The results revealed the high predictive performance of the models including a set of kinematic parameters trunk peak angular velocity and the separation time between the pelvis and trunk peak angular velocities. Such an approach allows individualised prediction of the external valgus torque for each pitcher, which has a great practical advantage compared to group-based predictions in terms of injury assessment and injury prevention.

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Sport-related injuries occur due to a complex interaction of many internal and external risk factors gathered in a pattern of either positive adaptation (increased fitness), or negative adaptation (injury). The repetitive nature of the high-speed full-body pitching movement exposes the pitcher’s elbow to high loads. This thesis illustrates a novel approach to individualised injury risk prediction that accounts for the dynamics of the injury development process. The integration of advanced monitoring techniques plays an important role in the pursuit of high-level sports performance. The utilization of wearable sensors serves that purpose. It allows continuous athlete assessment and provides feedback on the relevant health and performance metrics in real–time. The methods established in the thesis offer solutions for dealing with different quality, time scale and hierarchical data structures collected with high-end wearable sensors, self-reported questionnaires and motion capture systems. Integration of the available data from different sources and implementation of the statistical models that can translate them to the relevant outcome provides actionable insights for performance improvement and injury prevention. Adding these statistical methods is a chance for training and injury-prevention programs to continue to improve.@en

The large stream of data from wearable devices integrated with sports routines has changed the traditional approach to athletes’ training and performance monitoring. However, one of the challenges of data-driven training is to provide actionable insights tailored to individual training optimization. In baseball, the pitching mechanics and pitch type play an essential role in pitchers’ performance and injury risk management. The optimal manipulation of kinematic and temporal parameters within the kinetic chain can improve the pitcher’s chances of success and discourage the batter’s anticipation of a particular pitch type. Therefore, the aim of this study was to provide a machine learning approach to pitch type classification based on pelvis and trunk peak angular velocity and their separation time recorded using wearable sensors (PITCHPERFECT). The Naive Bayes algorithm showed the best performance in the binary classification task and so did Random Forest in the multiclass classification task. The accuracy of Fastball classification was 71%, whilst the accuracy of the classification of three different pitch types was 61.3%. The outcomes of this study demonstrated the potential for the utilization of wearables in baseball pitching. The automatic detection of pitch types based on pelvis and trunk kinematics may provide actionable insight into pitching performance during training for pitchers of various levels of play.@en

Ball velocity is considered an important performance measure in baseball pitching. Proper pitching mechanics play an important role in both maximising ball velocity and injury-free participation of baseball pitchers. However, an individual pitcher’s characteristics display individuality and may contribute to velocity imparted to the ball. The aim of this study is to predict ball velocity in baseball pitching, such that prediction is tailored to the individual pitcher, and to investigate the added value of the individuality to predictive performance. Twenty-five youth baseball pitchers, members of a national youth baseball team and six baseball academies in The Netherlands, performed ten baseball pitches with maximal effort. The angular velocity of pelvis and trunk were measured with IMU sensors placed on pelvis and sternum, while the ball velocity was measured with a radar gun. We develop three Bayesian regression models with different predictors which were subsequently evaluated based on predictive performance. We found that pitcher’s height adds value to ball velocity prediction based on body segment rotation. The developed method provides a feasible and affordable method for ball velocity prediction in baseball pitching@en