Mariners Spring Training Schedule Could Help Give Players an Edge

Mariners Announce 2018 Cactus League Schedule

More night games during Spring Training will help get the players prepped for the routine of regular season start times, and potentially have a positive impact on performance.

Lorena Martin, PhD, the Mariners newly appointed Director of High Performance, who has a background in physiology, psychology, sports science and statistical analysis, says the role a regular sleep pattern plays in performance is one of the last frontiers of athletic training.

High performance athletes have long understood the benefits of physical training, then nutrition, and recently mental skills. Now, she says, they’re starting to recognize the importance of adequate sleep.

Martin says nighttime sleep helps the body fight off inflammation and recover more quickly from strenuous activity and even injury. It also helps with mental function.

“When you don’t get enough sleep it is well known that your cognitive abilities are not optimal and that could cause you to have a lack of coordination and maybe not be at your best performance,” says Martin. “For a batter, seeing the pitch coming at him, a millisecond of response time could be the difference between a hit and a strikeout.”

Telling someone the benefits of adequate sleep is one thing, but backing it up with data is another. That’s why Martin is searching for the right technology to help monitor the players’ sleep habits, everything from the number of hours to the quality of sleep, even tracking the cycles the body goes through during sleep.

“I would use the data to match with their on-field performance to show them, when you don’t sleep enough, this is what happens,” says Martin.

Martin believes that kind of direct cause-benefit analysis is what will help get the players to buy into the program.

“You can’t force the athletes to do it. But give them the information. These guys are already highly motivated, and there could be enough incentive for them to take advantage of an opportunity to get an edge,” says Martin.

When General Manager Jerry Dipoto announced Martin’s hiring in October, he commented on the benefits of using big data to help in both injury prevention and performance enhancement. This is one of the ways, in Dipoto’s words, Martin can “better assist the team in staying healthy and, ultimately, winning more games.”

You can check out the Mariners full 2018 Spring Training Schedule at Mariners.com/Spring.