This video is of the performance indicator testing we did the first day of spring training in 1993 with the Chicago White Sox minor league player development system. I found this video when I was going through some boxes a couple of weeks ago. In light of the baseball winter meeting going on now I thought it would be something worthwhile to share. We tested 160 players in three hours. Since we had very little little turnover in key personnel we had the same people administering the same tests for all nine years, thus insuring a high degree of validity and reliability. I was able to start this in 1988 and continue for nine years. The vision and support of Larry Himes the general manager and Al Goldis, the farm and scouting director gave this administrative support needed to get it going. Needless to say this was and is way outside the norm in professional baseball so their support was necessary to get it started. We collected an amazing amount of data that enabled us to profile our players by position and to track their physical progress during their years in the CWS development system. It gave us baseline data for return to play if there was an injury. The information aided us in scouting because we had developed physical profiles from the test data to compare prospective draft choices. As I look back at this I realize how blessed I was to have the administrative support and the help of the coaches and trainers to do this. It was a massive project that paid rich dividends to the organization.Innovation and change is possible!
