Emma Carman of NESN interviews ChangeUp co-founder, Drew Tripp, about the Safety and Performance Management platform during a broadcast of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League with the North Shore Navigators.
Emma Carman
Emma Carmen here at New Britain Stadium with co-founder of the application ChangeUp, Drew Trip. So Drew: a lot of buzz around this application ChangeUp within the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. Can you just tell us a little bit more about exactly what this application is?
Drew Tripp
Sure. Happy to Emma. ChangeUp is a pitching safety performance management platform. That’s a fancy way of saying we track all the pitching work that all the pitchers in the league are doing. Everything from pitch counts to mandated days of rest. The Futures League has some fairly complex pitching rules to make sure these players are safe and not overthrowing this summer.
It’s also a subjective analytics platform. So the pitching coaches are able to record what they’re observing on the field with each pitching session that every player throws and refer back to that information to help best utilize their players. So it’s safety and performance management while also tracking the sophisticated pitch count rules.
Emma Carman
So drew a big home run there for the Westfield Star Fires. But we’re going to continue on with this. So who exactly is this application made for?
Drew Tripp
It’s really made for baseball programs of all levels. There’s a lot of features baked into it that we think are beneficial at all levels. From Little League all the way up through college. One of the big things that the Futures League is taking advantage of right now is providing visibility for all the college coaches that have their players playing in the league this year. So those college coaches are able to keep track in real-time of all the pitching work, be it sessions and number of innings that each one of their players are throwing, to how frequently they’re throwing.
From Little League up through high school, it’s player-centric, which is one of the big advantages, meaning regardless of what team a player is pitching for at the time, we’re able to track that information and make sure players are getting the appropriate level of rest. This is particularly important for the kids that are playing for multiple programs at the same time and with concurrent seasons.
Emma Carman
So how does this application compare to some of its competitors?
Drew Tripp
In a nutshell, we do pitch count tracking and mandated rest tracking. But what really differentiates us is the analytics platform and also the player-centric nature. So a lot of programs out there will keep track of how much pitching kids are doing. But, but the fact that we are really focused on the player’s safety and performance management, such that we factor in any work that a player is doing from bullpen sessions all the way through pitching sessions for multiple teams, to make sure that they’re getting the appropriate amount of rest. And we’re helping coaches define training regimens to help kids improve in the off season.
Emma Carman
Thank you so much, Drew. Back to you guys up at the booth.
Drew Tripp
Thank you, Emma