I don’t think you need sabermetric centric analysts for it but I’ve always been interested in psychological assessment.

The initial reason I became interested in it was I remember reading stories about how John Smoltz was nearly out of baseball before a sport psychologist helped him get on track. It came to my attention because he actually gave the sport psychologist credit for his eventual HoF career in a few interviews. It’s sort of corny but all those sayings about sports being largely mental yet a lot of people in athletics still shy away from it.

I’m not sure any sound work that stands up against hundreds, thousands of tests will ever be completed but that has been something that I’ve found interesting.

but how biomechanical analysis can help pitchers fine tune their mechanics

I’d probably set them to work trying to measure manager performance. See if there’s anyway of measuring their impact on the teams they have managed over the years.

Hiring 3 such minds at 80k each for a year would still be much cheaper than even a minimum salary player, but it’s not hard to imagine the returns of such dedicated research being worth much, much more to a team than that cost.

Pitching has a lot more progress to make. I’m not satisfied with TINSTAAPP. Give me biomechanical analysis to tune mechanics and a rigorously tested and optimized training program. Let me know whether the pitch counts common today truly make sense. Should we change the size of rotations? Make more use of piggybacking? Are there pitches I should tell my pitchers not to throw? There are lots of things we could optimize if we thoroughly and meticulously documented the training, mechanics, and performance of a generation of pitchers.

Besides the conditioning and health issues, I want to see much more emphasis on coaching pitchers, teaching them to pitch, and having scouts look for pitchers who are very teachable.

five man rotation, set up man, closer is such orthodoxy nowadays, but is it even close to being the best way to utilize pitchers? How should pitchers be utilized?

I would have them create the optimal roster for the organization. For example, given the rotation, what would be the optimal defensive profile of all other 8 positions. Given the expected runs allowed by these optimal pitcher defense combo, find position players that fit the defensive requirements that will collectively generate more runs than the expected runs allowed + xstandard deviations.
This will imply creating a rotation first and then getting the fielders given that profile if the team already has a steady rotation or top pitching prospects, or start with the players and then find the pitchers. It would take a lot of wheeling and dealing but once the profile for the ideal pitchers and position players are established it becomes easier to keep it up.
Sort of like the Twins (strike throwers & good infield defense) but optimized with all sorts of statistical information, including park factors for pitching, outfield defense, and payroll projections.

Factoring age, offense, defense and other means scaled to other value systems for big leagers helping us understand what makes a fiar deal when prospects are involved. Like was the better package for Cliff Lee? Smoak, Lueke, Beavan and Lawson or Montero +Eduardo Nunez/David Adams?

gaining more insight into the variables that go into pitching performance including some work on what factors in prep pitchers make them sucessful pros, mechanics designed for better control and less stress on the arm (generating power from the body not arm while remaining “quiet”) to be taught at all levels of the system, conditioning/lifting programs tailored to go with taught mechanics/body types, pitch counts, how to react to minor injuries and when they can be a sign of things to come, and countless other stuff. As with what other posters have said, there is a lot to learn about maximizing value from pitchers, and if a team can be the leader in some of this, they will have a huge competitive advantage until the rest of the league catches up.

I would have them come up with a fair common scheme to pay all players on an ongoing basis based on the value of their performance & the league’s overall profitability. There would be one common year-to-year contract for all players and each owner would pay the same percentage of his profits into a common salary pool from which all players would be paid. Teams would still be allowed to trade players and players would still be allowed to become free agents if they didn’t like their treatment, the city they played for, etc.

Hopefully, this would lend some stability and fairness to the game from the fan’s standpoint.

I’d take the cards and reports turned in by scouts for all players and compare them against the players actual accomplishments - taking account for injuries and determine which scouts are most successful at finding the players that deveop into useful major leaguers and which scouts do not.

I really like “pitching mechanics and training analysis” and the “pay for performance” ideas from above.

I’d like an analysis for determining the optimal team to field for my ballpark and given conditions (ie, taking weather, humidity into account). Strikeout pitchers vs groundball, speed team vs power, critical positions requiring top-notch defensive players.

make the Pirates into a winning team.

whether the answer is in Japan, or Mike Marshal’s basement or the 1970 Baltimore training manual or a combination of them all and a few other 100 ideas- give me a system that minimizes injuries to young pitchers and ideal development to maximize productivity, and how can a few super freaks like Nolan Ryan throw 200 pitches -is it just biological lottery or is there some way to strengthen pitchers arms long term

Minor League Player Development:
I would have them research which Minor League Systems develop the best hitting and pitching talent and figure out through statistics what they do different. For example, time spent at different levels, number of pitches thrown, number of at bats, experience of minor league coaches, and whatever I/they could think of.

Draft:
I would research successful high school draft choices (possibly college) from all teams and determine what statistically (if anything) separates them from the pack (scouting grades, high school quality, size, IQ, and whatever I/they could think of.

Acquisitions:
Most analysis deals with this, but the three best minds could offer new statistical insight as to whether free agent acquisitions/trades would be a boom or a bust in a new environment.

Fan friendliness:
Lastly, I’d probably kiss up to the ownership team (especially if small market) and have them develop a formula as to what wins the most fans, enables the most wins possible, and helps the owner achieve a maximum profit.