How an Atlanta high-tech baseball startup is helping players improve

Photography by Tommy Duda

In 2020, Sean McLaughlin’s six difficult years as a minor league pitcher only got him to Atlanta’s Double-A affiliate, the Mississippi Braves. That same year, the Braves introduced pitching technology to their minor leaguers that allowed them to track the spin rate of each pitch. “I never had the raw talent for (MLB), so I worked on the sidelines with the technology,” McLaughlin says. “I know it extended my playing career three more years.”

After analyzing his own data, McLaughlin realized that despite the power of his 95 mph fastball, its release point made it easy for hitters to grab and swing at it. After lowering his arm and adding more breaking balls, McLaughlin’s results reversed, with fewer earned runs and more strikeouts; teammates began flocking to him for advice.

In 2021, McLaughlin was approached by Mississippi teammate Spencer Strider, who was in his first year as a pro. Strider wanted help with his slider; along with director of pitching development Paul Davis, they worked on creating more spin and vertical drop. Two months later, Strider made his Atlanta debut. “I realized then that I was probably a better coach than I was a player,” McLaughlin says. “It was hard to admit at the time, but I also saw how much it paid off.”

After retiring in 2022, he co-founded Maven Baseball Lab with Tyler Krieger, a high school teammate and former minor leaguer. At the baseball tech startup on the Westside, hitters and pitchers undergo 12 swings or 12 pitches under the gaze of 16 cameras, which produce data on biomechanics, spin rate, vertical break and more. Maven’s client list includes Braves players Matt Olson, Max Fried and AJ Minter, as well as other MLB stars like Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt.

Many of Maven’s clients are teammates and friends of the co-founders, who played together. Olson, a friend of Krieger’s, worked with Maven to correct an imbalance in his swing that was hurting his timing. The following season, after analyzing his film and charting his swing path, Olson led the league with 54 home runs. Fried worked with Maven through 2024 to maximize his performance on all seven pitches in his arsenal by tracking spin, motion and biomechanics.

“Our goal is to measure what’s important to the player,” McLaughlin says, “and make the data align with their goals rather than trying to fix everything.”

In 2023, after a rough spring training with the Braves, Strider called on McLaughlin again. McLaughlin compared videos of Strider’s outings to his offseason evaluations on a strength mound and found that Strider was exerting too much force in his legs at the beginning of his delivery. When Strider’s form is most effective, he freefalls into a deep bend and then explodes onto his back leg.

“Spencer was finally able to visualize something he couldn’t verbalize, and he immediately understood what he was doing,” McLaughlin says. “I’m not too far from that experience. Baseball is a mental battle, and giving players a controllable variable can be everything to them.”

This article appears in our July 2024 issue.

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