It’s no secret that a glaring part of the Mets downfall in 2017 were the copious amount of injuries. This spring, they have implemented checkups and dietary changes to help combat the issue.

Each day at camp so far, players have used an iPad to track their sleeping habits and the color of their urine to see if they are hydrated. The spread has also included chickpea pasta instead of fried food such as chicken fingers. Additionally, the team has introduced a new position to get the highest performance out of players.

“Everything is a work in progress,” said Jim Cavallini, the Mets’ director of performance and sports science, a position new for the team and relatively new across the sport. “We’re going to look at anything and everything that can make our players better.”

With the new technology they are using, the Mets hope to become one of the healthiest teams in the sport, a 180 from the consistently high injury rate they’ve had the past decade.

According to James Wagner of The New York Times, “The new, high-tech approach follows the growing use of big data to track and address players’ health and prevent injury in professional sports. Until recently, Major League Baseball had mostly used such information technology to evaluate players, not necessarily to keep them fit.”

When players arrive at the Spring Training complex, this is when they track their sleeping patterns and level of hydration. A five-question survey is presented on an iPad, which asks how they slept, their mood, level of soreness as well as the color of their urine. Mets manager Mickey Callaway has fostered the idea that dehydration leads to injury.

Wagner adds that before and after each Spring Training workout or game, players also step on a scale to find out how much water weight was lost through sweating and whether they need to rehydrate with water and other fluids to keep muscles healthy.

The food in the clubhouse where players eat twice a day has also been improved. There is less refined sugar and more lean protein.

“We made an effort to keep a lot of food that they like but also removing the things that are probably going to promote more inflammation than recovery,” Cavallini said.

To read the rest of Wagner’s piece on the new Mets health methods, click here.