Spring training was over, and David Reid-Foley and Corey Copping were eager to pitch in some games that counted.

Copping, 22, was entering his first full season of pro baseball after the Dodgers grabbed him in the 31st round of the 2015 draft. Reid-Foley, 25, was in the second act of his career. The Dodgers signed him as an undrafted free agent catcher out of Mercer University in 2013, then converted him into a pitcher the following year.

While their peers were shipping out to Michigan, Oklahoma and Southern California to begin the season, Copping and Reid-Foley were grounded in Arizona. They were two out of a handful of pitchers told to stay in extended spring training, forbidden from throwing off a mound.

Dodgers farm director Gabe Kapler and pitching coordinator Rick Knapp explained what was about to happen. Two representatives from Driveline Baseball, a pitching performance facility in suburban Seattle, would lead a 10-week program designed to increase velocity and hone mechanics. Once the 10 weeks were up, everyone would be allowed to pitch again. The results would speak for themselves.

Copping felt like a guinea pig.

“That was the vibe behind it,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect from it.”

“You are paid to pitch and you’re not pitching on a mound,” Reid-Foley said. “You’re just throwing the ball into the wall as hard as you can.”

There was a little more to it than that. Driveline treats pitching as a science, not an art form. And in science, the devil is always in the details.

Method to the Madness

In Driveline’s case, the science has only gradually gained acceptance.

Kyle Boddy, who monitored the Dodgers’ minor leaguers along with Driveline CEO Mike Rathwell, founded the company eight years ago. He now counts some of the top Division I college programs in the country among his disciples. That includes Coastal Carolina, which won the 2016 College World Series. They also advertise camps in Washington state for pitchers as young as 9.

But the Dodgers are one of only four major league teams who have reached out to Driveline to employ a training regimen for their pitchers. Their typical pro client arrived on his own.

A few major leaguers swear by the program. Others have never heard of it. Their poster boy is Trevor Bauer, a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and former UCLA standout whose fastball is among the hardest in the game.

Earlier this year, Boddy incorporated TrackMan technology into his research arsenal. Using a military-grade 3D Doppler radar system, TrackMan claims to be able to capture 20,000 measurements per second. It doesn’t miss a beat in tracking a baseball’s movement: horizontal break, vertical break, spin rate, spin axis (tilt) and, of course, velocity.

So-called “pitching gurus” have existed in baseball as private consultants for decades. Boddy believes his granular, data-driven focus increasingly mimics that of major league teams.

“We’re the ones using a sabermetric approach,” he said.

On a recent Sunday afternoon in Kent, Washington, sabermetrics never looked so normal.

Eminem’s anthemic “Lose Yourself” filled the massive Driveline facility, a light-industrial building in a neighborhood full of them. A young man in a tank top cut fastballs loose from a makeshift mound. Almost instantly, the velocity and spin rate of each pitch appeared on a monitor in the background.

Nearby, two men performed barbell squats. Another man strained to crank out one last pull-up. Joe Beimel, the former Dodgers pitcher who’s currently a free agent, was also in the house looking to stay sharp.

“My daily job is basically doing R&D, interviews and corporate-type work,” said Boddy, who studied economics and computer science in college, then cut his chops in the tech industry before moving on to baseball.

Up above the training floor, stacks of books fill the shelves of Boddy’s office. His desk is covered with literature at the intersection of baseball and biomechanics. His summer interns are up to their ears in numbers.

Lose yourself, indeed.

From Glendale to Rancho Cucamonga

Even though Copping and Reid-Foley weren’t throwing off a mound, their arms were throbbing.

“All the guys in Driveline the first few weeks, we were hurting after all the lifts,” Copping said.

Their daily regimen was as monotonous as it was painful. For two hours they would lift weights, followed by light running and a break for lunch. They returned to the field to warm up using flexible bands, then threw a series of weighted baseballs against a wall — heaviest balls first and getting progressively lighter, finishing with 3-ounce baseballs. A standard baseball weighs 5 ounces.

Each day of training ended with long toss and a typical postgame recovery.

“Ice, massage, electric stem, whatever you needed,” Reid-Foley said.

That was it for 10 weeks. Rinse, wash, repeat. Along the way, Driveline’s biomechanical data was employed as feedback.

“It was interesting to hear where you need to put your body to throw the ball as hard as you possibly can,” Reid-Foley said. “Most of the time, they’re just like ‘lift your leg and throw the ball.’ These guys actually broke it down to where you need to get your hand behind your head; how much torque and turning you need to do. It was pretty cool.”

Neither he nor Copping saw the real fruits of their labor until the final week of extended spring training, when they were finally free to pitch in a game.

Copping said his fastball was clocked between 86 and 88 mph at the end of spring training. After 10 weeks of Driveline, he was regularly touching 92 to 94. Reid-Foley said his velocity went from 88-91 mph at the end of spring training to 90-94.

And their actual performance?

Reid-Foley allowed 17 runs in 8 2/3 innings (a 17.65 ERA) with advanced Single-A Rancho Cucamonga in 2015. This year, his ERA is down to 5.16 and he’s averaging nearly a strikeout per inning.

Copping was promoted to Rancho Cucamonga in July. Since then he hasn’t allowed a run in eight of 10 appearances out of the bullpen.

“After an outing I did all my recovery stuff through Driveline,” Copping said, “and it felt like I didn’t pitch that night.”

Assessing the Risk

Copping and Reid-Foley are considered long shots. Undrafted free agents and 31st-round draft picks don’t often reach the major leagues. Of the Dodgers’ Driveline guinea pigs, they’re the two most advanced in the organization; most haven’t made it out of Rookie ball.

Driveline might not be an established name in the industry. But for the Dodgers, the motivation behind the experiment was obvious: Why not?

“Velocity is so valued in our industry that if you’re a low-end velocity pitcher most likely you won’t get a chance to perform,” said Rick Peterson, a veteran pitching coach and the Baltimore Orioles’ director of pitching development. “Scouts are looking at velocity. If you’re a right-hander throwing 87, you’re not going to get a chance.”

Can Driveline benefit established major league pitchers? Some believe it can.

Yet even within the Dodgers’ clubhouse, opinions are split on the use of weighted baseballs. Brandon McCarthy has one in his locker, branded with the Driveline logo.

“I talk to (Boddy) all the time because I like everything he does and the way he approaches his business,” McCarthy said.

Dodgers pitcher Scott Kazmir has tried training with weighted baseballs in the past, though not through Driveline. He would begin by throwing the heaviest ball and taper down to the lightest, just like the Driveline gang. He didn’t like it.

“You’d throw that weighted ball and you would feel stronger,” Kazmir said, “but my release point would be out of control so I stopped.”

McCarthy has been dealing with a release point issue in recent weeks, but Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt doesn’t think a weighted baseball is the cause.

“Why would it be (happening) now and not before?” he asked.

Still, at least one expert in the field of biomechanics has reservations about this aspect of the Driveline method.

Dr. Glenn Fleisig is the research director of the American Sports Medicine Institute in Alabama. As an expert on elbow injuries, his medical advice carries significant weight in baseball circles.

Speaking at ASMI’s annual Injuries in Baseball Conference in January, Fleisig presented the findings of a study on the use of weighted baseballs. He gave participants balls ranging from 4 to 9 ounces, but refused to test a lighter ball because of the injury risk. Driveline baseballs begin at 3 ounces.

In any event, it might be too soon to assess the long-term effects of the Driveline program. Fleisig is in Year 2 of a 5-year study designed to uncover the biomechanical causes of arm injuries. Data from hundreds of professional pitchers will be studied. Drawing hard conclusions requires many data points and lots of time.

The Dodgers might not get any major league pitchers out of their Driveline experiment, but both Copping and Reid-Foley said they feel better about their careers today than they did at the start of the season. They’re throwing harder. Their arms aren’t as sore.

“Another step closer to the show,” Copping said. “Couldn’t ask for anything better.”