Major League Baseball has approved the in-game use of bat sensors throughout its minor leagues for the 2018 season.
In 2017, MLB conducted a pilot program that permitted bat sensors to be attached during rookie ball games in the Gulf Coast League and the Arizona Summer League. That has now been expanded for sensors to be attached to all minor league game bats and also to be embedded inside of bats for rookie ball.
“When you just use the sensor technology in batting practice, often you’ll find differences in the insights that teams and coaches and players can get due to the fact that you have the pressure of a real game situation,” Blast Motion CEO Michael Fitzpatrick said. “It depends on the pitcher that you’re against, what kind of pitches he’s throwing, what the location of the pitch might be, the extra pressure if you have somebody on base, whether you’re [expected] to hit a certain type of hit — it might be a single or it might be a deep flyball to score a runner from third.”
Blast Motion is MLB’s official bat sensor technology, although the rule change is not exclusive, and Diamond Kinetics is also sanctioned for use. The NCAA approved the use of embedded bat sensors for this spring’s college softball season, following the lead of the National Pro Fastpitch circuit that partnered with Blast Motion. This minor league baseball rule change broadens the scope of in-competition use for data-collecting bat sensors.
“We have seen how the emergence of technology in baseball has largely been analysis of outcomes,” Diamond Kinetics CEO C.J. Handron wrote in an email. “This allows us to measure, learn and understand what creates those outcomes. The ability to capture in game swing data and immediately marry that to outcomes is a really exciting byproduct of this approval. We hope this will continue to drive learning around how to apply swing mechanics data in player development at all levels.”
Blast Motion’s Fitzpatrick said his company aspires to work with ballplayers from Little League to the major leagues, and this expansion will enable a longitudinal study of players’ performance, with year-over-year comparisons. He added that they are working with “well over 50 percent” of big league clubs — only the Houston Astros, baseball’s top offense last season, and the Minnesota Twins are publicly identified as a Blast Motion partner — with significant use in the Dominican Republic academies as well as in the domestic minor leagues.
“I know of several cases where our technology has been used to help make that final decision — in one case, there were four really good players and they weren’t exactly sure which one to bring up, and they ended up selecting one utilizing the advanced insights that we provided them to make the final decision,” Fitzpatrick said.
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Handron called the step a good indicator of the value of in-game data, “which I expect will continue a positive trend in the same direction in the amateur ranks.”
“The ability to see how a player’s in-game data can compare to a more controlled batting practice environment will be a valuable comparison in player development,” he added, noting that pro and amateur teams have expressed interest in seeing this done.
Allowing bat sensors to be used throughout the minor league ranks greatly enhances the available player pool and overall data set. The sample is now much larger for the formulation of meaningful benchmarks and goals that can be used at amateur tryouts and showcases. Scouts and recruiters potentially will have more data on each player and better context for comparisons. Fitzpatrick said he hopes bat sensor use will trickle down further to younger demographics as well.
“We want them to have more fun, we want them to get better, we want them to avoid injury,” he said. “We want to be able to give them drills that they can work on so they can get better.”