As Major League Baseball kicks off its new season, SportTechie is offering its preview of the top technology storylines for the next seven months, from first pitch on Opening Day to last out of the World Series, with an assist to MLB executive vice president for strategy, technology and innovation, Chris Marinak, who appeared on the SportTechie podcast earlier this week.
Pace of Play and Sign Stealing
The hottest button on-field issue raised this offseason was the sport’s pace of play. After the average length of a nine-inning game crept up to a record 3:05 last season — with all-time highs of pitches per plate appearance and pitchers per game — the league opened discussions with the players association about rule changes to speed everything up. They could not reach a consensus, so commissioner Rob Manfred used his authority to unilaterally implement changes that shorten commercial breaks and, most controversially, limit mound visits. A pitch clock could be implemented for 2019, if game time does not lower below 2:55.
MLB is limiting mound visits from catchers and coaches in order to hasten the pace of play, but some in the game fear this could help sign stealers. Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., for instance, said “everyone” is using advanced technology to steal signs and that mound visits were the best way to combat that.
You can’t limit mound visits, especially from the catcher, when everyone is using adv tech to steal signs. You have to change them too often to try to keep things as “even” as possible. And I’m not talking about signs when a man is on second. https://t.co/VsNhPMlnWX
— Lance McCullers Jr. (@LMcCullers43) January 19, 2018
When the Boston Red Sox were caught illegally using a smartwatch in the dugout last year, the incident drew attention to the potential of using technology to steal signs. The practice of sign stealing is not prohibited, but the use of electronic equipment to do so is outlawed.
Marinak said the league spent time detailing the rules and outlining the expectations to clubs and told them that MLB is “not looking to shut off the use of technology during the game.” (Players often walk back to the clubhouse and review video of their previous at bat, for instance.)
Referring to the Red Sox’ violation in which the team’s replay official communicated with a coach in the dugout via smartwatch (who then had a player relay signals to teammates on the field), Marinak said, “Instead of using the smartwatch, if he had just walked back into the clubhouse and had a verbal communication, that technically wouldn’t have violated any of our rules. I think, when people are looking at it, they’re saying they’re having a hard time drawing a line between what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.” One of the new stipulations is that the phone line between the replay official and the dugout will be monitored by the league.
Replay Review
Don’t look for replay to become any more expansive, just quicker. New rule changes before the 2017 season limited managers to 30 seconds to make a challenge and generally mandated a decision on the review by the New York-based umpires in no more than two minutes. Marinak called those limits “really effective” and that the replays exceeded the two-minute mark were “virtually zero.”
The plan now is to shave even more time off of the process, including the addition of direct access to slow-motion cameras for each team’s replay official.
“I think we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve included pretty much everything that makes sense to include,” Marinak said, adding: “What we’re focusing on is speeding it up, making it quicker, getting the right angle to the replay official as quickly as possible and getting the right replay to the video person at the ballpark so that we can decide, ‘Hey let’s go on this one.’ And when we get back to New York, we can make a quick decision and turn around the game quickly, so it’s not disruptive.”
Facebook streaming
Major League Baseball will air 25 games exclusively on Facebook Watch this season. The games — primarily on Wednesday afternoons — will replace participating clubs’ local broadcast feeds, making MLB the first major North American sports league to stream games only on a social media platform.
Statcast Data
MLB continues to feed the imaginations and spreadsheets of analytically-inclined fans with piecemeal releases of tracking stats. The league previously made the raw data from the optical Pitch F/X system fully available and continues to disseminate installments of the joint radar and camera-based Statcast system that has already changed the sport’s vocabulary with its introduction to such terms as exit velocity and launch angle.
“We’ve always had the philosophy of making these things available,” Marinak said, adding: “What we’ve been trying to do is distill that information down into something that’s much more consumable for fans.”
The latest batch is a 3D visualization of pitches, from release point through the plate, and a collection of catcher metrics, including pop time, exchange time and arm strength. These are all hosted on Baseball Savant, the advanced stats affiliate site run by Daren Willman. MLB is also making it easier for fans to track minor league prospects with the performances of each club’s top 30 young players centralized in one location.
Want to break down your favorite pitcher’s arsenal from every angle, and see what makes them so tough to hit?
The new #Statcast 3D visualizer tool makes it possible.
Explore it here: https://t.co/EB8s7m33JZ pic.twitter.com/VM7E9GeDwG
— #Statcast (@statcast) March 10, 2018
Bat sensors throughout the minors
MLB has permitted the use of swing-tracking bat sensors throughout the minor leagues this season. The pilot program last year included only Rookie ball but has been extended to all affiliated farm teams. This means products from companies such as Blast Motion and Diamond Kinetics can be added to the knob of the bat to collect in-game data; as part of another test, Rookie ball teams can experiment with using sensors embedded in the bat.
Catch Up
Major League Baseball Advanced Media is beginning to roll out — first for Apple TV subscribers and, later, for other devices — a Catch Up feature for fans tuning into in-progress games on MLB.TV. Algorithms identify the most impactful plays and cut a short highlight reel to update fans on what they’ve missed in earlier innings.
R.B.I. Baseball
Major League Baseball has updated and released the old Nintendo classic from the ‘80s, offering an easy-to-play gaming version — with much better graphics.