It is no secret that the Tampa Bay Rays have had some pitching issues as of late. The Rays currently have three pitchers on the injured reserve list, and one more is playing in the minor leagues for rehabilitation. They even had to call up three pitchers from the Triple A last week.
So, it comes with little surprise that the Rays and markerless bio-mechanics company KinaTrax have announced a deal that will allow the Rays to keep track of their pitchers’ form. The two organizations released a statement today, saying that KinaTrax will install a software-hardware product suite in Tropicana Field for use in the 2015 MLB season.
KinaTrax_NY_Mets_Pitch_Frontal_Analytics.avi from Michael Eckstein on Vimeo.
The system will be able to track a pitcher’s mechanics in real-time during a game. It does not use any sort of device that a pitcher must wear, but will be able to capture a pitcher’s “joint angles, bone displacements and velocity metrics” from afar.
Then, the system will use motion capture analytics to ascertain whether or not a pitcher’s form will make him prone to injury. The suite in Tropicana field will also be able to tell whether a pitcher’s form is hurting his performance.
KinaTrax was recently featured on E:60, with their markerless, in-game technology being described as a “game-changer.”
KinaTrax is looking to expand their system to other MLB teams, starting with the 2016 season.
The company has grown quite a bit since its MLB inception in 2013, when KinaTrax worked with the Mets to provide the same services it now offers the Rays. However, the technology was less-than-perfect, needing a year to collect data to analyze, and possessing fewer abilities to analyze.
With the Tampa Bay Rays competing with the big market payrolls of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, they continually need to be early adopters on anything that can even give them the slightest of edges. With their agreement with KinaTrax, they are the first adopter of the company that looks like they are completely changing the way pitching will be evaluated going forward.