WASHINGTON — Baseball is a game of statistics, measured more closely and scrutinized more heavily than any other sport. But the more we understand the breakdowns of pitching and hitting figures, the more it highlights how much further behind quantifiable, reliable defensive metrics are. That may be about to change in a way that even casual baseball fans can appreciate.
This week, Major League Baseball introduced Statcast, a player-tracking system that measures aspects of the game in ways we’ve never seen before. It shows exactly how hard a ball leaves the bat, or the true distance a home run travels. But more interestingly, it shows the reaction time of a player as he breaks on the ball, the speed with which he tracks it down and the power with which he throws it.
The first broadcast to use the technology was Tuesday night’s Nationals-Cardinals tilt in Washington, aired on MLB Network. Although that national feed was blacked out locally, fans can watch the rebroadcast online at MLB.com.
The installation actually began late last season, with Citi Field (Mets), Target Field (Twins) and Miller Park (Brewers) joined by the four home parks of the teams that made their respective League Championship Series — Baltimore, Kansas City, San Francisco and St. Louis. Every park in the league was ready to go for Opening Day, and even though the first broadcast wasn’t until Tuesday, cameras have been capturing and storing data for front offices to use since Opening Day.
For the baseball operations folks, that data is more valuable as more amasses, helping them build consistent models and discovering league averages for numbers they never previously tracked. But for the television viewer, discretion on how that information is disseminated in the broadcast is paramount.
“We want it to be useful and interesting, but not a dominating tool,” says Bob Bowman, Major League Baseball president for business and media. “There’s a beautiful game going on. We don’t want it all to be Statcast.”
That means integrating the available new technology with the discerning eye of the producer in the television truck. Just because there is usable information on each ball put in play doesn’t mean it’s worth broadcasting.
So, what would be a play worth diagramming? Perhaps the most obvious was this Ian Desmond gem, in which he ranged deep to his right and threw back across his body to make a spectacular play on John Jay.
The numbers show not only Desmond’s jump, but the distance he ranges to the ball and the speed with which, off his back leg, falling away from his target, he throws to first base. For fans, that’s all great stuff. But for teams, understanding jumps on the basepaths or how long it takes a throw to come from an outfielder to home plate could make the difference between winning and losing.
“I think it will be more quantification of that, but I also think it’s game stuff too,” says Bowman. “If a third base coach knows all these things, he will have a better sense of when to send a runner.”
As the technology spreads, it may soon reach the minor leagues. When tracking prospects, suddenly Statcast becomes less about simply advance scouting opponents and more about helping scouts make more concrete judgments on developing players. Front offices will no longer need to rely on the eye test — they can see, and measure, the results for themselves.
“Absolutely, I think it will be a scouting tool,” says Bowman. “I think it will confirm for scouts what they already know, and it will become a little more quantifiable.”
So when can you see this technology at work every game? It’s a part of every MLB Network telecast for now, and will be integrated next into the ESPN and FOX national broadcasts. The aim is to have every regional sports network using Statcast within the next four to six weeks, but the priority is on using it correctly, in a way that fans can understand and appreciate.
“We’ve gone 150 years without Statcast,” says Bowman. “We can wait to get this right.”
