Friar Watch

While trying to find some answers I came across this interesting discussion at Inside the Book:

To the post by Joe Arthur at 8:47 a.m. on January 6, the system we’re installing actually uses three high-speed cameras which capture approximately 60 images per second, so we’re hoping to record about 30 data points for each pitch. (The cameras work together to locate the pitch so it takes all three to record one image.) We track the pitch from about 55 feet away from home plate—roughly the pitcher’s release point—to the front edge of home plate, so this allows us to determine the pitch’s trajectory, etc., with great accuracy along the entire path.

As an aside, what’s been amazing to me about this program is what we’ve learned from the data we captured last season. That is, we found out that what we thought we understood about pitch movement has been, for lack of a better word, wrong. Think about how most fans observe pitches: on TV, through the center field camera. However, think about the challenges of accurately judging the pitch this way: you’re trying to follow a 4-inch wide ball from a distance of 400 or more feet, scaled down onto a 27-inch TV screen or 17-inch computer monitor, or whatever your viewing screen might be. And don’t forget that the camera is offset from center by an unknown amount that varies in each ballpark. This creates massive scaling errors in the human mind… for instance, we discovered that in many cases, a pitch that looks like it just missed the black may actually have been 8 to 10 inches outside.

This is something I’ve noticed in the Gameday data. Some of the pitches were so far off the plate that I thought there must be something wrong with the system. That may indeed be the case in some instances but it sounds like it’s actually a lot more accurate than we think.

The MLB source quoted above also said they are working on tracking batted balls as well. Velocity, trajectory, etc. They also plan on making all the data available, although there will likely be a fee involved.

We’re on the verge of a data explosion that will change the way the game is analyzed and, eventually, the way teams are managed. This is a great time to be a fan.