It's been a slow day throughout baseball, but there's been at least one very interesting development. At the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston today, MLB Advanced Media presented a new plan to measure new aspects of each play and connect various pieces of data to find out why each play turned out the way it did. For example, on a ball hit to the outfield, MLBAM will track not only the trajectory of the ball, but also the timing of the outfielder's first step and the efficiency of his route. The technology will also allow teams to connect hitting, pitching, baserunning and fielding data.
Details of the system have appeared on Twitter throughout the day, but MLB.com's Mark Newman explains the system more thoroughly in a long-form article. (When you click on the article, be sure to check out the video showing an example of the data the system will track.) The system appears likely to impact analysis of all aspects of the game, but it will most obviously impact analysis of fielding. "Just on the field, with the coaching staff and the manager — when you start to look at positioning, and you start to see the exit velocity of the ball coming off the bat, and is he late or is he ahead of a lot of pitches, and then you move your infielders and outfielders accordingly," MLB.com's Jim Duquette says. The data appears likely to have a significant impact on player valuation throughout the game. The data will be collected at Brewers, Twins and Mets home games in 2014, and then the system will launch in all other ballparks in 2015. Here are more notes from around the Majors.
- Masahiro Tanaka made his spring debut with the Yankees today, pitching two scoreless innings and allowing two hits against the Phillies. Even Tanaka's first spring appearance was a major news event, given that Tanaka was the Yankees' highest-profile signing in an offseason filled with high-profile Yankees signings. Three Japanese television channels broadcast the game, which also included Hiroki Kuroda and Ichiro Suzuki. David Waldstein of the New York Times notes that Tanaka's fastball came in at 94 MPH.
- The White Sox have signed 24 pre-arbitration eligible players to one-year deals, Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times tweets. Starting pitcher Jose Quintana, who posted a 3.51 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in 200 innings in 2013, received a $50K raise to $550K, and reliever Nate Jones got a $37K raise to $545K.
His splitter was nasty, but Im suprised he only threw it once? He used his curveball more often than he should have IMO
Yeah, I was excited to see the splitter, and that one example of it was pretty darned nasty. That said, it’s the first two innings of spring training so it’s not surprising that he wanted to work on some of his other pitches more. Pitch selection in spring training, particularly early spring training, is utterly meaningless – veterans have been known to go through at-bats throwing nothing but changeups, for instance, if that’s the pitch they want to work on that day.
I found his command to be the most impressive aspect from those 2 innings. He looked solid and I’m sure we’ll see more of the arsenal the further we go into spring. The splitter is an exceptionally high stress pitch on the elbow, so he’s probably been instructed to be conservative with it.
It’s ST, doesn’t really matter if they win. Is all about getting ready, is better if he isn’t throwing his best pitch. It means he is trying to work on improving. ST great opp be in game situation vs mlbers but with no matter of win or lose.
It’s funny, I tuned in to watch Tanaka and I didn’t see much since he started later in the game. However, I did watch Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez and he has some work to do.
His control is not all that great, he got out of trouble and maybe Asche (at least I think it was Asche) should have gotten to that ground ball that Ichiro hit. He had a decent splitter, but his catcher (Ruff?) couldn’t handle it. Anway, looks like Tanaka was half decent and as Michael and Ken pointed out Tanaka has 7 pitches. That’s a lot.
Oh and Gonzalez never broke 90 mph from what I saw. Most pitches were between 86 and 89.
Yeah the reports on Gonzalez that I’ve been hearing are not good at all. Especially regarding his command. Pretty sure Ruff is an outfielder not catcher?
My problem was I couldn’t hear so good and since my TV wasn’t HD clear (=P) I though it was two F’s. Must be getting old, so I looked it up and the catcher was Cameron Rupp
Which sounded and looked like Ruff
Maybe Ruiz.