#Strike zone baseball software#
#Strike zone baseball professional#

In terms of what the TrackMan software looks like, it's awfully similar to the GameTracker appearance seen when following along with a game online. They man the equipment: A laptop, which shows the strike zone graphic for each batter, adjusting ever so slightly to the specific height and stance. If there's an obvious error on the system's call (the wrong call on a bounced ball for example), the umpire is allowed to override and make his own call.Īll the while, up in the press box sits a TrackMan tech crew sent by MLB. Writing out the process step-by-step, and reading it over makes it seem like it could be something that'll slow down the pace of the game, but when I saw the system in use during the Somerset Patriots' game, it ran seamlessly.įrom the pitch getting thrown to TrackMan's identification to the umpire's final call was almost instantaneous with the ball hitting the catcher's glove. Umpire physically makes the call behind the plate.Phone tells umpire whether it's a ball or strike.TrackMan tracks and identifies the pitch's location.Next, the umpire will hear a single syllable via a male voice: 'ball' or 'strike.' The iPhone is the connecting device to TrackMan's data, and how it gets relayed to the umpire. It's no longer wireless but there's no battery issues to worry about. They've since switched to an earpiece, which is connected to an iPhone that's clipped into the umpire's belt buckle. The Atlantic League had previously tested the system using Apple AirPods, but they kept encountering issues with low battery life before the game was over. Once TrackMan identifies a ball's location, it's recorded and then the call is communicated to the umpire via a coiled tube earpiece. Now, here's how and when the umpire gets involved. The radar analyzes each pitch thrown and transits the information straight to the umpire's ear.

TrackMan's Doppler radar dish is now installed behind home plate all eight Atlantic League ballparks. So with a little less than a month left in the Atlantic League's regular season, I watched the electronic strike zone get put to use once again during a game between the Somerset Patriots and Southern Maryland Blue Crabs at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey. We've already had players ( Cubs' Ben Zobrist in 2017) and managers ( Marlins' Don Mattingly in 2019) not only openly talk about the system, but even go as far to say that they can't wait for it to reach the majors.Īt the end of July, it was announced that robot umpires would continue to be used in the Atlantic League for the remainder of the 2019 season.

The Atlantic League is pretty removed from MLB, but the fact that the league is using its partnership with the Atlantic League to test this out means it's something that the league seriously considering for the future.

#Strike zone baseball professional#

I decided to check out the radar-based ball-tracking system, TrackMan, in action now that's it's been up and running for a few months to gain insight about the technology and paint a clearer picture of what this would be like if it were used at higher levels of professional baseball. But the implementation of the automated ball-strike system was also accompanied with a bit of intrigue. And once we obtain the top and bottom of the strike zone for any given pitch, our algorithm can check if the pitch falls within the strike zone using collision geometry, making sure to incorporate the radius of a baseball.BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey - When Major League Baseball first announced its experiment with the electronic strike zone in the Atlantic League, an eight-team independent professional baseball league, the news was met with skepticism. Thankfully, MLB reports the top and bottom of the strike zone for each and every pitch, as set by a Statcast operator – these are the values that our algorithm uses. The Rulebook further defines the top of the strike zone as the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the bottom of the strike zone as the kneecap. According to the MLB Rulebook, the strike zone is determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. That’s primarily because the top and bottom of the strike zone do not stay constant between at-bats, or even between pitches. Finding out whether a pitch is within the top and bottom of the strike zone is slightly more complicated. The width of the true strike zone is constant and is equivalent to the width of home plate, or 17 inches as such, finding out if a taken pitch was horizontally within this strike zone is trivial. The true strike zone, the strike zone used in our accuracy calculations, is based off of the rule book strike zone.