As baseball’s statistical revolution marches on, the last refuge for the baseball aesthete has been the sport’s less quantifiable skills: outfielders’ arm strength, base-running efficiency and other you-won’t-find-that-in-the-box-score esoterica. But debates over the quickest center fielder or the rangiest shortstop are about to graduate from argument to algorithm.
A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun anew by hundreds of innovative statistics that will rate players more accurately, almost certainly affect their compensation and perhaps alter how the game itself is played.
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Bowman said he preferred the data be more open so that statistically minded fans and academics could brainstorm ways to wring useful information from what would become petabytes of raw data. Software and artificial-intelligence algorithms must still be developed to turn simple time-stamped x-y-z coordinates into batted-ball speeds, throwing distances and comparative tools to make the data come alive.
I’m not a fan of baseball but I find it intriguing — especially the way our great-grandparents followed he game before TV or even national live radio.
Back then, wasn’t it also a game mostly about statistics?
Eric,
You make a good point. I, too, get confused watching baseball on TV. There is just too much stuff going on.
Maybe baseball games could be broadcast on two channels — and one would be just a “CSPAN-style” wide-shot of the field with no cut-aways. With digital TV, I think that would be easy.
Cool! A natural progression.
I’m coaching a pile of 12 year olds right now, and let me tell you, there is a lot of stuff going on all the time. I’m positioning outfielders based on pitch speed and the batter, moving infielders around based on situations, calling occassional pitches, setting up defensive plays, much more, and that’s just defense! TV attempts to show some of that but it’s impossible. I’d say the hardcore fans would LOVE a full-field view from behind the plate, as an option.
This sort of analysis will kill guys like Derek Jeter, but I hate the Yankees anyway.
Imagine this: record every possible statistic from a game, like the final of the world series.
Then load those stats into a baseball game on a PS3 or XBOX – now you can play the exact same game, either as a player, or coach of one of the teams. Then see if you can change the outcome.
#1 and #2 — that’s why baseball is best enjoyed sitting in the backyard on a balmy summer evening with a washtub full of ice and beer listing on the radio. Preferably with Ernie Harwell doing the play by play.
Bill James is probably getting the biggest hard-on of his life right now.