News

MLB’s PitchCom System Draws Mixed Reactions


Baseball and technology have always made partners wary.

Over a five-year period in the 1930s, as radio became more popular, all three New York teams – the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers – banned live streaming of their games because they feared the new medium would reduce viewership. When the Chicago Cubs added lights to Wrigley Field in 1988, allowing them to break away from the generations of games played exclusively on the day, fans were thrilled. When ball calls and electronic strikes were proposed, it was the referees’ turn to complain.

Other sports may change, but in general, baseball has made a business that remains the same.

With the installation of an instant replay limit in 2008 and with the expansion of replay in 2014, the game is expected to enter the Digital Age. But the installation of cameras in every football field and video screens in every clubhouse unleashed an incalculable consequence: electronic fraud.

The Houston Astros 2017 bravely walked through that door, growing a sign stealing system that helped them win the World Series. Two years later, when that system was revealed to the public, it led to firingspause and finally, permanently tarnished of a championship.

Nothing spurs action in baseball faster than a scandal — the commissioner’s office was created, after all, when the baseball team handled the 1919 Black Sox scandal. This season, Major League Baseball has taken a big step in separating itself from the stigma of sign theft with The birth of PitchComa device controlled by the catcher that allows him to nonverbally communicate with the pitcher about the upcoming game – information is shared simultaneously with three other players on the field through a headset in his hat strip surname.

The idea is simple: If baseball can get rid of the old-fashioned way of calling the field, in which catchers flash signs to pitchers with their fingers, it will be harder for other teams to steal those signs. There have been a few hiccups, with devices not working or pitchers being unable to hear, but so far this season, everyone on the baseball team seems to agree that PitchCom, like it or not no, still works.

Carlos Correa, the Minnesota Twins’ shortcut, who has long served as an informal, and no regretsa spokesman for that 2017 Astros, goes as far as to say the tool will stop his former team’s systematic cheating.

“I think so,” Correa said. “Because there’s no sign now.”

However, not all pitchers were on board.

Max Scherzer, the New York Mets ace and baseball’s highest-paid player this season, sampled PitchCom for the first time late last month during a game against the Yankees and emerged with thoughts contradictory.

“It works,” he said. “Does it do any good? Right. But I also think it should be illegal.”

Scherzer went so far as to suggest that the game loses something by eliminating symbol stealing.

“It’s part of baseball, trying to crack someone’s sign,” said Scherzer. “Does it have the desired purpose of cleaning up the game a bit?” he talks about PitchCom. “Yes. But I also feel like it takes away part of the game.”

Scherzer’s comments provoked mixed reactions from his colleagues. Seattle quitter Paul Sewald called them “a bit naive” and “a bit hypocritical.” Minnesota starting player Sonny Gray said he agrees with Scherzer in theory, “but my rebuttal would be that when you’re doing string literals when a runner is second-base, you have teams take it on video and break it down as the game goes on.”

Continuing his skepticism, Sewald said of Scherzer: “I have a very good feeling that he’s on a team or two that specialize in stealing signs.”

True or not, Sewald’s suggestion is representative of what many in the game generally believe: Many managers say that there are clubs that employ dozens or more employees to research videos and signs claw. Because it was done in secret, there was also an alliance-wide paranoia that developed, with even innocent people now considered guilty.

“I think we are all aware of that,” said Colorado Director Bud Black. “We know that there are normal offices that have more staff than others.”

The belief that sign theft was rampant led to the widespread use of PitchCom, perhaps faster than many imagined. And that’s good news for Major League Baseball’s top executives.

“It is optional, and perhaps best evidenced by all 30 clubs using it now,” said Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations. “It eliminates a significant problem for the game of symbol stealing. But, second, it really pushed the game up a bit. No need to run through multiple signage with the base runner, speed has improved. “

So the question becomes, what is lost to gain the gains?

While code-breaking is as old as sport, technology’s incursion into what has been a slow, pastoral game for more than a century has led to a violent cultural clash. Stealing signs is always acceptable to players, as long as it is done by someone on the field. But the hack was immediately introduced – and the unwritten (and now written) rules of the game were broken – when the technology was used as a real-time aid.

Line drawing is clearly important in an age where computer programs are so complex that algorithms can reveal whether a pitcher is about to throw a quick throw or miss simply by the way he’s holding his glove. .

“It’s when you’re using people who aren’t playing the game to your advantage, for me, at least personally, I have a problem with that,” said San Diego director Bob Melvin.

Most agree that there is a fine line between technology that improves an existing product and ultimately changes its integrity. Getting them to agree on exactly where the line is drawn is another matter.

“I wish there wasn’t video technology or anything,” said DJ LeMahieu, the second Yankees.

Sword says that PitchCom is an example of technology’s ability to “create a version of baseball that looks more like it did a few decades ago” because it “neutralizes a recent threat.”

“I think that’s just the way the world is going,” Black said. “And we are part of the world.”

And more technology is coming. On the deck is a pitch watch being tested in minor tournaments that, according to Sword, is “extremely promising” in achieving its intended goal: shortening the game. It is expected to be rolled out in the majors soon, and pitchers will have to make a pitch within a certain amount of time – in Class AAA, a throw must be thrown within 14 seconds when no one is on the field and within 19 seconds when an athlete runs. are on the ship.

In general, pitchers are less enthusiastic about the pitch meter than PitchCom.

Daniel Bard, closer of the Colorado Rockies, said: “90% of baseball is predicting that something really exciting is about to happen and you have really interesting things happening. “But you don’t know when they’re coming, you don’t know on what pitch it’s happening. Especially in the ninth inning of a close game, with everyone on the edge of their seats, do you want to rush over there? There are so many good things in life that you don’t want to rush through. Do you like. Enjoy Please. For me, a match is the end. “

However, the most radical change might be the Auto Attack Zone – in robot parlance. Commissioner Rob Manfred said earlier this summer that he hopes to have such a system in place by 2024. Automated calls are at fault for referees, who feel it violates their judgment and for tacklers – the art of taking an offer and displaying it as if it were in the strike zone, even when it’s not.

“I don’t think that should happen,” said Jose Trevino, the Yankees catcher, perhaps the game’s best framer. “There are a lot of guys who have been through this game and a lot of people in the past have made a living by fishing, being a good game caller, being a good defensive catcher.”

With the so-called robot monitoring department, a skill that many people force to practice becomes useless, says Trevino.

“You’re going back there to block and throw and call the game,” he said, adding that it could affect some catchers’ ability to make financial money.

But that argument is for another day. PitchCom is this year’s new toy, and beyond the obvious, it’s smoothing things out in unexpected areas. It can be programmed for any language, so it is the bridge between pitcher and catcher. And, as Bard puts it: “My eyes aren’t pretty. I can stare at the signs, but it’s easier to just put the sign to my ear.”

Opinions will always differ, but one thing everyone agrees on is that the tech invasion will continue.

“It will continue,” Correa said. “Soon, we will have robots playing shortstops.”

James Wagner and Gary Phillips contribution report.



Source link

news7f

News7F: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button