SportsTrace Blogging

Up until a few years ago, throwing a baseball was never about improving spin rate or axis. The capability to measure either just didn’t exist: large data sets were used to assess broad trends in player performance. But with the increasingly accurate methods of measuring player movement analytics, understanding the physics of a pitched ball are giving front offices, coaches, and teams the ability to hone and improve their pitchers.… Read More »Understanding Elite Pitching through Spin Rate and Axis

Traditionally, data analytics uses artificial intelligence (AI) to process and make sense of this data in ways that cannot be replicated manually by humans. Recent developments in AI and the associated technology of machine learning (ML) have yielded the ability to simulate human intelligence to assist coaches and managers in making real-time decisions. By studying the patterns revealed through analytics and working with AI applications, players and teams can improve… Read More »How AI Can Improve Play on the Diamond

In the early part of the 21st century, teams with the most analytic information like the Oakland Athletics had such a unique and distinct advantage over their opponents that Brad Pitt ended up playing A’s mastermind Billy Beane in the movie adaptation of Moneyball. But two decades later, every team has robust analytics departments filled with Ivy League quants poring over data points to extract every single advantage they can… Read More »The New Era of Off the Field Player Development

As Major League Baseball begins its 2020 postseason, you won’t find any of the 16 playoff teams without an analytics success story. It’s how in July 2018, the New York Yankees took a chance and traded two middle relief pitchers to the St. Louis Cardinals for the regular season home run leader Luke Voit. Despite hitting .246 with a .305 on-base percentage in 62 games in 2017, disastrous numbers in… Read More »The Value of Analytics in Baseball Today