By Adam Bittner / The Pittsburgh Press
MLB Network launched its “Statcast” last week and with it a new era of broadcasting sports in our increasingly analytics-driven world.
The network can now track all kinds of cool stuff — such as a pitcher’s release point, a hitter’s bat speed or a fielder’s closing rate on a long fly ball — and incorporate that into the transmission of its weekly Showcase Game with advanced graphics and other visuals.
“A lot of times, stats don’t make sense. This takes the baseball part of what a guy did and applies it to the statistical analysis, and now you’ve got a full understanding of what’s going on,” MLB Tonight analyst and former player Harold Reynolds said of the technology.