THE FUTURE OF TECH
A decade ago, no one had used a Rapsodo, FlightScope or HitTrax to help turn around a player’s career—they hadn’t been invented. But it is possible to have predicted their arrival.
In an attempt to identify some future trends, we asked 20 baseball players, coaches, scouts, trainers and front office officials a simple question: “What is a technology that doesn’t currently exist, but would significantly impact baseball if it could be invented?”
Some of the answers were practical. Some were fanciful. Here’s a selection of the most interesting answers on where baseball could be headed.
The Deception Detector
From the moment a pitch leaves a pitcher’s hand, it’s tracked. Multiple systems (Rapsodo, YakkerTech, TrackMan and others) can measure a pitch’s velocity, spin rate and movement. High-speed cameras can show exactly how the pitch came off the pitcher’s fingers.
For now, figuring out how much deception a pitcher generates remains (at least publicly) in the realm of speculation. Some pitchers do an
