Few sports are so closely associated with data analytics as baseball. For more than 160 years, statisticians have tried to represent the game numerically. In 2015, Major League Baseball revolutionized a sport already known for its sophisticated use of data with MLB Statcast, a tracking technology that collects enormous amounts of game data.
Alexander Booth, assistant director of R&D for the Texas Rangers, says the data from Statcast, the Rangers’ own data sources, and the team’s use of analytics, machine learning (ML), and AI were contributing factors to the Rangers’ World Series title in 2023.
From 2015 to 2019, Statcast consisted of a combination of camera and radar systems, and in 2020, MLB partnered with Hawk-Eye Innovations to provide optical tracking systems. Each MLB club now has 12 Hawk-Eye cameras arrayed around their ballparks. Five alone focus on pitch tracking, while the other seven track players and batted balls. With the help of Hawk-Eye, Statcast tracks and quantifies all manner of data: pitching (including velocity, spin rate and direction, and movement), hitting (exit velocity, launch angle, batted ball distance), running (sprint speed, base-to-base times), and fielding (arm strength, catch probability, catcher pop time).
