So the Cardinals are using an iPad in the dugout.
If you’ve noticed any of the coaches looking at a tablet the past few games, yes – it’s allowed by MLB. The Cardinals are one of a few teams that have taken baseball’s allowance of iPads in the dugout during game action and ran with it.
Every team is allowed an iPad. It’s unclear how many teams are taking advantage of the opportunity. It is not mandatory.
They’ll be able to use it during the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs. The intention of the program is to try and replace the reams of paper notes that coaches were using to see data on September call ups or historical match-up stats between players.
No Candy Crush or Trivia Crack – the iPad isn’t connected to the internet. All content is pre-loaded on to the unit before the game.
In the linked article above, Mike Matheny says that the Cardinals will use the iPad as long as it’s allowed.
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Baseball on the surface is a stodgy sport.
If you see clips of basketball or hockey from 50 or 75 years ago, you can’t imagine some of those dudes playing today and having any success whatsoever. But in baseball, there’s always been room for slap hitters and junk twirlers. If they had 4K cameras back in the 1920’s, you’d be seeing a very similar game as you do today… just with a few more beer bellies.
That doesn’t mean that baseball teams aren’t working hard behind the scenes to try and gain an edge.
The iPad is part of that process. So is a doctor named Daniel Laby from the SUNY College of Optometry in Manhattan.
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Don’t keep your eyes on the baseball if you’re trying to hit it. Won’t work.
“It’s moving faster than you can physically move your eyes, so there’s no way you can follow the ball all the way to contact,” he said recently at his Midtown office, pointing to a photo of retired slugger Manny Ramirez making contact but looking ahead. Like Ramirez in the picture, he said, batters should “look at the last point they have information they can make use of.”
Dr. Laby is profiled in this piece from the Wall Street Journal and his teaching methods are gaining traction within MLB. This year he began working with the New York Yankees after previously doing work for the Boston Red Sox and LA Dodgers.
The whole article is worth the read. I mean, vision might be the single most important thing in baseball, but how often do you talk about a players sight when evaluating their potential? Beyond that deal with Josh Hamilton a while back, have you ever thought about sight as a performance indicator?
I hadn’t.
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iPads.
Vision coaches.
Baseball teams are experimenting with all sorts of new and interesting ways to try and pick up a win or two over the course of a season.
Photo: Wikimedia
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