TrackMan changing the game

Awesome and game changing.

Those are just two of the descriptions offered by Georgia pitching coach Sean Kenny to explain the Bulldogs’ new TrackMan Portable, essentially a 3D Doppler radar system that has become the rage not only for top Division I programs, like Georgia, but for all 30 teams in Major League Baseball.

“When you've coached as long as I have, when you get new toys, it gives you a little extra juice. I love that thing,” Kenny said. “The Trackman guys have been awesome walking us through, but the really cool core of analytics people—our students—love it. We all love the new toys.”

Basically, TrackMan does precisely what the name implies: it allows pitching coaches such as Kenny to measure spin rate, spin axis, and release angle, thanks to an "edgeochronic" camera that can provide 1,000 frames per second.

For hitters, launch angle, launch, and contact depth are among the areas which can now be measured.

“The way I was coaching 25 years ago is certainly not the way we’re coaching now. The thing I think I really enjoy—and I’ve found myself trying to allot some more time during practice for this kind of stuff—is just the pitch design,” Kenny said. “Just the feedback you can get, not just from the Trackman but the edgeoch,ronic camera, which gives you 1,000 frames per second. You can see the spin right out of their hand, and that's what we're coaching to now. You can see it. It’s unbelievable.”

TrackMan also helps pinpoint a specific pitcher’s strengths. In some instances, it's also changed the way pitching coaches like Kenny are coaching their pitchers.

“Simply put, it’s helped us put guys in different buckets,” Kenny said. “Where the game has changed, I spent 20 years telling guys they’ve got to pitch down in the zone. Well, that’s actually wrong, and you didn’t know it was wrong until you got data to back it up.”

A former catcher, Bulldog head coach Scott Stricklin, explained what Kenny means.

“What we found out is there are certain kinds of pitchers that don’t need to throw the ball down, so the analytics play that out with guys that have vertical break. The ball ends up being a lot higher than where they're supposed to end up, and that’s why you see a lot of guys that throw high fastballs that, for some reason, hitters can’t hit,” Stricklin said. “They swing and miss, even though it might be 88, 89 mph. It looks hittable, but it’s not, and now we’re getting information that kind of confirms that it’s going to be better for this particular pitcher to throw up in the zone.”

Bulldog junior C.J. Smith said he has already been able to tell how TrackMan has helped to improve his game.

“For me, it’s kind of funny, because it’s just another thing to show I don’t throw that hard. But no, it has been fun to work on stuff,” Smith said. “My two-seam, I’ve been able to work on more horizontal, more side-to-side movement, and get more of a true sinker. So that’s been fun for me to get into the technology. It’s crazy to me that we have something like that. The technology we have is just out of this world.”

Kenny offered Bulldog reliever Jack Gowan as another player who has seen some positive effects.

A hard-throwing righty, when Gowan first arrived in Athens he was brought up not unlike countless other pitchers, in that he was always told to keep the ball down in the zone. While that’s certainly good advice for some, Gowan’s spin rate and spin direction are more effective when he pitches up.

Thanks to TrackMan, Gowan is now set up for more success than perhaps he was his first two years on the team.

“Jack Gowan is a great example of a guy who was a slot changer when he got here. But if he throws the ball at the knees, we’re frustrated with him,” Kenny said. “That's what is weird. He needs to pitch up. It has made it possible for us based on spin, based on spin direction, just looking at fastball profiles and saying, "OK, you don't have to pitch down in the zone— you have to pitch up in the zone. It’s made it easier for the player to understand and for me to teach it.”

Another benefit to TrackMan is its ability to help pitchers do a better job of tunneling their pitches.

Hitters are smarter than ever, and based on the release point, can tell before the ball gets to the plate whether the pitch will be a fastball or breaking ball. When pitchers can throw all their pitches using the same release (or tunnel), the advantages go back to the man on the mound.

“If the hitter is seeing a breaking ball—and for whatever reason, this pitcher has a good breaking ball, but it always gets hit—when you put those slow-motion cameras together, and you look at the spin and movement, you can see maybe they come out of different tunnels. So it’s almost telling the hitter, here comes the curveball, so even though it’s a good pitch, you’re tipping off what’s coming,” Stricklin said. “It’s amazing the technology we have now, and what we can see, and what we can pass along. Our players are smarter and smarter when it comes to this stuff, so they know what we’re talking about when we say it.”