In late April, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy saw something he didn\u2019t like. It wasn\u2019t just the lackluster at-bats that had his team 26th in the majors in OPS, 29th in walks per strikeout and 30th in runs scored. It was what was happening during those at-bats, in the dugout. \u201cThere\u2019s times when guys do something good, come in and [their teammates\u2019] heads are down,\u201d Bochy says.<\/p>\n
Those heads are looking at the 20 iPads Major League Baseball supplies for use during games. A few go to the bullpen and the day\u2019s starting pitcher, but they are mostly claimed by the hitters, who pore over their swing mechanics, review the pitcher\u2019s offerings or fact-check an umpire\u2019s call.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are helpful,\u201d Bochy admits. \u201c[But] I think we get a little caught up in the process, instead of watching the game and competing out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the Rangers made what is becoming an increasingly common decision among MLB teams as they grapple with the proliferation of technology: The team took the iPads away. Echoing parents everywhere, baseball coaches are beginning to complain that the problem with Gen Z is too much screen time.<\/p>\n
The Rangers scored 15 runs their first night as Luddites, and Bochy allowed himself a smile or two. \u201cI loved it,\u201d he says. \u201cI really did.\u201d But two days later\u2014after the team scored one run, then none\u2014they gave them back. Team officials had made their point. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to take away any resource that might make them better,\u201d Bochy says. \u201cBut it\u2019s also just a reminder, Hey, it\u2019s O.K. to watch the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
For much of baseball history, the most players could hope for was grainy broadcast film or some Zapruder footage from the stands. About a decade ago, teams opened video rooms within the ballparks, and almost immediately coaches began to lament that so many hitters fled there to review their swings that dugouts were empty during games.<\/p>\n
MLB cut off in-game access in 2020 as part of COVID-19 protocols. The restriction, of course, came in the context of an MLB investigation that found the Astros had used the replay room to steal signs illegally. The players already had access to dugout iPads for scouting information and historical video; in \u201921, the league gave them video during games, on a slight delay, cut so that they could not see the catcher\u2019s signs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shohei Ohtani looks over an iPad with Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc. \/ Keith Birmingham\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Even the oldest-school coaches acknowledge some jealousy at the amount of visual feedback hitters have these days. \u201cI wish I had \u2019em,\u201d says Rangers hitting coach Bret Boone, the former All-Star second baseman who was brought on board in May in part because he\u2019s the sort of guy who sometimes reminds players jovially, \u201cGet the f— off your iPads!\u201d But he joins the growing old guard that sees loss as well as gain, starting with the image TV viewers see at least once per game, of a dugout full of players staring at iPads.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou start to get dependent on it, and you\u2019re starting to miss what\u2019s most important,\u201d says Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose team also cut down on iPads for a stretch in 2022, at the suggestion of first baseman Freddie Freeman. They kept one, so players who had an important concern could glance at it between innings, but otherwise they required eyes on the field. \u201cWe just needed to have guys focused on the game,\u201d recalls third baseman Max Muncy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So what are the important factors the iPad obscures?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pitch tipping, for one. The videos are cut starting at the moment the pitcher begins his motion, meaning you can\u2019t watch him come set and, perhaps, take a big breath before he throws a fastball. (Some veteran bench players do see this change as offering job security\u2014they can use their eyes to pick up a minuscule motion that no one else, especially someone looking at a screen, caught.)<\/p>\n
They can also take a matchup out of context. The scouting report may say that a pitcher throws a curveball 20% of the time in a certain count. But, says veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar, \u201cIf I\u2019m the seventh hitter, I can see he hasn\u2019t thrown a curveball for a strike to the first six hitters.\u201d He might be able to eliminate that pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the iPads can distort the rhythm of the game entirely. \u201cYou miss how quick the game really is,\u201d says Nationals manager Davey Martinez, who took the devices away for the last month of last season. \u201cOn the iPad you can make it slow, slow, slow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game speed can actually be helpful when a player might be prone to overanalyzing, which watching video encourages. You\u2019re unlikely to be able to make a mechanical change during a game. \u201cIf you\u2019re having swing thoughts in the box, you\u2019re probably not succeeding,\u201d says Guardians catcher Austin Hedges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to look at the iPad, put 50 line drives at 98 miles an hour [on there],\u201d says Martinez. \u201cBut those guys will go back and look and they swung at a ball that went 55 feet. [You don\u2019t need the iPad.] I can tell you: Stop chasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several managers and coaches have also expressed concern that the instant video breeds an obsession with reviewing balls and strikes. Where a hitter might once have had to wait for the final out of an inning, go play defense, and only then head to the video room if a call was still eating at him, he can now have someone hand him an iPad before he even puts his bat down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had a two-strike count on you,\u201d says Angels manager Ron Washington. \u201cYou can\u2019t take a pitch that breaks that close.\u201d But because the iPad agrees it was a ball, the player feels self-righteous instead of learning a two-strike approach. And regardless, the at-bat is over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But most of all, coaches worry that players are so focused on the details that they lose sight of the whole enterprise. \u201cWe\u2019re a team, trying to beat another team, in the present moment, not on an iPad,\u201d says Dodgers first base coach Chris Woodward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fewer players are watching each pitch from the dugout railing. \/ David J. Griffin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
But the tools are helpful, and they definitely aren\u2019t going away. Most minor league teams have at least a few iPads, so players arrive in the majors fully fluent in the technology\u2014and often reliant on it. So there is an advantage to be found in teaching players to use it well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of talking about what you shouldn\u2019t be doing, coaches have the opportunity to explain what to look for,\u201d says Guardians field coordinator Kai Correa. Overuse of iPads is not about the iPads, he says. It\u2019s an indication that a player does not understand the value of watching the game on the field. So he tries to point out what he sees and why that is relevant. And hitters see an opportunity to reclaim some of the ground they have lost to pitchers in the development wars over the past few years. A pitcher can use data to optimize a pitch; at least the hitters can use data to get a good sense of what it\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis game that we play now is so much more information-based that we need the metrics,\u201d says Mets left fielder Brandon Nimmo. He likes to track a pitcher\u2019s vertical break and horizontal movement in real time so he can adjust where he expects the ball to end up. \u201cThis, like, \u2018Well, just go up there and kind of see what they have\u2019 deal is kind of a thing of the past,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
This is a classic baseball conundrum. The only constant of the sport is that it\u2019s changing and its participants must adapt. \u201cWhy not have the old thing and the new thing?\u201d says Correa. \u201cWhy not have quality conversations, experiences, watching in real time, iterating, reacting and also planning and reviewing and measuring? I will never, ever be comfortable with the argument that they\u2019re mutually exclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as for that TV image of a dugout full of players with their heads down, Correa sees it differently. \u201cThe irony of that is that if they\u2019re showing that in-game,\u201d he says, \u201cthat means nothing\u2019s happening on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
More MLB on Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In late April, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy saw something he didn\u2019t like. It wasn\u2019t just the lackluster at-bats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-135165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}