Baseball has an exciting new wrinkle this season, one that depends on work done by Washington State University’s Sports Science Laboratory.
The Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge allows the hitter, catcher or pitcher to challenge a call made by the home plate umpire. High-speed video technology delivers the verdict nearly instantly to stadium displays and to viewers at home. The technology takes into account each hitter’s unique strike zone, based on their height.
After being tested in the minor leagues and in spring training over the last few years, the new system debuted in Major League Baseball’s regular season on March 25.
WSU’s role has been to verify the reliability of the systems used to track hits, balls and strikes, which have been installed in Major League ballparks for years.
“The MLB is interested in the accuracy of this system for many reasons,” said Lloyd Smith, director of the WSU Sports Science Lab, also known as the Bat Lab. “At the moment it’s the challenge system, and before that they wanted to use it to evaluate umpires.”
The role of the WSU Sports Science Lab has been to verify the reliability of the systems used to track hits, balls and strikes in Major League ballparks.
Sports Science Lab personnel visited every MLB ballpark multiple times to check the accuracy of the systems. That frequency has tapered off, with just a half dozen ballparks validated each year.
Most of the lab’s work is now in minor league ballparks.
“The interest there is not so much entertainment, but wanting to ensure the data is accurate because it’s used to evaluate players teams want to bring up,” Smith said.
The ABS system is fundamentally about entertainment, he added.
“The audience is so engaged when these challenges come up,” he said. They cheer or groan based on the verdict flashed on the video screens in the park.
“I’m involved in the science of the game, but I often forget the reason we have the game is its entertainment value,” Smith added.
The Bat Lab specializes in the dynamics of ball and bat collisions. It tests bats for the NCAA, USA Baseball and USA Softball, for example. It certifies bats for sports equipment manufacturers. Major League Baseball contracts with the lab to test for ball drag in addition to the verification work in ballparks.
Said Smith, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering, “It’s fun to see science contribute to the game.”
