This year’s World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers was an extremely impressive showing in how much technology is used in baseball today. Both teams used technology to their advantage. Coaches didn’t go with their gut feeling or what they thought was the best fit, they used help from technology to decide starting pitchers, defensive shifts, bullpen help, and pinch hitting.

One of the biggest things used in this series was StatCast. This tracks every pitch, every hit, and every throw during the game. It measures things like exit velocity, launch angle, pitchers spin rate, and player movement speed. For example if a blue jays hitter is late on every fastball that’s thrown to them, StatCast should be able to easily track that. Then, the dodgers can see that and make the pitcher throw fastballs high in the zone to attack the hitters weakness.

Both teams also relied on high speed cameras and resources like TrackMan during practices and in games. These cameras record a players every single moment, therefor coaches can break down this video and make mechanical adjustments. Pitchers can look at how consistent their arm slot and angle are each throw and hitters can also se how consistent their bath path is and see how they are making adjustments to hit each pitch as well. These little tiny things are the difference between strike 3 and ball 4, or a weak ground ball or a home run.

In the end of it all, with the dodgers coming out with the ring, this year’s World Series showed baseball isn’t just an old fashioned game anymore. It showed us that technology in baseball is changing the way the game is played. The basic hit, throw, catch is still the same, but teams understand more now than they ever have and they’re using it to their advantage. It’s helped the game become smarter, move faster, and more exciting to watch.