Jeff Passan of Yahoo reports on a pretty neat new bit of tech the Tampa Bay Rays are using. It’s called Kinatrax. If you had asked me before I read the article what “Kinatrax” was I would’ve guessed that it was some 1970s premium movie channel that didn’t survive HBO’s rise to prominence. But it’s somehow even cooler than that:
Kinatrax uses ultra-high-speed cameras and aims to capture the sort of biomechanical data that previously necessitated the placement of reflective markers on different body parts. Should Kinatrax do what it purports to, it would revolutionize baseball by offering looks at pitchers’ in-game biomechanics instead of those revealed in laboratory settings.
Passan’s article talks about potential applications and the practical use of the system (i.e. it’s TREMENDOUSLY data-intensive). But even if it’s a new thing that will eventually be streamlined into something better, it’s a neat start.
