Introducing Statcast 2020: Hawk-Eye and Google Cloud
On Opening Day 2020, MLB will introduce its upgraded Statcast platform featuring optical tracking sensors from Hawk-Eye Innovations and cloud infrastructure from Google Cloud. The Hawk-Eye Statcast system has demonstrated significant accuracy improvements in pitch, hit, and player tracking, and its pose tracking capabilities open up an exciting new frontier for analysis. Additionally, MLB is consolidating its infrastructure on Google Cloud to leverage Google’s industry-leading machine learning, analytics, application management, and data/video storage capabilities to increase reliability and manage governance at scale. Together, these partnerships will support next-level experiences for consumers and inspire fans around the world.
Hawk-Eye Innovations, founded by Dr. Paul Hawkins in 1999, has developed optical tracking systems used in 65 countries and over 20 sports, beginning with cricket, tennis, and soccer. Hawk-Eye’s technology has transformed the sports tracking, video, and officiating landscape, most notably its Electronic Line Calling system in tennis and Goal Line Technology and SMART Replay systems in soccer.
Hawk-Eye first partnered with MLB through the 2014 launch of the video replay system, a successful partnership that has allowed MLB umpires to confirm or correct over 1,000 calls per season. Now, Hawk-Eye has adapted its state-of-the-art tracking software to baseball pitches, hits, and players to further grow its relationship with MLB and the 30 Clubs.
Google Cloud provides organizations with leading infrastructure, platform capabilities and industry solutions. They deliver enterprise-grade cloud solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology to help companies operate more efficiently and adapt to changing needs, giving customers a foundation for the future. Google Cloud customers span the globe and include Major League Baseball, which began working with Google Cloud products in 2018 and has been growing the partnership ever since. As part of a multi-year partnership, Google Cloud has been named the Official Cloud Data and Analytics partner of MLB and will become a key component in MLB’s continued innovation in ad delivery, streaming, cloud computing, and machine learning.
System Overview
The Hawk-Eye Statcast system utilizes a total of 12 cameras around the park for full-field optical pitch, hit, and player tracking. Five cameras operating at 100 frames per second are primarily dedicated to pitch tracking, while an additional seven cameras are focused on tracking players and batted balls at 50 frames per second.
Hawk-Eye’s optical system combines ball and player tracking as demonstrated in Image 4 to determine the precise release point and trajectory for every pitch. This approach ties together pitcher mechanics and the resulting pitch trajectory to shed new light on the relationship between the two.
The Statcast 2020 system is also able to directly measure both pitch spin rate and spin axis rather than inferring one or both measurements from the observed path of the ball as previous systems have done. This enhancement leads to greater accuracy and opens up new doors for pitch design and development.
As all of this video is recorded and the data is processed, Hawk-Eye’s software transmits the data to MLB’s PostgreSQL database hosted in Google Cloud. From there, it is distributed to Clubs and MLB partners through the Stats API application, also powered by Google Cloud. Multiple video feeds are also clipped and saved off in Google Cloud Storage, which also powers MLB’s new advanced video search.
Future Development
Hawk-Eye’s 18-point pose tracking capabilities will allow Statcast to expand beyond center-of-mass points to track pose and orientation over the course of each play. Analysis of pitcher and hitter mechanics, fielder reaction times, and more will be made possible through Hawk-Eye’s data collection and Google’s BigQuery product and its machine learning capabilities. Furthermore, this pose tracking data could power new digital and augmented reality products and engage fans with wholly immersive experiences.
Hawk-Eye has also begun testing bat tracking capabilities, which would open new doors for coaches and fans to evaluate hitting mechanics and swing paths.
Accuracy
Through independent testing, MLB has found the Hawk-Eye Statcast system to exhibit significant accuracy improvements, beginning with pitch accuracy. The measured location of the center of the baseball at the front of home plate has been found in repeated testing to be accurate within 0.25 inches on average, with some of that error attributable to the ground truth testing system. In other words, the Hawk-Eye Statcast system is accurate within the width of a pencil or the top of a pushpin. Image 6 below demonstrates the measured plate location accuracy relative to the size of the baseball itself.
Similar tests have been conducted to verify pitch release point, pitch spin rate, hit locations, and player locations, confirming improvements across the board. Unlike the cameras and radar from different vendors under the legacy system, the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras work as one cohesive unit to track the ball and players in motion at all times. For example, when a high fly ball leaves one camera’s field of view, other cameras can continue to track the ball along its trajectory. Furthermore, if the ball leaves the field of view of all 12 cameras (as can happen on high pop-ups and fly balls), the system can then reacquire the ball later in its trajectory as gravity pulls it back into the view of one or more cameras. By more comprehensively tracking the full flight of the ball, the new system’s landing point measurements have been demonstrated to be within about one foot of accuracy across the field of play.
In addition to measurement accuracy, the Hawk-Eye Statcast system’s full field coverage allows for more complete tracking of every action before, during, and after each play. For example, the previous system struggled to track about half of fielder throws, particularly throws down the lines and across the field; by contrast, the Hawk-Eye system approaches complete coverage of every throw and catch on the field of play.
This enhanced fidelity of the Hawk-Eye Statcast system will enable the development of a new suite of Statcast metrics (especially fielding metrics) and digital products.
Where to Find Statcast Data
Next-generation Statcast data will continue to be integrated across many MLB platforms, including Gameday, MLB.com, Baseball Savant, and game and studio broadcasts. National broadcast partners ESPN, FOX, and Turner as well as regional sports networks regularly utilize Statcast data through the MLB’s Live Strike Zone, Pitchcast, Replay, and other products. The Statcast 2020 system tracks the ball and players and delivers their precise coordinates to broadcast partners in under 250 milliseconds throughout the game. Additionally, Statcast data is now available through MLB partners SportRadar and FanGraphs. MLB will continue working with its partners to further enhance the fan experience through next generation Statcast data.
