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Major League Baseball teams like the New York Yankees are always looking for ways to gain a competitive edge on their competition.
They believe they may have found one of those ways in the form of Trajekt, a high-tech pitching machine like we have never seen before.
Forget virtual reality, located right by their clubhouse in Yankee Stadium, Trajekt allows the Bronx Bombers to practice hitting against any pitcher in the league with about as much realism as one can possibly get.
As Brendan Kuty of The Athletic explains, Yankees hitters like Alex Verdugo and Gleyber Torres had success against Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Michael Wacha in the playoffs because they had basically already batted against him earlier during the day of the game.
Verdugo said many Yankees hitters had spent time before the game facing a simulation of Wacha via Trajekt, a high-tech pitching machine just steps away from their clubhouse at Yankee Stadium. The machine projects a life-sized video of just about any major-league pitcher onto its screen. Then the video shows the pitcher through his delivery and shoots out whichever pitch the batter has chosen at that pitcher’s actual release point.
“Trajekt is probably the most realistic pitching machine of all time,” said Travis Fitta, senior hitting trainer at Driveline Baseball.
According to Joshua Pope, CEO and co-founder of Trajekt Sports Inc., all teams have to do is upload the data they have on opposing pitchers – things like spin, movement and velocity – into the company’s database, and the pitching machine replicates it, complete with a visual of the ball coming out of that pitcher’s hand.
Making the Trajekt pitching machine even more useful is that for the first time ever, Major League Baseball is allowing teams to use it during games.
That will certainly come in handy for the Yankees in the American League Championship Series as they take on a Cleveland Guardians team with one of the best, and most used, bullpens in baseball.
Yankees’ shortstop Anthony Volpe says he will use the Trajeckt pitching machine “the inning before, a couple innings before” he has to make a plate appearance against a certain pitcher.
“Some guys are using it for the video and you see the pitcher’s delivery a little bit,” said Yankees’ hitting coach James Rowson. “I think you can get some benefit out of seeing release point, having an idea of where the ball is going to come out, even though there is no perfect science. But it will give you context.”