Advanced tracking technology has opened the door for amateur golfers to improve their swing, quarterbacks to improve their passing game and basketballers to refine their shooting stroke. Now, aspiring pitchers have been added to the list of people who can benefit from ball tracking. Rapsodo opens the door for amateurs to measure their spin, velocity and trajectory.
Baseball is a game of numbers, but access to those numbers has been limited to professionals up until now. According to Rapsodo, being able to accurately measure a wide range of metrics has a huge number of benefits to athletes and their teams.
Although it's able to track a wide range of metrics, the Rapsodo system is relatively simple. A sensor unit, which is made up of a high-speed camera and a radar, measuring 117 x 102 x 78 mm (4.6 x 4 x 3 in), sits behind the catcher on an (included) tripod, and there's a built-in battery good for four hours. This wirelessly connects up to an iOS or Windows application, and can track pitches up to 100 mph (161 km/h).
The system is able to measure pitch velocity, spin rate, the ball's tilt axis, how much it breaks and where it lands in the strike zone. The information is mapped out through the accompanying app, and can be stored to make it easier to measure long-term progress.
The information collected from the sensor can be used to track improvement in pitchers, tailor their warmups, and form a baseline against which injuries and rehab can be measured. Multiple pitcher profiles can be stored in the app, meaning a whole team can be stored and tracked using the same system.
The Rapsodo system will set you back US$3,000. It's already on sale, and the package includes a sensor, charge cable and tripod.
Source: Rapsodo