Charting a whole game from one video
A pitch chart kept by hand means someone writes down every pitch as it is thrown. Baseball Tracker for Coaches builds the chart from a video instead. This is what you film, what comes back, and what the first game costs.
Baseball Tracker for Coaches is a web portal for baseball and softball staffs. A coach uploads one video of a whole game and gets back a log of every pitch, in order, each one timed to the video. It is the web side of the Baseball Tracker mobile app, and our Baseball Tracker for Coaches product page has the short version. This post is the longer one.
What you film
One video of the whole game, from behind the plate. Any phone or camera you already own will do. One steady angle is enough, and there are no mounts or sensors to buy.
The file has to be an MP4 or a MOV, and it can be up to 30 GB, which leaves room for a full game at high quality.
How it gets there
You upload from a laptop. The file goes up in small chunks, and the upload resumes on its own if the connection drops, so a dropped connection does not cost you the upload.
A roster is optional for the first game. With one, the analysis can put names on your players. If the roster lives on a paper scorecard, you can add a photo of it and the portal drafts the roster from that.
Most games are ready in 10 to 20 minutes. Very long recordings can take longer. The analysis runs on our servers, so you can close the tab while it works. The four steps are set out on the portal's page on how full-game analysis works.
What comes back
- Every pitch in game order, timed to the video. Click a pitch and the video jumps to it.
- Pitch type, an AI-estimated velocity and the count for each pitch.
- Pitch counts and rollups for each pitcher, with average and max velocity.
- Filters by pitcher and by inning.
- Strike-zone and pitch-mix cards.
The review screen puts the video on the left and the pitch log on the right. You can see the whole thing before you sign up: the sample game on demonstration data is that same screen, filled with a made-up game. The teams, the players and the numbers on it are invented, and the page says so at the top.
What it does not do
It does not measure velocity the way a radar gun does. The velocities are AI estimates from video, not radar readings, and they should be read that way. The portal replaces the pitch chart kept by hand. It does not replace velocity hardware a program already owns.
It also does not keep your video forever. Game video is kept for playback for 30 days after upload and then deleted. The pitch log, the stats and the rollups stay in the account.
The free first game
Every new coach account gets one full game analyzed free, with no card. The email address on the account has to be verified before you upload.
After that game, uploading needs the Coach plan, which is $39.99 a month or $129.99 a year with a 7-day free trial. The trial asks for a card, and you can cancel anytime from Settings. A program whose coach already pays for Pro Max in the mobile app has web access included. The Coach plan pricing page has the detail.
For how the portal relates to the phone app, read why a radar-gun app grew a coach portal. To try it on a game of your own, start a free coach account at baseballtracker.app.