THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

If independent analysts never get to see Hit f/x and Field f/x data the Bloomberg MLBAM partnership will probably be the reason why.

I don’t know about that, Peter. I think it’s more apt to say the two share a similar cause. Let’s face it, this data is expensive for them to collect, and I’m sure they feel the need to monetize it in whatever ways they can.

Colin - I have not given up hope that we will be able to access the data in the future.  And I am well aware of Sportvision’s need to make a profit from its investment in Pitch f/x.  Maybe the partnership with Bloomberg is what was necessary to make that happen.  But in July Marv White was trying to position Sportvision to be the supplier of an Data/Video Integration package to the teams.  And the teams I talked to at the Summit wanted that to happen and thought Sportvision was the entity to make it happen.  And the teams were also willing to give public access to the data prior to the following season if they could have exclusive access to the data in season and through the winter trading and contract negotiation periods.

Marv White was always our biggest supporter.  It was he and Alan Nathan that made the Summits happen along with support from MLBAM.  It was he that made sure that independent analysts had the full support of Sportvision for assistance in their research projects including access to Sportvision raw data.  He saw our research as a valuable tool in demonstrating the uses of the data that they were collecting.  And he was always reassuring that our continued access to data for research purposes would be part of the negotiations in future profit making endeavors. 

Then, all of a sudden in September, Marv is no longer with Sportvision, MLBAM announces the partnership with Bloomberg, and it looks like they, rather than Sportvision, will be the packager of data to the teams.  As I said, maybe it had to be that way.  Maybe Sportvision is making out just fine with this arrangement.  And maybe we will eventually see the data.  But I am positive that no one will be as strong an advocate for the access of data for independent researchers as Marv White was.

Peter - do you think we’ll still have access to Pitch f/x next year?

Nick - I have absolutely no idea.  Part of the frustration is that no one seems to be sure about anything at this point.  But I have not even heard a rumor that Pitch f/x will be pulled from the Gameday XML files, so I am hoping everything will remain the same as it is now.