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Robots replicate reality: High-tech pitching machine mimics every pitcher

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Robots replicate reality: High-tech pitching machine mimics every pitcher
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Robots replicate reality: High-tech pitching machine mimics every pitcher

2024-03-27 01:07 Last Updated At:01:10

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nestor Cortes got behind the plate in a batting cage and watched an 8-foot-high, 1,200-pound robot spit out fastballs, cutters and sweepers just like the ones spinning off the fingertips of his left hand.

“It was like seeing myself pitch. That was crazy,” the New York Yankees All-Star left-hander said.

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The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A laptop is used to demonstrate the Trajekt Arc pitching machine during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A laptop is used to demonstrate the Trajekt Arc pitching machine during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A baseball travels through the Trajekt Arc pitching machine as it is demonstrated at the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A baseball travels through the Trajekt Arc pitching machine as it is demonstrated at the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Baseballs wait to be sent through The Trajekt Arc pitching machine as the device is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Baseballs wait to be sent through The Trajekt Arc pitching machine as the device is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Trajekt uses data to mimic the way balls spin and break from big league pitchers and has for the first time been approved by Major League Baseball for in-game use this year in batting cages. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Trajekt uses data to mimic the way balls spin and break from big league pitchers and has for the first time been approved by Major League Baseball for in-game use this year in batting cages. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Technology has come a long way since the days of the Iron Mike.

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine uses baseball's high-tech data to mimic the way balls break from every big league pitcher and has been approved by Major League Baseball for in-game use this year in batting cages. Using video of deliveries and data, the robot allows a hitter to step in against recreated offerings from any pitcher he wants to face. Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani said he used Trajekt to view his pitches from a different vantage point.

“You’re training their brain. You’re training their eyes,” Philadelphia hitting coach Kevin Long said.

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Each machine costs $15,000 to $20,000 a month as part of a three-year lease, an unimaginable leap forward from the pitching gun invented by Princeton mathematics professor Charles Howard Hinton in 1896 that looked like a 2 1/2-foot-long cannon.

Paul Giovagnoli turned the concept into a business. He owned golf driving ranges in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, wanted to add baseball and created what become known as the Iron Mike. Giovagnoli founded Master Pitching Machine in 1952, and its units with long metal arms became omnipresent throughout the majors.

By the mid-1970s, machines with spinning wheels entered the market, the better to replicate breaking balls, and the Yankees had three at $1,600 each at spring training in 1978.

Those models have gone the way of flannel uniforms.

Spinball Sports’ iPitch Smart Machine retails for $14,000 and is programmed with 16 built-in pitchers with 140 pitches. Company sales manager Sam Root says there are more than 100 of its iPitch machines among 27 MLB teams and units are at 15 Division I college conferences.

SportsAttack’s Elite eHack Attack comes with fastballs, changeups, split-fingers and right and left curveballs and sliders, and allows customized pitches and storage for 20 favorites. It retails for $14,999.

A laptop is used to demonstrate the Trajekt Arc pitching machine during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A laptop is used to demonstrate the Trajekt Arc pitching machine during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Joshua Pope took it a step further. He was a senior at TanenbaumCHAT high school in Toronto in 2014 and was talking with friends about how many swings it would take for them to get a hit off Marcus Stroman, then a top Toronto Blue Jays rookie. Having had a couple shoulder surgeries, Pope knew his career wouldn’t be as an athlete. He applied to the University of Waterloo in Ontario in part because John McPhee, a mechanical engineering professor there, had developed a hockey slapshot robot.

“We had a theoretical modeling approach to how we could create a machine to replicate gyro spin,” Pope said.

Data was publicly available. MLB installed Sportvision’s PITCHf/x in 2006 and then its more detailed Statcast system for 2015, which runs on Hawk-Eye data. All teams get Hawk-Eye, and some now supplement it with information from KinaTrax Motion Capture, Simi Reality Motion Systems and DARI Motion.

During his five-year college program, Pope received a grant of $60,000 Canadian and raised financing to built a prototype. He became CEO of the new company founded in 2019 and recruited Rowan Ferrabee, a Waterloo mechatronics engineering student, to be chief technology officer. They originally called their firm SimulatePro but changed it to Trajekt Sports — Traject with a normal spelling was taken and they liked the K because of its use for strikeouts in baseball scoring.

Working at Velocity, a startup hub in Kitchener, Ontario, from April 2019 to March 2020 — and then in the garage of Pope's parents after the coronavirus pandemic began — they developed a machine that controls 11 of 12 degrees of freedom for pitches, maintaining only a fixed release point of 56 1/2 feet from the plate.

A baseball travels through the Trajekt Arc pitching machine as it is demonstrated at the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A baseball travels through the Trajekt Arc pitching machine as it is demonstrated at the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

They presented a demo of the ball inserter and user interface at the 2019 winter meetings, and Chicago Cubs director of Innovation Bobby Basham agreed to a three-week spring training trial in 2021. Trajekt reached deals for seven teams in 2022 and now has 20 teams with about 45 machines — including a club in Japan that started last season. Until this year, MLB limited use to before and after games.

Trajekt trains a team’s data and video staff and sends two people for installation, which takes a day or two. Teams appear to prefer using softer Rawlings L10 training balls to lessen broken bats.

Phillies All-Star catcher JT Realmuto spends about an hour before each game going over the data on opposing hitters, writing notes that he takes to the dugout and reviews before each defensive half inning.

“It’s cool to see how far data driven baseball things have come,” Realmuto said. “Obviously, analytics are a huge part of our game now. Analytics were going on 20 years ago, it’s just we didn’t really know how to understand it and how to transfer it into real time.”

MLB began regulating on-field technology in 2016 and has approved six products for in-game, on-field use this year: 4D Motion’s kinematic/movement tracker, Catapult’s GPS tracker, STATSports’ GPS tracker, Pulse’s Motus Sleeve that measures biomechanics and heart monitors from WHOOP and Zephyr. In addition, two bat sensors from Blast Motion and two from Diamond Kinetics are approved for on-field use during workouts.

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

“It’s a lot of vetting. It’s important to keep your eyes on emerging technologies but it requires a lot of work,” Phillies general manager Sam Fuld said. “It’s not as simple as snapping your fingers and investing in a piece of technology that looks interesting. You’ve got to make sure you’re making the right choice because with it comes a lot of human capital that’s needed to operate the tech. If there’s data associated with the tech, there’s a lot of bandwidth required to make meaning of that data.”

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Baseballs wait to be sent through The Trajekt Arc pitching machine as the device is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Baseballs wait to be sent through The Trajekt Arc pitching machine as the device is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Trajekt uses data to mimic the way balls spin and break from big league pitchers and has for the first time been approved by Major League Baseball for in-game use this year in batting cages. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Trajekt Arc pitching machine is demonstrated during the Major League Baseball winter meetings Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Trajekt uses data to mimic the way balls spin and break from big league pitchers and has for the first time been approved by Major League Baseball for in-game use this year in batting cages. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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Cleveland rallies past New York for 61st victory

2025-04-03 13:40 Last Updated At:13:51

CLEVELAND (AP) — Donovan Mitchell scored 27 points and the Cleveland Cavaliers matched the second-most wins in franchise history, defeating the New York Knicks 124-105 on Wednesday night.

Jarrett Allen added 21 points for the Cavaliers, who have 61 wins, equaling the 2009-10 squad. That was the final season in LeBron James’ first stint with the team. The franchise record is 66 wins during the 2008-09 season.

With Cleveland’s win and Boston’s loss to Miami, the Cavaliers have a five-game lead for the top seed in the Eastern Conference with six games remaining.

PACERS 119, HORNETS 105

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Tyrese Haliburton had 22 points and 10 assists, Aaron Nesmith scored 16 points and Pascal Siakam added 15 on his 31st birthday, leading Indiana to a victory over the Charlotte.

The playoff-bound Pacers have won three of four and eight of 10. They clinched their second straight playoff spot Tuesday when Atlanta lost to Portland. Myles Turner also had 15 points and nine rebounds.

Miles Bridges scored 18 points to lead Charlotte, which has lost six of seven. Seth Curry and Mark Williams each scored 16 points and Williams had 12 rebounds.

WIZARDS 116, KINGS 111

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jordan Poole scored 23 points and Washington beat Sacramento to split the season series between the teams.

Bub Carrington and AJ Johnson each added 19 points for the Wizards, who entered Wednesday tied with Utah for the fewest wins in the NBA with 16. Tristan Vukcevic had 17 and Anthony Gill added 10.

DeMar DeRozan scored 20 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter trying to rally the Kings from a 14-point deficit after three quarters. The Kings outscored the Wizards 34-25 in the fourth, but never got closer than 111-109 inside the final minute.

Domantas Sabonis had 18 points and 16 rebounds for the Kings. Keegan Murray and Zach LaVine had 18 apiece.

HEAT 124, CELTICS 103

BOSTON (AP) — Tyler Herro had 25 points and nine assists and Miami extended their season-best winning streak to six games with a victory over Boston.

Bam Adebayo had 21 points for Miami, which had seven players finish in double figures to cap a 3-0 road trip.

The Heat’s run of wins come after a stretch last month during which they lost 10 consecutive games. They played without Andrew Wiggins (hamstring), Duncan Robinson (back) and Kevin Love (personal reasons).

Jaylen Brown had 24 points and nine rebounds for the Celtics, who had their season-best nine-game win streak snapped. Jayson Tatum and Derrick White both added 16 points apiece.

ROCKETS 143, JAZZ 105

HOUSTON (AP) — Jalen Green scored 22 points, Dillon Brooks added 21 and Houston beat Utah for their 50th win of the season.

Jabari Smith Jr. finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds off the bench, Tari Eason had 15 points and nine rebounds and Alperen Sengun had 15 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists for Houston, which shot 54% and was 19 of 45 on 3-pointers.

Isaiah Collier had 22 points and 10 assists, Collin Sexton finished with 18 points and Keyonte George had 14 points, for the Jazz, who lost their seventh straight game. Walker Kessler added 11 points and 12 rebounds. Utah shot 43% and were 10 of 40 on 3-pointers.

MAVERICKS 120, HAWKS 118

DALLAS (AP) — Anthony Davis’ driving floater with 3.4 seconds left capped his 34-point night, his highest scoring game with Dallas, in the Mavericks’ victory over Atlanta.

Davis also had 15 rebounds and five blocks despite missing most of the second period with an eye injury as Dallas overcame an 11-point third-quarter deficit.

Klay Thompson had 17 points for the Mavericks. They are ninth in the Western Conference, 1 1/2 games ahead of 10th-place Sacramento.

SPURS 113, NUGGETS 106

DENVER (AP) — Harrison Barnes scored 20 points to lead six San Antonio players in double figures and the Spurs beat short-handed Denver.

In his second career start, Jaylen Pickett recorded his first triple-double with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

Russell Westbrook scored 30 points, but didn’t have any in the fourth quarter, when he missed a running reverse layup that would have tied the game with 4 1/2 minutes remaining.

After Westbrook’s miss, Blake Wesley’s fastbreak basket at the other end was followed by Sandro Mamukelashvili’s dunk as the Spurs pulled ahead 105-99.

THUNDER 119, PISTONS 103

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 33 points, and Oklahoma City beat short-handed Detroit for their 11th straight win.

Jalen Williams scored 23 points and Chet Holmgren added 22 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks for the Thunder.

Oklahoma City has a three-game lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers with six games remaining in the race for the league’s best record and homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs.

CLIPPERS 114, PELICANS 98

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Kawhi Leonard scored 28 points and James Harden had 21 points and 10 assists to lead Los Angeles to a victory over New Orleans.

Ivica Zubac added 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Clippers, who won for the fourth time in five games and 12th in 15 games. Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 16 points.

Jose Alvarado had 17 points and 10 assists for the Pelicans, who are 3-7 in their last 10. Bruce Bowen added 16 points and Yves Missi grabbed 12 rebounds.

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45), forward Evan Mobley (4), New York Knicks forward Precious Achiuwa (5) and forward De'Andre Hunter (12) watch as the ball heads out of bounds in the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45), forward Evan Mobley (4), New York Knicks forward Precious Achiuwa (5) and forward De'Andre Hunter (12) watch as the ball heads out of bounds in the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

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