Pitches in the base Occlusion drills are cut off (occluded) at about one-third (approx. 15-20 feet) of ball flight, which sports science research shows is the critical window for hitters to make swing decisions and swing adjustments. Advanced drills show less than 10 feet of ball flight. Don’t expect to be very good at Ball/Strike with such little ball flight visible. Advanced drills are focused on picking up Pitch Type immediately out of the pitcher’s hand. Full Pitch drills have no occlusion. You see the full ball flight. These drills are good as orientation for users new to occlusion video or who struggle with the base occlusion drills.

Other pitch recognition technologies use modeled pitches, Virtual Reality or videotape pitchers in a studio so that the background can be changed. gameSense video shot in games is less controlled but captures game-speed pitches executed in game situations.

Video cameras don’t “see” in the same way human eyes; putting the camera in the exact hitter location doesn’t result in natural feeling video. Our angles exaggerate pitch movement, especially low in the zone, while still showing tilt on fastballs down in the zone.

Showing a bit of the catcher and/or umpire gives your eyes a frame of reference to create the batters’ box view in your mind’s eye. On pitch REPLAYS the catcher and umpire are shown to let users see the ball/strike location.

Many teams, including major league teams, record video from a camera positioned behind the plate and 10 or 12 feet high. This view is adequate for reading Pitch Type out of the pitcher’s hand but does not capture pitch movement or support judging Pitch Location.

We go by the umpire’s call in the game for ball/strike. Pitch Type is taken from pitch charts recorded in the game. These calls are not perfect, but neither are they in game. What’s more important than getting a pitch “right” is getting a feel for the pitcher’s motion, moving your eyes to the release point, and picking up the ball.

Flipping videos – for instance, so that LHP to RHB looks like RHP to LHB – increases the number of pitchers. Sometimes on flipped videos the billboards or distance mark on the fence are backward and the catcher is left-handed. Hitters who are concentrating hard enough on the pitches don’t usually notice.

Our pitching models range from youth to professional. Our youth pitchers play on travel teams and our advanced play in unaffiliated minor leagues. They range in age from 14 to their early 20s. The pitches are appropriate for professional, college, high school and youth travel hitters.

With our guidance teams videotape opponent pitchers. gameSense can put custom pitchers on the app for occlusion study. Used primarily by major league teams where pitchers are faced repeatedly. In minor leagues the goal of developing hitters emphasizes learning to read a variety of pitchers rather than preparing for specific pitchers. In most contexts, you can usually find pitchers in the gameSense library that are similar to opponent pitchers.

In the base Pitch Recognition drills you get 10 points for getting Pitch Type correct and 10 points for getting Pitch Location (Ball/Strike) correct. Getting both correct scores 25 points. There are 10 pitches in every drill, so the maximum score is 250. The computer will recommend NEW DRILL or REPEAT DRILL based on how your score on a drill compares with other test takers. The score helps you see progress, compare to teammates, and decide whether to repeat drills.

Drills are 10 pitches in length and pitches shown are selected from a pool of between 20 and 40 pitches for that drill. Every pitch is randomly selected so a pitch sometimes plays more than once in a drill, but every drill is different no matter how many times it is repeated.

Very occasionally, a video pitch will get stuck. Click any guess (Fastball/Strike is always a good guess) and the drill will continue. If it happens more than once, please send a Help Request to gameSense. There is a button on the drill screen.