Under The Knife 4/1/24

Slowing Things Down

A reminder: I don’t do April Fools content. I did one years ago at Prospectus and it was so good that to this day, people still find the link and email asking for information. It’s heartbreaking when it’s a player or parent who thinks they’ve found hope. I thought it was apparent at the time and there’s even a disclaimer that’s been on it for years, but people read past it and a lot of the contextual hints.

Jason Snell - who’s Six Colors is must read stuff if you’re an Apple person - pointed out a new setting in MLB’s app. For years, people have tried to figure out how to sync up radio and TV, but the streaming era has made it even more noticeable. That MLB is doing something, albeit something of a half-measure, shows that they’re at least aware of the issue.

But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem. Latency is a major issue for sports because of one issue: gambling. You can’t bet on the next pitch if it happened 30 seconds ago, so for the sports books who would love to have play-by-play props, players have to either be in-stadium or have one of those Hummingbird Project lines. I worked on an in-stadium NFL play-prediction game for FanDuel about a decade ago and while it was really fun, it was limited by signal strength inside stadiums.

There are many companies, including the sports books and the leagues, who are trying to reduce this latency. Dolby Labs is one of the leaders, but for streaming a movie or an episode of The Traitors UK, a bit of lag isn’t an issue. We’ve seen more live sports on streaming and it’s expected to go from here, but it’s a very complex problem. Right now, most of the focus is on high-value bettors and high-value games. You’re likely to see more Cubs and Yankees games on low-latency formats than you are the Rays.

Even so, what’s defined as “ultra-low latency” is still 3-5 seconds, which is too much. The problem is distance and physics, where even the speed of light bumps up against fiber optics and satellites. There’s a push to have “trusted delays” - where the gambler doesn’t know the information, but that can be screwed around with by something as simple as a phone call. A buddy sitting in the stadium with his iPhone could hose a sports book who thought they had a delay.

Whether you’re pro or con on gambling, it’s an accepted part of the game now. Owners are going to squeeze it for every penny they can, much in the same way they learned that stadium development districts could be profitable in ways that don’t necessarily have to make it back to the field. (I’ll have more on this thought soon.)

The idea that we could have the in-stadium experience outside the stadium is closer than ever, but the play-by-play gambling is still a ways off for most, which means owners will work harder than ever to draw more gamblers to the park. Expect high-end lounges, comps to the best seats, and tie-ins with casinos. I noticed the Dodgers best seats - even Mary Hart’s! - is now sponsored by a local casino. The whales are coming, folks. They’re coming.

For now, let’s get to the injuries, which move a line or two themselves:

WALKER BUEHLER, SP LAD (sprained elbow/rehab)

Walker Buehler didn’t stay close to home, as I’d expected, but took the Dodger express out to Oklahoma City. If anything, it shows the Dodgers are committed to the plan and not worried about their pitching depth right now. With Yoshinobu Yamamoto not just righting the ship, but dominating, giving Buehler the time the Dodgers think he needs is easy.

There were some clues about what that time and work is meant for in his start. Buehler had his normal distribution of pitches, was at or near his 2022 velocities (which is to say slightly down from his early stuff and perhaps a sign of decline as his elbow degraded), and from the MILB video, he looked pretty much like he had. One person in attendance asked me if I thought Buehler was working on his mechanics. I can’t see that, but noted that there’s a LOT of cameras at Bricktown, plus Hawkeye, so if he is, the Dodgers will know a lot.

The one thing I did notice - and this is modern baseball - is that Buehler wasn’t pausing and seemingly thinking about mechanics. The pitch clock prevents that, so while I can’t tell what Buehler was or wasn’t thinking about, or even get the pauses we used to. Whether that hurts or helps is an unknown. It’s also one reason that seeing rehab assignments like this - at upper levels, with no controls - is something I think we’ll see less and less of in the near future.

As for Buehler, he made it through 54 pitches and seemed fine despite some control issues. If he recovers well, the plan is one more start and then a return to the Dodgers rotation. There was nothing I saw on Sunday that would change that, though I still don’t understand quite why it was necessary at all.

Subscribers will get new info on Royce Lewis, Mitch Garver, big questions about Tommy Edman, and the Triple-A debut of Paul Skenes. Please consider supporting Under The Knife with a subscription.