WCWS radar gun

[PharmerBrown]

I don't know how you would measure velocity without doing it out of the hand. To be accurate the radar must be in line with the path of the ball, which means in line with the hand. If you want to measure the speed at the plate you would have to trigger the gun at the exact moment the ball was crossing the plate, I'm sure there are machines that could do this but if it's hand operated timing it would be very difficult. And measuring velocity at the plate has complications. Bullet spin would be coming in a lot flatter than top spin, how do you account for this in the final measurement?

Did somebody say Grandpa Radar??

 

[BucketDud]

Yeah, it's not isolated to ESPN.

Most seem to agree they are juiced, but I have yet to hear a credible explanation as to how they do it. If only we had an engineer around this board still .

Are the just changing the graphic on the screen in between the gun and tv or are the radar guns themselves adjusted? I'm not trying to argue they aren't, but have a hard time understanding how that all happens.

 

[Traps71]

The radar guns used by ESPN are typically Stalker II's and are set up by grunts with the production crew. I have a Stalker II and there are all kinds of settings. Based on those settings I can easily make a pitcher look like a stud or a zero. I use my Pocket Radar to verify the settings on my Stalker II before I start capturing speeds direct to my PC. The only problem with that is the Pocket Radar will not work in most college stadiums due to interference issues. The ESPN production crew could care less about the accuracy so long as it is producing content.

This was a response that @riseball gave to similar question some time back. Riseball can speak for himself, but he had a daughter that pitched in the SEC and I believe he is/was a pitching coach.

 

[Vertigo]

This was a response that @riseball gave to similar question some time back. Riseball can speak for himself, but he had a daughter that pitched in the SEC and I believe he is/was a pitching coach.

Maybe a dumb question but can the radars on continuous setting behind home plate tell the difference between a pitch and ball exit speed? I guess obviously if there was no swing or a swing and miss, yes. But what about balls that are put in play?

 

[Tazman]

Most seem to agree they are juiced, but I have yet to hear a credible explanation as to how they do it. If only we had an engineer around this board still .

Are the just changing the graphic on the screen in between the gun and tv or are the radar guns themselves adjusted? I'm not trying to argue they aren't, but have a hard time understanding how that all happens.

My theory with absolute zero proof is that the guns are not directly in line. There is an adjustment needed to correct for that by increasing speed and who's to say if that adjustment is a wee bit too much.

 

[BucketDud]

Maybe a dumb question but can the radars on continuous setting behind home plate tell the difference between a pitch and ball exit speed? I guess obviously if there was no swing or a swing and miss, yes. But what about balls that are put in play?

I can tell you the PR synced with Game Changer definitely does not. Balls in play show the pitch somewhere in a range of 60-110 LOL.

That explanation about the Stalker is interesting and something I had not read before.

 

[Northball]

Maybe a dumb question but can the radars on continuous setting behind home plate tell the difference between a pitch and ball exit speed? I guess obviously if there was no swing or a swing and miss, yes. But what about balls that are put in play?

Just my pocket radar experience, I'll sometimes get two readings. It will pick up the ball, then the batted ball or the throwback from the catcher. Pitch speeds are usually in one range, exit velos in another, and throwbacks in a third range so I know what is what. What I don't know is on a batted ball, is the radar reading the ball or bat barrel? I would think they are basically the same?

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Maybe a dumb question but can the radars on continuous setting behind home plate tell the difference between a pitch and ball exit speed? I guess obviously if there was no swing or a swing and miss, yes. But what about balls that are put in play?

It picks up all three. Normally, it's better used in a pitching session since you only need to differentiate between two speeds, not three.

 

[jfitch12]

My theory with absolute zero proof is that the guns are not directly in line. There is an adjustment needed to correct for that by increasing speed and who's to say if that adjustment is a wee bit too much.

This seems spot on. I recall Riseball saying (maybe in the same thread) that he could adjust the "cosine angle" on his gun to give that effect. Maybe someone with experience can comment, but below is the information from the Stalker Pro II Operator Manual. The bottom line is that you can cause the gun to read higher speeds by telling it that it is aimed at a larger angle than it actually is.

"Cosine Angle : This setting is used to automatically correct speed readings for angle errors. It can be set in one degree increments in the range from 0 through 45 degrees. The default setting is 0 degrees. Refer to the Angle Errors section for more details." (Page 16)

"Calculating Angle Errors
If you know the angle at which you are clocking, you can manually calculate the actual speed by taking the radar reading and dividing by the cosine of the angle. For example: if you are clocking at 30 degrees and the gun displays 129.9 MPH, divide 129.9 by the cosine of 30 degrees (0.866) to get a true speed of 150.0 MPH.

Compensating for Angle Errors
You can configure the PRO II to compensate for angle error by changing the Cosine Angle setting in the Option Menu. In the above example, if the Cosine Angle setting is 30, the gun will display 150.0 MPH, and no manual calculations are necessary. The accuracy of the corrected speed is directly dependent on the accuracy of the estimated angle error that you have set using the Option Menu." (Page 33 (emphasis added))

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.stalkerradar.com/sportsradar/documents/011-0093-00_Pro_II_operator_manual.pdf__;!!DyLx9ww791Ob!zBLn9s4rLoUlkkT76gxKHL7ojxW9jL_F8dYxpVMymFMiqlPEzD9ez1WNsW90hH_J3fKfKKI83BOanmldYy0W9uhWAA$

 

[DryHeat]

Yeah, they have cosine error comp they can pretty much add whatever % they want, or introduce erroneously because they dont use it properly or left it set from a prior session.