The New York Mets will fall in line with a few other major league teams in 2018 when they start wearing wristbands that have scouting information packed into them according to an article by Kevin Kernan of the New York Post.
New manager Mickey Callaway will bring the change from Cleveland where they had all of their catchers wear the pitching cheat sheet.
Another team that tried it last year was the Philadelphia Phillies with catcher Cameron Rupp saying this about the wristbands to MLB.com, “It’s where to go with certain guys. If you get stuck, if a guy has fouled off a few pitches, it’s where to go, it’s what your options are. It tells you how aggressive certain guys are. There is more than one way to get certain hitters out, so if you got him out a couple ways and you get into a big situation in the game, you look at the sheet and say, ‘Hey, we can go there.’ If the guy hits his spot it’s an out.”
The color coded wristbands generally give you switch percentages in certain situations, as well as hot and cold zones for the hitters. Among catchers to wear the wristbands last year were the Astros’ Evan Gattis, Willson Contreras of the Cubs, Yasmani Grandal of the Dodgers.
Also important to note that MLB will now be limiting coaching visits that don’t result in a pitching change to six per team per game. The wristbands will hope to help the catcher and pitcher stay on the same page without the necessity of a mound visit.
Another piece Callaway is adding is having the team’s video department add new side angles to shoot both pitchers and hitters for better information to breakdown release points and launch angles.
Callaway sees the added side angle as a necessity, “When you are working on those drills, you need that side angle, especially for pitchers. That open angle is huge.”
