The Athletic: ‘You can’t own an idea’: Attempt to patent a baseball stat surprises community [$]

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The first claim on the QOP patent is a long one, but you can read the whole thing if you like. You might notice that the claim begins with the mention of a ton of hardware, hardware that would be familiar to anyone who has followed along as Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media (MLBAM) arm has installed PITCHf/x, TrackMan, and then Hawk-Eye systems in order to improve the quality of their data. SportVision’s PITCHf/x is a video-based system, TrackMan is a doppler radar system, and Hawk-Eye is an “imaging system.”

The QOP patent describes a process that goes all the way from hardware to a display system, much like baseball’s statistics on BaseballSavant come all the way from the Hawk-Eye sensors to a “real-time” display system. Does it matter that MLBAM’s partners already have patents on their hardware, and that MLBAM has been able to produce real-time pitch ratings from those sensors for years? In 2010, they made available a statistic called “Nasty Factor” that combines velocity, sequence, location and movement.

BREAKING: We have now received our patent from the USPTO for the method of combining measurements of movement, location and velocity to quantify pitches in baseball. This now certifies QOP as THE metric for calculating pitch quality. Look for QOP during future MLB broadcasts. pic.twitter.com/DeHOuTZRcp

— MLB Quality of Pitch (@qopbaseball) September 14, 2020

How Shortened Seasons Affect Future Projections

It’s interesting, surprising, and a bit discouraging.  Go read the article and give Fangraphs some traffic.  Click on an ad while you’re there.

Sunday Notes: The D-Backs’ Run Production Coordinator Has a Good Backstory

Drew Hedman’s title with the Arizona Diamondbacks is Major League Run Production Coordinator. The 33-year-old Pomona College graduate was promoted to that position in January 2019 after spending the previous 12 months as a pro scout. His backstory is interesting, in part because he bypassed business school along the way.

Hedman played four seasons in the Red Sox organization, and while he topped out in Double-A, that alone qualifies an accomplishment. A total of 1,521 players were selected in the 2009 draft, and only three of them went later than Hedman. As a 50th-round pick, the writing was on the wall by the time the ink dried on his first contract. Not that he didn’t give pro ball the old college try.

“I certainly knew the odds weren’t in my favor, but with that being said, I always tried to be stubborn enough to think I’d be the exception,” Hedman told me. “I did everything I could to put myself in the best possible position to make it. Obviously it didn’t happen.”

Staying in the game beyond his playing days was a goal even before his release. The question was, in which capacity? A front office role made sense — Hedman has a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, with a focus in Economics — but his alma mater wasn’t yet the baseball breeding ground it’s become. Over a dozen Pomona alums have gone on to work for MLB teams since Guy Stevens, who now runs the Kansas City Royals’ R&D department — broke the ice in 2013. Hedman was cut loose in spring training that same year.

Now trying to figure out what a “Run Production Coordinator” does…..