Major League Baseball amongst their many attempts to update and speed up the game this season have added PitchCom, a technology that allows the catcher to communicate the pitch without using his fingers. However, not everyone is on board.
Braves Catcher Travis d'Arnaud sees the new tech as an opportunity to take the game out of the player's hands.
d'Arnaud says, "I think baseball will evolve into someone else will be calling the signs and I’m not a fan of that. I think it’s a game of the players so that’s the biggest thing for me is the way I see it evolving a team may hire someone who’s calling the whole game like in the NFL for example you know they have an offensive coordinator."
PitchCom is a transmitter device with buttons the catcher wears on his arm sleeve that he can press to send a message sent by radio frequency to a speaker inside the pitcher's hat. The buttons on the transmitter give the option of pitch and location.
The other eye-popping quote from d'Arnaud won't make too many baseball fans in favor of a faster game happy.
"I think that it's rushing the game, rushing the timeless game...you put your two feet in the box, look up and the pitcher is starting his windup."
Caleb Johnson and Joe Patrick debate on Batter Up this week whether d'Arnaud is too late in his career to look at this new tech objectively.