University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Technology Changes Scouting
June 16, 2006 | Baseball
June 16, 2006
By Adam Lucas
Players frequently pass the down time on road trips watching the latest movies. Few people in America would be more up-to-date on the latest DVD releases than a Diamond Heel who has just taken a bus trip to Tallahassee, Jacksonville, or College Park.
Pitching coach Scott Forbes can usually be found huddled around a DVD player, too. But he's not contrasting the merits of Scarlett Johansson and Reese Witherspoon. Instead, he's probably poring over footage of the Tar Heels' next opponent.
"My wife gave me the best present ever when she got me a portable DVD player," Forbes said. "I take it with me on road trips and I can watch all kinds of games. I'll sit there and watch them over and over, click through them in slow motion, trying to pick up something extra."
Forbes was also instrumental in the baseball office upgrading their scouting technology this season. When he arrived last summer from Winthrop, he began lobbying for the addition of TiVo. The program eventually added two of the recording devices, and the digital recorders whirred almost constantly during the season.
The baseball office features an expanded sports satellite package, and anytime a college baseball game was on, Forbes was probably recording it. Some games were burned to DVD using another technological upgrade, a DVD recorder, and others were simply saved on the TiVo's hard drive.
That commitment to scouting came in handy when the Tar Heels drew Cal State Fullerton as their first opponent in the College World Series (tonight's first pitch is at 7 p.m. Eastern; a free internet broadcast from the Tar Heel Sports Network is available at TarHeelBlue.com). Prior to Omaha, the Titans played just six of their 61 games outside the state of California; they have not played a game in the Eastern time zone since April 1, 2001.
But they're not strangers to Carolina. When Forbes checked his video library, he found he already had six Fullerton games recorded.
"You have to plan on making the postseason," Forbes said. "So you record programs like Texas and Rice and Fullerton every chance you get, because you figure you might see them in the postseason. It's nice to be able to watch them yourself and not have to rely on someone else's scouting report."
But in the constant search for an extra edge, teams still try to track down those second-hand scouting reports. Teams within a conference usually have an agreement not to share scouting information on each other (a hypothetical example: Clemson wouldn't provide a report on Carolina to Fullerton), an arrangement that is almost always honored by the league's coaches. But nonconference opponents don't have a similar agreement. The baseball world is small--drawn even closer by the summer recruiting circuit that concentrates coaches in the same area each weekend for showcases and scouting events--so even far-flung schools usually have a connection somewhere on their staffs.
Forbes and assistant coach Jason Howell devour any available scouting information and prepare extensive scouting reports on each opposing pitcher and hitter. How the players use the information is up to them. Some memorize it. Others simply use it as a background reference tool.
"The coaches do a great job of letting us know tendencies," shortstop Josh Horton said. "When we get into the box, we usually know what pitches a guy has, what he'll throw in certain counts, whether he can throw his breaking ball for strikes, stuff like that."
The scouting continues even during the game. Another part of the modernization of the game is the use of PalmScout, a computer program that allows the user to input the results, velocity, and break of every pitch thrown in every game into a Palm Pilot. Volunteer Matthew Blood ran the software for the Diamond Heels this year, compiling an extensive library of information on every pitcher who threw for and against Carolina in 2006.
The program has the capability to break down pitches by pitch count (for example, the average velocity of fastballs thrown after the 60-pitch mark), by type of pitch, or almost any other permutation.
"That stuff has become invaluable to us, and you can credit Coach Forbes for that," head coach Mike Fox said. "You have to be careful not to let it become information overload, but picking up tendencies and being able to record games and go back and look at other teams has been very helpful. That information is critical in this day and time."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
