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Pitch f/what? I rely on my eyes!

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Hi all.  With Sky being "hired by the Rays*" and all, I thought I would try to continue BtB's series on equipping yourself with best and geekiest tools to analyze baseball.  If you've missed the previous 4 installments, and you can find them all here, we took a look at how to set up an SQL database, upload 100+ years of baseball data via the Baseball Databank, add data to the Baseball Databank, and write queries to analyze those stats.  Hopefully, those who are interested in continuing this series are up to speed.  If not, you an of course as questions in the comments section and I'm sure one of BtB's excellent commenters will be able to help.  

Today, I wanted to take a look at one of the newer innovations in baseball analysis... Pitch f/x.  Implemented sometime in 2007, Sport Vision's Pitch f/x cameras record information on each pitch in the majors, including vertical and horizontal position, velocity, initial acceleration, vertical and horizontal movement, spin angle and many other useful bits of information. 

This system has opened up a whole new avenue of baseball analysis.  We are now able to see the nastiness of Neftali Feliz in graphical form and the sometimes hilarious innacuracy of umpires.  Anaylist's like Josh Kalk, who are well refined in the craft, have gone on to work for major league teams.  And BtB's own Harry Pavlidis is not far behind him.  It's even reaching major league pitchers!  Brian Bannister, through extensive use of Pitch f/x data, has transformed himself into a quality major league pitcher.  

Okay, enough posturing.  I, for one, would like to get my hands on the data and see what I can do.  Follow to the jump for more info.  

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