PitchCom is huge hit with Giants despite Monday's malfunction

SAN FRANCISCO -- With runners on second and third in the second inning Monday night, Alex Wood threw a two-strike slider in the dirt to Eric Hosmer. The veteran didn't bite as Joey Bart smothered the pitch.

Bart threw a ball back to Wood and then looked down at a sleeve on his left wrist and started punching in new signs. When he heard a robotic voice call out the pitch in the earpiece he was wearing, Bart made a face and took his mask off. He walked out to the mound to chat with Wood, and when he returned to his crouch, Bart went traditional, flashing signs between his legs as he has done since high school.

PitchCom, a wearable device that was approved for use in MLB this season, had malfunctioned. The signs Bart was punching in did not match the ones being transmitted to Wood and others on the field, so the Giants had to adjust. 

It was an odd moment at first, but ultimately it showed just how successful PitchCom is going to be and why the Giants have gone all-in on their use of the new technology. Until that point in the fourth game of the season, PitchCom had been just about flawless. 

"This definitely is one of the first things in a long time that has made baseball simpler. I'm very happy with it and I'm super fortunate to be able to use it," Giants catcher Curt Casali said. "We're creatures of habit and things that are different generally scare us -- myself included -- and this is definitely one of the most radical things that I think baseball has done in a long time, but I think it's been super positive so far."

Casali gave a 15-minute demonstration to reporters in the clubhouse Monday afternoon, showing off two small devices that MLB hopes will eliminate future sign-stealing scandals and also decrease game times. 

The catcher has a punch pad that is about the size of a beeper and has a dozen buttons on it. Casali made tiny stickers to put over six of them, each one representing a different type of pitch. The other buttons represent different parts of the strike zone, and by punching two of them, Giants catchers can call just about any combination for a 15-person pitching staff. 

To demonstrate how simple it is, Casali hit two buttons. In his other hand, a small receiver -- about the size of two fingers held together -- came to life. 

"Curveball, low outside," a robotic voice said. 

Casali hit two more buttons. 

"Changeup, low outside," the voice said. 

Casali smiled and quickly punched in a different code. "If Jake (McGee) is pitching ..."he said. 

"Four-seam fastball," the voice responded. 

With McGee, who basically only throws a fastball, and Logan Webb, who throws a sinker in the heart of the plate and lets his natural movement take over, the signs can be remarkably easy. But none of the directions get particularly complicated. There's even a way for Giants catchers to "tell" their pitcher to throw over to first.

Every time Bart or Casali punches in a pitch selection, the robotic voice immediately relays it to five receivers. Teams are allowed to give them to five players on the field, and one is in the catcher's hat so he can make sure the command lines up with what he intended. If it's wrong, there's a button to cancel the pitch call and put in another one, although Casali has also gone old school. He waves his hands at his pitcher if he wants to make a change. 

The main receiver is in the pitcher's cap, tucked just above his ear. The others can be distributed as teams wish. The Giants will always give one to Brandon Crawford, who positions himself depending on what the pitch call is. The thought right now is that generally receivers will be worn by the catcher, pitcher, shortstop, second baseman and center fielder -- all the defenders up the middle. 

MLB limited the number of receivers and teams must put the equipment in a box in the dugout between innings, but the Giants are fine with that. When Camilo Doval pitched the eighth inning on Monday, the receiver came back to the dugout. When Casali went out to warm up Jose Alvarez before the top of the ninth, he jogged to the mound and left the receiver on the rubber. Alvarez entered from the bullpen and immediately grabbed it, adjusting the volume before sliding it into his cap. 

In that situation, a cool touch was shown off. Both Doval and Alvarez are native Spanish speakers, and you can toggle back and forth between English and Spanish. For someone like Doval, who has needed an interpreter during mound meetings in the past, Bart and Casali can punch in a code on their wrist and it is relayed to Doval's ear in Spanish. 

"I think it's going to be good," Bart said. "We've had some pretty good feedback. There's obviously some things to iron out but we've been working with it a lot this spring and once they gave us the okay, then now we're going full go. It's going to be a good tool."

The ironing-out process has mostly just been about personal preference. Giants catchers had to put velcro on their wristbands so they could use PitchCom while catching but not have it on while hitting, and it took some practicing to get used to the button system. The "strike zone" on the catcher's device is for a right-handed batter, so Bart and Casali have to flip it in their minds when calling pitches for someone like Wood or Alvarez, but that's certainly still much easier than remembering lengthy sets of signs.

Volume can be adjusted on both devices, and Casali said there have been no problems. During his first time using it, he asked the home plate umpire if he could hear anything. He could not, which alleviated any concerns about a hitter listening in. 

Giants pitchers have all seemed to be on board and even Monday's first malfunction was just a temporary issue. After using regular signs the rest of that inning, the Giants swapped Bart's device out for a backup one and things went back to normal. 

"It was fine after that," Wood said. "We fixed it and it was all good."

After the inning, Wood and Gabe Kapler had a long meeting with home plate umpire Greg Gibson, hoping to get two mound visits back that were used to help Bart and Wood get on the same page. That was an unintended consequence and one MLB will have to figure out, but for the most part the purpose of all of this is to help the game. At a time when players are worried about adjusting to pitch clocks and new rules, they just about immediately embraced PitchCom. 

PitchCom was developed by a technology company called ProMystic and was presented to MLB in the aftermath of the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal. After that issue rocked the sport, Buster Posey actually recommended to reporters a similar system when asked how to curb sign-stealing. Casali said he doesn't see how teams can possibly steal signs with a runner on second anymore.

"I think (pitchers would) be ill-advised to not want to do it. You see how simple it is, right?" he said. "It's too good not to use. How are you going to steal that? How are you going to steal the signs?"

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The other benefit is one fans should notice. For years, MLB has talked of shortening games, which averaged a record three hours, 10 minutes last season. PitchCom keeps catchers from having to think about and relay a complicated set of signs during the game's tensest moments. Casali believes games will be noticeably shorter this season because of the new technology. 

"I like the fact that we're always trying to improve at the margins as an industry," Kapler said. "I have a ton of respect for the tradition of the game and I love that about it as well, but we want our fans to enjoy every moment of being at the ballpark and watching us compete. And if we want them to enjoy it, we have to be thinking about ways to improve the game all the time."

The Giants, who seem to spend every waking moment thinking of ways to win at the margins, are already thinking about ways to build on their initial PitchCom experience. The robotic voice is changeable, and they're likely to eventually swap in a more familiar one -- video coaching analyst Fernando Perez -- as the nightly narrator. A lot of people around the game believe that ultimately receivers will be worn in the dugout, too, allowing managers and some coaches to relay directions as they do in the NFL. 

For now, the Giants are only using PitchCom when there's a runner on second base, but the expectation is that one day soon, likely this season, every sign from the catcher is relayed through the punch pad on his wrist. The old system -- relaying a complex set of signs and hoping that nobody on the other side can decode it -- won't be around MLB much longer. 

"I think that's an inevitability," Kapler said. "I would push a lot of chips in that eventually there will be no signs given on the field."

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