New data could change how we view players. (USATSI)
New data could change how we view players. (USATSI)

Major League Baseball introduced their Statcast system for the first time Tuesday in a game between the Nationals and Cardinals, and it was easy to see the potential of this technology. On Yunel Escobar's 10th-inning walk-off homer, for instance, we were given all kinds of data about the velocity, angle and ultimate height and distance achieved by the game-winning ball, down to the nearest decimal.

However, while it provided a nice Star Wars-esque trailing laser behind Escobar's shot, the practical applications of this data remain somewhat cloudy. Will the mountains of data accumulated by the high-definition cameras and computer eventually be available for public consumption, or will it be little more than a potentially interesting, but ultimately useless bit of information for broadcasters to kill time with?

The potential uses of the Statcast data are nearly endless, if we can get a hold of the data. The NBA implemented a similar system in each arena last season, with a series of cameras and computers tracking the movement of each player and referee, as well as the ball.

This has opened up a whole new world for Fantasy analysis in the NBA, as we can identify not just how many assists a given player racks up -- something that can be influenced by factors like the official scorer's willingness to bend the rules or his teammates ability to hit a shot -- but also how many opportunities he created. 

However, what makes the NBA's SportsVU data so useful isn't just that they track it; they make it publicly available, too. For years, professional sports teams have had access to this kind of stuff and have held it close to their chest, looking for any competitive advantage they can get. However, when the league makes it freely available to every team, the reasons for keeping it in-house disappear, and the fans win. Stats.NBA.com can overwhelm you with the amount of information available, but for someone looking to get an edge in Fantasy, it has become an invaluable tool.

We've seen how the PITCHf/x data has fundamentally altered how we analyze pitchers, and Statcast could do the same for hitters and fielders. You might want to just watch the game without being bombarded with information, but for Fantasy players, more information is almost always a good thing. So, what are some of the potential applications for this data if MLB makes it available?

Sites like HitTrackerOnline.com and BaseballHeatMaps.com have given us more information than ever about the nature of batted balls, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. BaseballHeatMaps.com even admits that their data isn't perfect, since it is based on MLB.com play-by-play information. With Statcast, we could know not just who is enjoying the most luck on batted balls, but who might actually have the ability to "hit 'em where they ain't." We know a hard-hit grounder up the middle by Mike Trout isn't quite the same thing as a Ben Revere bouncer at the second baseman, but we might actually be able to quantify it soon.

A good example of a player we might be able to understand better is Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich. Yelich hits the ball on the ground more than just about any playe+r in the league, which limits his power potential. However, he's also a pretty tall dude who has posted solid HR/FB rates in his career; Statcast would be able to tell us just how hard and far he hits it when he does put some air under it, which could impact his ultimate upside. 

It could also tell us give us a more accurate view of team-wide trends for pitching matchups. Right now, the Yankees lead the league in flyball percentaged at 40.9, and they put 13.2 percent of those over the wall. The Mets put 37.9 percent of their batted balls in the air, but only 6.4 percent of those go for homers. Are the Yankees really hitting the ball in the air harder than the Mets, or have they just had a few extra sneak over the fence, while the Mets have had a few die on the warning track? You might think something like HR/FB is already slicing things pretty thin, but anything we can do to try and separate true skill from luck is going to be valuable for prognostication purposes. 

This is just scratching the surface of what this data could potentially tell us. If a given pitcher is able to induce a lot of 250-foot flyballs consistently, that might make a potentially low HR/FB ratio more sustainable than it seems on the surface. And that isn't even getting into what this could mean for our understanding of defense or baserunning. If we can quantify how much a player benefits from positioning on defense or how big a lead a baserunner typically gets against a specific pitcher, we might be able to better judge their talents when they change teams or managers.

Or, Statcast could be the baseball equivalent of a Trivial Pursuit card. All this potential means nothing if we don't have access, so it all depends on MLB making the data easily accessible to the public, like the NBA has with their stats site.

If you're sick of how much we use advanced stats, the thought of more data might make you violently ill. However, Fantasy sports are all about gaining an edge on the competition, and this could provide that. I'm excited to see where we go with this.