Think You Know the Trendy MLB Analytics in 2024? Think Again.Mike Petriello has made a living analyzing baseball’s inches, and even smaller dimensions, as a writer for Major League Baseball’s data-focused digital publication Baseball Savant. Posting this Cole Irvin interview to social media, Petriello highlighted in his caption that the pitcher was utilizing the seam-shifted wake (SSW) metric. He added: “Pitchers are just nerds now.” SSW is just one of the cutting-edge metrics MLB players and coaches are leveraging to improve on-field performance. Though MLB teams tend not to broadcast how they collect and use data to maintain potential competitive advantages, it’s a near certainty that Irvin received his SSW break numbers from a new device built and distributed by the sports tech company Rapsodo. The group’s Pro 3.0 is a first-of-its-kind machine with camera and radar technology that tracks ball flight in both pitching and hitting scenarios. Overall, there are several new data points that players are focusing on this season. From “seam-shifted wake break” to “bat-path tracking,” here's a breakdown. | 