In a groundbreaking move that demonstrates the continuous innovation within the world of baseball, a Japanese team from the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league has announced its adoption of the Trajekt Arc™ pitching robot for batting practice. The Trajekt Arc™, a cutting-edge pitching robot known for its ability to replicate the pitches of any pitcher in the league, has already found widespread acceptance among Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, with half of the league currently utilizing the technology on a daily basis.

In 2019, at the MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, Trajekt Sports met with the Chicago Cubs to discuss leveraging the state-of-the-art pitching machine to replicate tracked pitches. Robert Basham, Special Assistant Innovation (formerly Director, Player Development) spearheaded the engagement to propel the organization’s leading technological development strategy to improve hitting.

Rapsodo, whose technology is used by all 30 MLB teams, recently launched the Rapsodo PRO 3.0 – a new monitor that measures both pro-level hitting and pitching data in one device. The new product integrates seamlessly with Trajekt’s intelligent pitching robot, the Trajekt Arc™, which uses precise motor control, image processing and machine learning to simulate different types of pitches from actual pitchers. In real-world application, a hitter can plug in a pitcher’s data into the Trajekt Arc™ that he will be facing soon. The device then delivers optimized performance training by replicating in-game at-bats so hitters can practice against that pitcher’s exact arsenal prior to ever setting foot on the field.