Red wonders how much information is too much.  Major League Baseball will have additional opportunities to evaluate that age old question when it debuts Statcast tonight on MLB Network’s broadcast of the Cardinals/Nationals game.  Statcast has actually been around for a while and was used during the All-Star game and in the playoffs last season.  But tonight’s game will be the first regular season game where every play will be tracked in some form or fashion.

What is Statcast?

Statcast, a state-of-the-art tracking technology, is capable of gathering and displaying previously immeasurable aspects of the game. Statcast collects the data using a series of high-resolution optical cameras along with radar equipment that has been installed in all 30 Major League ballparks. The technology precisely tracks the location and movements of the ball and every player on the field at any given time.

In other words, every movement of every player and the bat and the ball can be tracked and analyzed.  So if you desperately want to know how many times Johnny Cueto scratches his crotch in a seven inning appearance – Statcast is for you.    With high resolution digital cameras, laser positioning equipment and highly accurate GPS, this development has been inevitable and will likely migrate to other sports in the near future.  For example, at the 2014 World Cup, they could tell us exactly how far every player had run during a match.