One Former MLB Player Has Revealed A Revolutionary New Tool To Change Pitching

Artificial intelligence models are all the rage these days, with Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and other models all providing new opportunities, and plenty of questions. 

Disruption is coming for virtually every industry, as models are improved, calculations are automated, and complicated processes quick answers. You'd think that one industry though, might be more immune to the AI revolution: sports. 

Outcomes are decided on the field, pitch, court, or rink, based on the performance of human beings. Humans that can't be replaced by learning language models or computers. Yet a former top Major League Baseball pitching prospect revealed recently that AI can be used in sports, and in doing so, might have disrupted the entire industry in one fell swoop.a

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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 05: Tarik Skubal #29 of the Detroit Tigers warms up against the Seattle Mariners during the seventh inning in game two of the Division Series at T-Mobile Park on October 05, 2025 in Seattle, Washington.  (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

MLB Pitcher Uses AI To Design New Model To Improve Pitching

Robert Stock, a former top pitching prospect who played in a number of different organizations, as well as in Korean baseball, Mexico, and elsewhere, took to X, explaining how he may have revolutionized the sport in just a few months. 

Stock, despite having no training in software programming, built a custom model to rate the quality of pitches in a given pitcher's arsenal. As well as their location, movement, and "Stuff+," a metric to compare pitches between players. It's a remarkable tool that can give pitchers access to an incredible amount of information, areas to improve, help game plan, and find what type of pitch they should add to become more effective.

This used to be an internal process, where all 30 teams hire research and development departments to build similar models. And Stock just…did it by himself over a few months. 

"Every other pitch model is a proprietary thing," Stock told The Athletic this week. "These people spend a lot of time working to try to perfect it, and in doing so, they don’t want everyone to know their secret. I don’t know anything in the first place, so let’s do it together."

Stock said this type of information could be extremely valuable, especially for younger athletes just starting out. 

"If you want to know more about the things you’re being coached about, it can teach you why they’re harping on some things more than others," he said. For instance, why do teams laud strikeout rates so much? Because it has a stronger relationship to a consistently low ERA than other measures."

And that's where the disruption comes in. This tool could easily be applied to the high school level, or even below, allowing pitching coaches and players to give real, meaningful instruction and put data behind their development. It can't create talent, or increase velocity, but it can help maximize it. This is how stars like Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes have found ways to improve, year over year, incorporating this type of information into what they already do. Now anyone can test it for themselves. Pretty crazy stuff.