A Line Between Assistance and Advantage
The league’s decision draws a clear boundary between permissible technology and what it considers an unfair competitive advantage. In a June 11, 2024 memo, MLB executive vice president Morgan Sword explicitly stated that the custom tab enabled teams to run applications that could provide recommendations on substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions. By disabling that tab, the league has removed the mechanism through which teams could install tools that go beyond standardized information. The league-provided video and statistical functions continue to be available. MLB has not indicated whether the restriction is temporary or permanent, but the timing—the start of the second half of the season—suggests a deliberate reset.
The debate over technology’s role in baseball is not new. Baseball’s relationship with technology stretches back to the late 19th century, when the sport first embraced professionalism and standardized its rules. By the early 20th century, the National League and the American League had formed under the National Agreement of 1903, creating a unified structure that still governs the game today. Over the decades, innovations from radio broadcasts to televised games reshaped how fans experienced baseball, while inside the ballpark, managers relied on scouting reports, stopwatches, and later, rudimentary statistical tools to guide decisions. The introduction of the iPad in 2010 marked another leap, turning a portable touchscreen device into a coach’s pocket-sized command center. Apple’s tablet, with its intuitive interface and growing processing power, quickly became a fixture in dugouts, offering real-time video review and data once reserved for front offices.
At its core, the dugout iPad is a controlled computing device—an Apple tablet running a locked-down operating system—that gives teams access to league-provided feeds and metrics during games. The devices themselves are not new; teams have used them for years to review pitching sequences, batted-ball spray charts, and other in-game insights. What changed recently was a single software feature: the custom tab, a portal that allowed teams to load their own programs, including third-party analytics suites and, more controversially, artificial intelligence models that could suggest pitch calls or defensive shifts. The league’s decision to disable that tab does not ban the iPads themselves or the data they supply. It simply removes the door through which teams could install tools that go beyond standardized information.
Preserving Human Judgment on the Field
The restriction on AI and third-party software in-game reflects a familiar tension: how to preserve the human element of strategy while acknowledging that data and computation now shape every pitch. From the introduction of scorecards to the adoption of radar guns and pitch-tracking cameras, each advance has prompted questions about fairness and tradition. The reserve clause era, the advent of free agency, and even the use of video replay for umpire reviews have all tested where to draw lines between assistance and advantage. Today’s policy does not eliminate analytics; it curbs their real-time deployment in a way that may affect minute-to-minute decisions during a game traditionally governed by human judgment.
For coaches and players, the change means returning to a narrower set of tools—one that stops short of algorithmic recommendations but still delivers league-sanctioned video and statistics. For fans watching at home or in the stands, the shift is largely invisible; iPads still display pitch tracking and video. But for teams accustomed to pushing the limits of what software can suggest, the change forces a return to older rhythms of judgment and instinct. In a league where every advantage is scrutinized, the line between data and decision-making has been redrawn once again.
What remains to be seen is how teams will adapt. The encouraging part for fans of the game is that the decision keeps the focus on the players and coaches making decisions in real time, rather than on algorithms suggesting the next move. The league is watching closely, and for now, the human element stays central to the game.
