NEW YORK, July 17 — Major League Baseball is putting a digital leash on its dugout iPads. Starting tonight, when the second half of the season gets underway, teams will lose access to a custom tab that had quietly evolved into something the league never intended: an artificial intelligence engine for real-time tactical decisions. Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations, sent a memo to general managers, assistant general managers, and video coordinators on June 11 explaining the change.
The Athletic first reported the memo, which the Associated Press later obtained. Sword’s directive is straightforward — the custom tab becomes inaccessible Wednesday night.
Here’s what happened. Teams have used dugout iPads for years to review video and look at data. That was the original deal.
But the custom tab expanded the technology’s role, according to Sword’s memo. It started offering AI-driven recommendations for substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions.
That crossed a line. The practical upshot: the league believes these tools were nudging the sport toward a future where algorithms, not human instinct, were calling the shots in real time. Sword’s memo frames the change as an effort to preserve the traditional role of players and coaches in making those calls.
Sword oversees baseball operations for MLB, which puts him in charge of technology and rule changes. His memo reflects a careful balancing act — the league wants teams to have modern tools, but not so modern that they replace the people on the field. When the second half begins, that custom tab simply won’t work anymore.
Teams can still use their dugout iPads for other functions, but the AI-driven tactical suggestions are gone. This isn’t about banning technology entirely.
MLB has embraced data and video review across the sport. The issue is about where the line gets drawn between preparation and real-time decision-making. In plain terms: teams can still study all the data they want before the game.
They can review video between innings. What they can’t do anymore is have an AI system actively suggesting which pitcher to bring in or what pitch to throw next, right there in the dugout during live action.
The memo doesn’t specify what consequences teams would face for trying to work around the restriction. But Sword’s position gives him authority over technology enforcement across the league. The move raises a broader question for professional sports: how much artificial intelligence is too much?
Baseball has been wrestling with this tension for years, from the analytics revolution that reshaped front offices to the pitch-clock debates. This iPad restriction is the latest front in that ongoing conversation. For now, the league has drawn a clear boundary.
Starting tonight, the dugout iPad goes back to being a scouting tool, not a decision-maker. Whether that boundary holds — or whether teams find new workarounds — will be one of the quieter stories of the second half.
Sword’s memo makes one thing plain: MLB wants the game’s biggest decisions to stay with the people in uniform, not the algorithms on a tablet.
