MLB.tv Game Changer (formerly Dashboard)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been watching a game on MLB.tv and all of the sudden, my twitter feed blows up when something big happens, like Giancarlo Stanton hitting another 450+ ft homerun. But I missed it because I didn’t know that he was at bat. So I decided to make something that will allow me to customize my baseball viewing experience. Something that will allow me to see as much of the baseball that I want to see. I got the idea from using Dan Brooks’ (of brooksbaseball.net) MLB.tv RedZone, which switches between the games with the highest leverage index. This allowed me to see the potential of using MLB’s gameday data.

Enter the MLB.tv Dashboard, which allows you to customize what you want to watch the most, and automatically switches between games based on your priorities. Here are some of the things you can customize:

• Batters: Want to see Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton, or even Bartolo Colon at the plate? Add it to your list, and the application will switch to their game when they come to the plate.
• Pitchers: Don’t want to miss Jake Arrieta or Clayton Kershaw pitch? This will switch to their game while they are on the mound and go to another game on your list while their team is batting.
• Baserunners: It doesn’t get much more exciting than when Billy Hamilton is on the bases. If the runner of your choosing is on 1st or 2nd base with the next base open, the application will make sure you see it.
• Fantasy Teams: The three settings above allows you add all of the players on your fantasy team to track their progress.
• Teams: Let’s say you’re a huge Braves fan and that’s mostly what you want to see. But you also want to see each of Manny Machado’s at bats. Put Machado at #1 and Atlanta at #2 and you’ll get to watch your Braves games, but the application switches to Orioles games when Machado comes to the plate. It will switch back when his at bat is over.
• Leverage Index: If you don’t want to miss a tense moment in any game, set the LI to something like “>= 3.0″ and it will switch to any game that meets that criteria.
• No-hitters: Don’t want to miss a potential no-hitter, but don’t think it’s important until after the 7th inning? You can set that as a priority.
• Vin Scully: There’s only a few more months left that we get to appreciate the greatest announcer in baseball history. This setting will switch to Dodger games when they are at home, or on the road in San Diego, Anaheim and San Francisco.
• Position Players Pitching: Who doesn’t love to see a left fielder pitch in a blowout or in the 18th inning? This setting will switch to a game if a non-pitcher is on the mound.
• Extra Innings: Self-explanatory. This setting will switch to games that are in extra innings.
• Replay Challenge/Review: Let’s say you are a masochist and you want to see all replay challenges. This will switch to those situations.

Now suppose none of your priority items are met, or your teams are on commercial break. In that event, the application will switch to the game with the current highest leverage index. It will keep switching between these games until any of your priority criteria are met.

In addition to the above priority items, you can also avoid watching any teams of your choosing. If you’re blacked out from seeing a certain team, you can add them to your ignore list and the application will avoid changing to their games since you won’t be able to watch them.

We all know MLB.tv has a delay from the actual live game to when you see it on your screen. You can adjust the delay timer setting if the games are switching too early or late. However, I recommend not changing this setting too much since it can severely alter the experience.

Finally, you can set whether or not you want the application to wait for the current at bat to finish before switching to a higher priority game, or if you want to it change immediately. The default setting is to wait. Changing the setting to switch immediately will allow you to not miss higher priority situations, but beware that you could see a lot of changing at inopportune times.

If you choose to use this, I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.