But someday even I may look back on it as the dawn of a new era: The year stats took over.

Baseball has always been ultra stat focused—even old-timers who disavow the SABR statistical revolution detailed in Moneyball used bad stats like RBI and batting average (doubtlessly culled from the backs of old Topps cards) to win arguments. But even new age advanced metrics like VORP, ERA+, and WAR have a lot of flaws when it comes to evaluating players. It's always been impossible to say just how hard players hit the ball, how fast they run, how quickly they react to balls hit in the gap, the routes they take, etc. Not anymore.

Statcast was introduced in a couple stadiums last year. But this season every stadium got the technology, which relies on radar, cameras, and optical tracking technology borrowed from rocket science to turn the field into something that's essentially totally digital. Motherboard and VICE Sports teamed up to go behind the scenes with MLB Advanced Media to find out how it all works.