Fresh off the success of its On the Bench NBA broadcasts on Peacock and its Inside the Glass NHL broadcasts, NBC Sports has a fascinating plan to bring viewers inside the mind of a pitcher during live at-bats on its MLB coverage this season.
In a press conference previewing the season on Monday, the network’s executive producer, Sam Flood, revealed the “inside the pitch” concept, which will be pulled from analysis by Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw and 15-year veteran reliever Adam Ottavino.
“We’ll do this maybe once an inning, every other inning — depends on the match-up, depends on the situation — but the idea is to really take you through how Adam would approach pitching to (Juan) Soto or (Jhostynxon Garcia),” Flood explained. “Whatever it is, he’s going to take you through that approach, during the at-bat, and looking at it through the lens of a pitcher who was on that mound in a recent season facing these same hitters.”
Flood said the concept would rely heavily on the newly named lead MLB announcer, Jason Benetti, who elaborated on the “inside the pitch” idea in the same press conference on Monday.
“This game is still that tactical battle between pitcher and hitter. It’s a pitcher’s job through tunnelling, through sequencing, through decisions of pitch types, to befuddle a hitter and try to avoid contact,” he said.
“So to have a pitcher be able to break down how we can avoid a baseball bat and make it cool to get swings and misses, and not just, ‘Oh, why didn’t the hitter hit the ball again?’ is the essence of the game in some ways right now.
“And so we all love the game of baseball, but we’re going to love the granular details of how strikeouts happen as well. And that just enlivens my mind, and I hope that enlivens a lot of baseball fans’ minds out there.”
Whereas On the Bench and Inside the Glass were innovations in the structure of the broadcast and the physical positioning of commentators, this experiment will focus more on NBC’s production capabilities. One would imagine that, for Kershaw’s or Ottavino’s analysis to come through, producers will need to visualize it and bring it to life on-screen.
NBC is using different local analysts for each game this season, working alongside Benetti. Ottavino will work the opening game of the season midday on March 26 before Kershaw takes over for a primetime game between his Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
However, Kershaw also has a contract to contribute to studio coverage for NBC and Sunday Night Baseball.
But to maintain the same feel of the “inside the pitch” segment throughout the season, NBC will need to coach up commentators to use similar verbiage and delivery. Fortunately, Kershaw and Ottavino are great starters, as two of the best of their generation.
