The Mets Just Got CAUGHT Doing This...

The Mets just got caught doing this by one of their own guys. The MLB joined one of the hottest modern day debates, that being the use of AI in the workplace, as the league officially cracked down on it, but the Masons role may surprise you according to a former reliever who fans liked, especially for his role in the Miraculous 2024 campaign. I'm your host today, Mike Duda, equipped with the latest only here on Mets Digest, but first I want to thank each and every single one of the over 7,500 subscribers that we have on the channel. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to hit that free subscribe button. And if you're part of the 68% of viewers who has not yet done so, please consider on the road to 8,000 subscribers. It's free and it's worth the while. We've got videos coming out each and every single day, between myself and Josh Byrne, sometimes two, three, and even four videos in a given day. Thank you so much in advance and we'll dive in with a notification from two main outlets, the Athletic and ESPN that I received about this whole ban on AI. So let's dive in with the latest starting off on the ESPN front. The MLB is restricting iPad usage in dugouts to prevent the tablets from running AI to help make strategy decisions. And former reliever Adam Modavino said the New York Mets use of the technology helped to prompt the move. The Mets must have done it either the most or in the most obvious way that has led to a new ban on particular things relating to AI on these iPads in the dugouts. The tablets have access to video and league provided data and also included a custom tab where teams could access other programs. The MLB made the custom tabs inaccessible to teams starting on Wednesday night when the second half of the season started just the night after on Thursday with the Mets playing the Phillies. So whatever you did in the first half, they don't really care about. The ban now occurs for the second half of the season. Nobody has been punished as it was a little complicated, but we'll turn over to the Athletic now for a little bit more on that front with none of the other teams being punished and nobody right now having a punishment. The MLB seems to harbor similar concerns. The league's review ultimately found that all clubs were compliant with the league's rules governing sign stealing and electronic device usage according to the MLB's memo. So whatever the rules were in place then, nobody did anything wrong that was too excessive and broke those rules because they were mainly focused on sign stealing, for example, which in 2017 and 2018 were huge topics with the World Series winners, the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox respectively. They got punished, but right now the tech ban did not come with punishment. So again, they don't care what you did in the first half. They're not going to punish you for it. Your record is still your record. Everything is the same. It's just moving forward in the second half of the season. That specific function of the app where you're allowed to look at some other data that is now gone. It is going to be strictly regulated by Major League Baseball. However, the issue proved urgent enough for the league to act midseason in hopes of curbing the growth of these apps. One foreign office executive said, gotta stop the cheating before there's cheating now. So right now he considers it cheating, but by rule it is not. So let's place this ban. Let's do this new thing. That way it is now considered cheating moving forward and nobody is going to do it, hopefully in the future. The MLB declined to comment, but referred to the memo, which was issued by the league's executive vice president of baseball operations, Morgan Sword. The players union also declined to comment. That makes sense. A lot of unions, leagues, all that. They will decline to comment in these kinds of situations because it's not a great look for baseball overall. So let's turn it all the way back to when it first started, which was actually in 2016 when the leagues provided iPads for the first time in the dugouts. Though their usage was more tightly regulated in 2020 after the signed ceiling scandals that we dove into earlier, rocking the sport. For the first time, we're going to be allowing players to view live in-game video via an iPad in the dugout or bullpen during the game, said one former MLB executive, Chris Marinak, in March of 2021. The iPads are issued by the MLB. They are fully controlled so that the players can only use the app that we've put on the device. Well, as we heard earlier from ESPN, that's not necessarily true five years later because there's that function where you can do a little bit more than what the app is allowing. So that is all thrown out the window. Additionally, they can't access the internet for browsing or social media or any other kind of function. But based on the other news that we heard, I don't know if this is necessarily true because how much of this report from five years ago can we believe given the current situation? The iPads are completely locked down and monitored with the software that we have on them. Once again, fishy given the modern day news. In-game video has been and remains available, but only on a delay, usually only once an inning is completed. Rules posted in every clubhouse also prohibit non-field personnel from coming into the dugout during the game in an effort to limit inputting live information into the iPads. I don't believe that either. My assumption is if there's just a sign posted somewhere in the clubhouse or the dugout that people are not going to follow through. The competitive advantage is huge and every single team wants it as much as they can get. So I don't see many teams actually following that rule. I see a lot of people going in and giving live updates. That's just my personal opinion. It is not fact based. But again, that competitive advantage is huge. And that is why the league has to crack down in the first place. But of course, these iPads turned into a lot more. Over time, players and teams have pushed for a loosening of some restrictions surrounding the iPads. Coaches and players wanted the ability to customize what the tablets could do for them specifically and the league allowed these liberties, hence what we have with these app extensions that we heard earlier in the video from ESPN. Entering this season in 2026, the league issued iPads provided access to data through three tabs, according to a person who has knowledge of the system, but spoke on the condition of anonymous in order to speak candidly and freely. The first contained all of the MLB provided stack cast data, things like Baseball 7, even fan graphs that we can see if we just went on our computer simply and multiple video angles. That makes sense. And I'm completely OK with it. That way you can access your swing. You can access your pitching mechanics and see what you're doing wrong in between innings. The second tab contained all data related to the ABS system. This one is going to be interesting moving forward because now teams have nothing to work with seemingly based on this new ban when it comes to ABS. Now they didn't originally when it comes to challenging balls and strikes, but now with plays that you have up to 15 seconds to challenge, what is the role of that going to be moving forward? A lot of questions to ask. The third tab known across the league as the custom tab housed each team's specialized and the information it would be found in old school paper filled binders. That's the kind of info that the custom tab was providing, which is now banned. Examples include matchup data and info, defensive positioning and player tendencies, which teams argued were necessities. Going forward, teams can still upload statistic information, which is data that that would be available before the first pitch, though clubs were told that anything uploaded would ultimately remain subject to review by the MLB. So they can test the waters all they want, but the MLB is going to look into it at least seemingly after the fact. Now this has led to a ton of chatter around the league and rightfully so. In many cases, the custom tab has expanded the use of the dugout iPads beyond their originally intended purpose to include recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches, said MLB executive vice president of baseball operations, Morgan Sword, in a June 11th memo to general managers, assistant GMs and video coordinators. As for Aaron Judge, a star with the CrossTown rival Yankees, he said, I read the article and I was like, I can't believe what I'm seeing, said the captain. Teams are making decisions off of AI, man, that's just crazy. And that's what I'm thinking right now. Look at it from the Mets perspective. Carlos Mendoza, the former manager, was fired seemingly because the Mets had a really bad record and some of his moves were definitely questionable, but what if it wasn't him after all? What if it was actually AI? What if he said no to all of his assistant coaches, said no to his gut and actually did everything based on AI? Is it really fair to fire him? I mean, in that case, I still say yes, but you might make a case that it's not. And I think this is where the MLB is going. They don't want this to be technology actually taking the place of human managers who make mistakes. Because again, going back to the competitive advantage, if you have a team like the Dodgers with Dave Roberts, who has arguably, and I would say the best manager in all of baseball, you should be able to do better than a team that does not have a good manager, at least from a statistical standpoint, when it comes to bullpen usage and substitutions, pinch runners, pinch hitters, all of that. So once again, this is just starting to feel like this MLB kind of story. So where exactly do the Mets come in? Well, it's with the aforementioned Adam Adovino. He said on his YouTube live stream, Baseball and Coffee, that the Mets had been using AI and cited spending by team owner Steve Cohen on the software. Adovino pitched for the Mets from 2022 to 2024 and is now a broadcaster on the Yankees Yes Network. The Mets did not comment again when asked whether they had a response. Nobody's really going to comment on this kind of situation. So let's hear what exactly Adovino had to say. The Mets were actually the team, the main team that got cracked down on. They had an AI program that was very expensive, apparently, and they were bragging about it a little bit early on this year. Some of the coaches that I know were talking about it from around the league, and they had basically an AI program helping them pick pitches. And I think some other stuff that is so fascinating because my assumption is part of that is the substitution. And this timeline fits perfectly with Carlos Mendoza. This is crazy to think about in light of Mendy being fired, but also Buck Showalter before him. But the MLB got wind of it and they nipped that right in the bud. So apparently they weren't the only team. But I knew about it from the Mets angle. He knew from what he was pitching on the Mets, which is why he believes the Mets are the team that induced this crackdown. They tried to throw some money at the situation. Steve pointed up for I think this program from what I've heard was several hundred thousand dollars to have. So Cohen, yes, he's super rich. That's not a ton of money to him in the long run. But that is absurd to think about. The Mets were not dumping money into players or something with their system or even something with the stadium. No, it was with AI in order to get any advantage that they possibly could. So there's some additional buzz around the league. It makes a lot of sense as we turn over to that. Now, starting off with the Blue Jays manager, John Schneider. It's a little weird to me to kind of see the whole report on it where you can do things kind of in real time that can sway your decision one way or another. I think the biggest thing is calling pitches and kind of seeing how that can evolve in real time via technology. Not anymore because that's gone. As for one more manager, we'll turn it over to Arizona. It hasn't impacted us all, but I know AI is entering our arena for sure. It's entering almost every workplace available. It's entering everyone's arena. You got to be on it or you're going to get rocked over by it. So either get on it or it's going to impact you. So a little bit more on the Mets role of it. Turning over to sleeper Mets, former relief pitcher Adam Adivino reveals that the Mets used an AI program to pick their pitches. We heard that quote earlier and how expensive it was for the owner, Steve Cohen. And of course, there's fan crash out because why wouldn't there be? We wonder why this team struggled this year. Genius Stearns was using AI to make in-game decisions. Guess it wasn't Mendoza's fault. That's what I was saying. Some people might argue. I wouldn't take that stance, but you definitely can make that argument now that you know this with AI. Super glad that they were told to stop because it didn't work. A computer telling you what pitches to throw, when to make pitching changes, and when to use a pinch hitter, etc. is insane. Probably why this team was so bad last year as well. Super crazy to think about. So go down there in the comments section. Let me know what you think about this from the MLB perspective, from the Mets as well and their role in it. What do you think of this entire thing, especially given the prominence of AI as a hot topic in general life? Every single workplace. Did the Mets do anything wrong in your eyes? Should they have avoided this even without the crackdown? Because maybe it just wasn't the right thing to do and it impacted the on-field play? And should the Amazons have bragged about it like we heard Ademino said that they did? Go down there in the comments section. Give me all your thoughts. Let me know if you agree or disagree. But unfortunately, that's all the time I have for you in today's video. Thank you so much always for watching and let's go Mets!