CLEVELAND -- In the bowels of Jacobs Field, Jason Stein stands in one of the indoor batting cages, next to a souped-up tennis ball machine. He has a bucket of tennis balls, each marked with a red or black numeral.
"Tell me what you see," Stein will say, and the machine spits a tennis ball at up to 140 mph.
Indians designated hitter Travis Hafner sees a red 3, and he hits it.
"Once you're used to that, it helps slow down 90 mph," Hafner said. "You can pick up the spin a lot better."
In the adjacent cage, his teammates hit against a modified pitching machine capable of throwing curveballs and sliders. It is connected to a large video screen that displays the image of a pitcher in his windup. The machine fires a pitch just as the celluloid pitcher ends his windup.
Down the hall, more players sit in front of televisions watching video of past games. Some watch themselves, hoping to uncover flaws in their swings. Others watch an opposing pitcher, to add a second dimension to the scouting report prepared by hitting coach Derek Shelton and the Tribe's advance scouts.
"There's so much stuff available now, you have to take advantage of it," first baseman Ryan Garko said. "You'd be dumb not to."
It is further evidence that while the fundamentals of hitting a baseball have remained the same for more than 100 years, the training is decidedly 21st century.
Indians and Cincinnati Reds players frequently retreat to a computer between innings to watch footage of a just-completed at-bat. Jacobs Field and Great American Ball Park are equipped with computers behind the home dugout to facilitate the process. By his next at-bat, a player knows in great detail what went right or wrong in his previous trip to the plate.
"That's the greatest tool available," Shelton said. "Nobody can slow the game down that much. It helps you see the small things you wouldn't otherwise.
"I know people say that the great hitters of the old days never used video, but I guarantee you they'd have used it if they could. As the game changes, the technology changes with it, and you have to adjust. That's what we're doing."
The Indians are more proactive than most.
They have used the tennis ball machine, called a Vision Training System, since 2001. The Detroit Tigers and New York Mets were the only other teams to use it last season, and the New York Yankees used it this spring. Stein, an employee of the iTrac Vision Training System, worked with hitters throughout the organization during spring training, and throughout the season he will work with hitters in Cleveland and low-Class A Lake County.
This is the third season the Indians have used the breaking-ball machine, a ProBatter Pitching Machine. They recently purchased machines for double-A Akron and triple-A Buffalo.
"We're lucky that we have a front office that's willing to pay for these things," Shelton said. "They're great resources."
A ProBatter Pitching Machine costs at least $45,000, and the version the Indians use costs more. Stein and Indians officials would not say what the Vision Training System costs, but it is significant; in addition to the machine, the Indians pay for Stein to travel from his home in Texas to Cleveland for every home game, as well as 25 games at nearby Lake County.
In addition, the Indians and Reds have full-time video staffs. Because it is done digitally, staffers can break down previous at-bats by situation (say, runner on third base with less than two outs) or count (what does the pitcher throw 1 and 0 vs. 0 and 1), and most players have laptop computers to watch at their leisure. The Colorado Rockies recently purchased video iPods for all their players.
It is a far cry from 20 years ago, when former San Diego Padres star Tony Gwynn would ask his wife to tape his at-bats so he could watch them later.
"It's gotten a lot better in about the last six years," said Toronto designated hitter Frank Thomas, like Gwynn an accomplished hitter and a constant student.
Thomas said he uses video for a confidence boost; he downloads his best at-bats onto one disc, then watches it when he begins to struggle. Scott Hatteberg of the Reds said he pays less attention to his own swing than to the opposing pitcher -- the pitches in his repertoire, the movement on those pitches, when he uses each. "I feel unprepared if I don't," Hatteberg said.
Reds hitting coach Brook Jacoby said even the goals today are different from when he played for the Indians 20 years ago. Back then, he said, "nobody talked about situational hitting, or grinding down a pitcher to get to the bullpen, or hitting to the count. Nobody talked about any of that stuff. We just hit."
These days, players take a more clinical approach. Teams emphasize hard-to-define ideals such as "quality at-bats" and "plate discipline" from day one in the minor leagues, and they provide top-of-the-line technology to aid the process.
"Everybody is at a different level with it, so you have to figure it out on an individual basis," Jacoby said. "But I'll tell you what, there's nothing better than a confident hitter walking to the plate."