WIN Returns with New Updates

October 21, 2022 by Ellie Martin

Austin, TX 一 Gear up WIN users! We’re back again with a lengthy list of application updates that we have been eager to share with you. Whether you’ve been a WIN user for years or just recently joined, you know that your feedback is what allows us to continue to improve in all areas of our application. Let’s get right to it and take a look at what’s new…

1. Introducing Tune-Ups

Users now have access to an entire library of tune-ups, which consist of newly designed workout content that helps players improve on specific skills such as attacking velocity, waiting back on change-ups, tackling curveballs down in the zone, and more. These workouts will appear front and center on the home screen and users will be able to replay the drills as many times as they want. Each of these workouts were designed by a former MLB hitting coach so trust us when we say they are good

2. Improvements to the Stadium’s Look and Feel

In this update, you’ll notice significant changes to the visual components of WIN Reality. From pitcher video resolution to the environment itself, each of these features were critical to making WIN Reality as realistic as possible. You may also notice that the pitchers now have shadows and the moving sky now reflects off of the buildings behind the stadium. Check out the transformation below…

3. Improvements to Ball Flight

Ball flight is back! Based on your feedback, this was a feature that our users missed most in our last round of updates. Now, a subtle trail shows you the ball flight without visually distracting you from the ball itself. In addition to this subtle trail, the ball also now leaves behind two new indicators.

• Height Indicator: at its peak, the ball leaves behind a height indicator to show where it was and how many feet it was from the ground
• Distance Indicator: you can see where the ball was when it first landed as well as the distance from home plate
• Size Indicator: as the ball gets farther away, it gets a little larger to stay more visible

4. The Ball Spin is More Clear

Whether you’re 8U or pro, users are now able to identify which kind of pitch was just thrown due to the ball seams being more visibly clear. This will allow users to be able to more quickly distinguish the type of pitch (whether 4 seam or 2 seam) and even spot the difference in spin rates. Stay tuned for a separate blog post on this, where we’ll be breaking down the physics.

5. On-Field User Experience

We’ve now introduced a loading circle that will appear when the app is loading a pitcher’s video. This will let users know why a drill hasn’t started yet and if the issue pertains to your wifi connection.

The app can now also auto-progress to the next pitch during drills after a set time instead of requiring users to press the “Next Pitch” button after every hit. This can be adjusted in your Player Profile settings. Note that once you update your application, your settings will default to “OFF”, however, you can set this time range to be anywhere from 1 to 15 seconds.

Lastly, the strike zone height is now adjustable in all drills, and is no longer limited to only hitting drills! Adjusting the strike zone will update where pitches are thrown based on the relative positions to the updated strike zone. However, keep in mind that enabling NitroZones will revert the system back to the default strike zone size. If users are training with our newly released Tune-Ups, the adjustable strike zone will not change anything about the pitch locations selected by the workout creator, only whether they are called balls or strikes to the player.

But wait… there’s more!

Now that we have covered the most important user-facing highlights, check out a quick list of some minor (but still important) changes…

• A checkmark on a pitcher in the Pitcher Selection screen now indicates which pitchers you’ve seen a pitch from in any drill
• With the new physics update, foul balls are now called on where they roll and not where they first land
• Multitude of fixes for bunting physics causing bunts to go too short, too far, or at extreme angles depending on bat orientation and movement
• We have fixed an issue for certain pitchers with long windups being “unhittable”
• The foul line alignments have now been adjusted to actually match home plate on all fields.

To those who haven’t used WIN recently, now is the time to change that! Jump back in, update to the latest version, and check out what’s new. As always, user feedback is one of our top priorities. So let us know what you’d like to see next by emailing us at [email protected].