The high-tech device on display Wednesday afternoon in front of the Portland Sea Dogs’ dugout is one of a kind. It is able to scan a baseball bat in four-and-a-half minutes, measuring the length, width and weight of the bat.

If Paul Lancisi and Brian Barker have their way, soon there will be at least 30 of these remote bat scanners across the country – one in every Major League Baseball clubhouse, and maybe more in minor league clubhouses.

Lancisi, founder of baseball bat maker Dove Tail Bats, and Barker, the owner of software developer Newfangled Solutions, demonstrated their creation at a news conference at Hadlock Field. The scanner immediately sends the specifications of a bat to the Dove Tail Bats facility in northern Maine, which in turn would allow Dove Tail to produce a custom bat that could be sent to a player in short order.

Gov. Janet Mills also attended the news conference, touting the growth of Maine-based companies – Dove Tail Bats is located in Shirley, Newfangled Solutions in Livermore Falls – along with Sea Dogs infielder Christian Koss, who uses a Dove Tail bat.

Dove Tail began making bats in 2007. The company’s bats were first used in the major leagues in 2014, and many members of the Kansas City Royals, including Eric Hosmer, swung Dove Tail bats during the team’s run to the World Series title in 2015. Lancisi said getting the scanner into Major League clubhouses is the next step to growing his business. He said 25 current major leaguers and 150 minor leaguers are swinging Dove Tail bats.

“How do you get players if you don’t have access?” Lancisi said. “For example, we could not get into the Yankees’ clubhouse because we never had a Yankee big leaguer. Harrison Bader came on with us and at the end of last year in the playoffs went crazy (Bader hit .300 with five home runs in nine playoff games last season), made a deal with us, got us access to the clubhouse.”

Bader’s recommendation helped Dove Tail Bats sign Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton. Among the other major leaguers using Dove Tail bats are New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, who hit a rookie record 53 home runs in 2019, Jeff McNeil, an infielder with the Mets, and Jake Meyers, an outfielder with the Houston Astros.

A custom bat costs about $200. On Dove Tail Bats website, bats in the company’s signature model series, which feature the signatures of Alonso and McNeil, cost anywhere from $195 to $429.95. Bats in the company’s pro select line cost $199.95.

Koss, now in his second season with the Sea Dogs, began using Dove Tail Bats this season after trying Dove Tails used by two of his teammates last season, Will Dalton and Nick Northcut. Koss said he likes that the maple and birch bats made by Dove Tail are harder than traditional ash bats. And he’s noticed a greater trampoline effect, the speed at which the hit ball comes off the bat, now that he uses Dove Tail bats.

“It’s not so much about the breaking of the bat. It’s getting the contact when it’s not dead center on the barrel,” said Koss, who has one home run and three doubles in 24 games this season. “These bats have a little more success than what others would have.”

The technology used in the new scanner was developed by Newfangled Solutions. Dove Tail Bats has been using similar scanning technology since 2015, but it requires shipping bats to its facility.

Koss said he likes the idea of being able to scan his bat in the clubhouse and have his specifications immediately in the hands of the bat maker, rather than having to ship a bat to Shirley in Piscataquis County.

Lancisi used Koss as an example of a player who would benefit from the new scanner. When Lancisi visited the Boston Red Sox spring training camp in Fort Myers, Florida, Koss was with his wife, who was giving birth to their first child. A clubhouse attendant gave Lancisi one of Koss’ bats, with instructions to make a Dove Tail Bat to those exact specifications.

With the new remote scanner, the entire process speeds up, and a player gets the bat faster, Lancisi said.

“How cool would it have been to be able to put it in the scanner, give the kid the bat back, and say ‘OK the file’s there. The bat will be here tomorrow,'” Lancisi said.

Newfangled Solutions develops similar technology for businesses across the globe, Barker said, from cutting rugs for cruise ships to cutting baseball bats. It took Newfangled Solutions about three weeks to design the scanning software and build the scanner, Barker said. How much a scanner will cost is still up in the air.

“It’s unknown at the moment, only because we haven’t refined the design. The original design was a bat scanner that was on his lathe that we put the control software on. The machine that cut the bat that’s in there,” Barker said. “We’ll develop a prototype for scanning at the club. The second step will be to design a final product. It will go through a cost reduction phase next.”

Lancisi also couldn’t say how much the scanner will cost.

“It’s a pilot program. We wanted to see how it works. It works amazing. The scans are coming out dead on. Now it’s a matter of, they have to scale it and see what it’s going to cost,” he said.

The scanner also will allow players to request minor adjustments to their bats, Lancisi said.

“Players go through slumps, and they always blame the bat. A player can pick up a bat and say, hey I really want Christian’s knob, but I want my barrel. No problem. Scan your bat, we can take your knob off and put on Christian’s, which is already on file,” Lancisi said.

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