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  “Presentation to players is always of critical importance: when you make the presentation, and how you make the presentation. It’s new, it’s different. It’s change. Change can bring about controversy,” Hurdle said. “But we can lay out information that is black-and-white. There is no gray area. We showed [them] why it’s going to be beneficial. Here are the adjustments we need to make to make it happen.”

  Leyva brought with him an example of the data-based scouting reports he would be positioning his infielders with that April. He showed his players not a statistical spreadsheet on Cincinnati Reds left-handed hitter Jay Bruce, a familiar foe, but a colorful visualization of the data. Leyva was not going to recite numerical percentages of balls to certain parts of the field while his infielders lost attention and daydreamed. Bruce was nine times more likely to pull a ground ball to the right side of the infield than the left, and Leyva showed a chart with hundreds of colored lines emanating from home plate and fanning out over the right side of the infield. The left side of the infield was nearly unblemished. After examining the data-visualization map, where the lines indicated the path of ground balls hit off various types of pitches, it was tough to argue against overloading the right side of the infield.

  Once Fox and Fitzgerald had learned that the front office and coaching staff were committed to employing more of their defensive-alignment recommendations, they worked to make the data more accessible. They had to democratize the data and turn it into something that not only stat wonks understood, but athletes, too. Fox and Fitzgerald knew they might lose players if they just passed along numerical data. They had learned in their limited conversations with players in the clubhouse in 2012, and in going over video with players, that they absorbed visual materials amazingly fast and retained the information. It made sense, especially if you subscribed to the theory of multiple intelligences. Baseball players would logically have higher visual IQs since they are adept at tracking pitches thrown at 95 mph and at plotting courses in milliseconds to intercept fly balls and line drives.

  In the off-season Fox purchased an analytical platform from TruMedia that allowed for easy creation of data-visualization charts Leyva showed to his infielders. Fox and Fitzgerald happily dug into the work. This was their chance to make a difference in the game if they could clear just one final step: convincing players this was the right track to take.

  “We did a lot of work on the visuals,” Fox said. “If they can visualize it, it’s a lot easier to accept and say, ‘Okay, that’s not radical. That fits with where the ball is actually going to go.’”

  The visual data-based scouting reports weren’t just key for defensive positioning; they helped in nearly every aspect of game planning. For instance, say Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage is going over an opponent’s lineup. Instead of saying San Francisco Giants star Buster Posey is 0 for 15 against a certain pitch in a certain location, a heat map, which is a color-coded chart, would show Posey’s strengths and weaknesses clearly and efficiently. Using the TruMedia tool, pitchers could then, with a mouse click, filter to video of those pitches in those locations for further evidence. The entire Pirates clubhouse was also given a printed package of applicable, visual-based scouting reports prior to every series.

  As Leyva went over Bruce’s scouting report with infielders Neil Walker, Clint Barmes, Pedro Alvarez, and Gaby Sanchez, it showed his hitting pattern wasn’t a one-year phenomenon. While Bruce was nine times more likely to hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield than the left in 2012, he was ten times more likely to do so for his career, which covered more than 2,500 batted balls put into play.

  But still, the infielders had questions. Yes, the presentation was clear as day when presented visually, but they wondered, if they left roughly half the infield undefended, wouldn’t the batter simply go the other way? Wouldn’t he adjust? He was a major league hitter after all. Heck, he could just drop a bunt down. However, the coaching staff explained that if the batter bunted, he would be eliminating his chance for an extra-base hit. This would take him out of his preferred approach. Moreover, the coaches noted how pitches on the outside of the plate were more likely to be hit on the ground to a batter’s pull-side, into the teeth of the defensive alignment, given the swing plane, the path of the bat, and the angle to the ball. Coaches explained outside pitches hit into play to the opposite field were more likely to be lifted into the air due the angle of the swing.

  Studies of hundreds of thousands of balls in play showed little evidence of hitters’ changing their batted-ball profiles. Based upon anecdotal evidence, even the few lefties that were shifted against continued to try to pull the ball and to hit home runs because that’s what they were paid to do. They were not paid to hit opposite-field singles. Let them try to change their approach, the Pirates were told. Let them go away from their strengths. Still, some doubt remained as the training began.

  * * *

  In the days after the meetings, on the back fields of the Pirates City complex, before the major league club departed for its downtown-Bradenton home for the remainder of spring training, the Pirates infielders began taking ground balls at unusual positions on the field. The plan not only required players to buy into the concepts, but to rewire the neural circuitry that is muscle memory. The infielders now stood at the unusual white X’s Kyle Stark had spray-painted on the ground several years earlier for the minor league players. But now the major leaguers stood there.

  Throughout their amateur and professional careers, the infielders had taken thousands upon thousands of ground balls at traditional locations. They were accustomed to making throws from certain locations on the field. Now they were learning new positions, new bounces, and new throwing angles and distances.

  Pirates second baseman Neil Walker began taking ground balls essentially in shallow right field between first and second base, while Clint Barmes began spending more time behind second base, where he had to navigate more tricky opportunities, since batted balls could more often be obstructed by base runners, umpires, and pitchers and could also be redirected by the pitcher’s mound. Third baseman Pedro Alvarez spent time taking ground balls at the traditional shortstop position. To prepare for right-handed hitters, Barmes was hit ball after ball deep into the six-hole, making the long throw across the diamond, the longest throw in the infield. Often in their training they would leave one-half of the infield with just one defender or sometimes none at all. Hurdle and Leyva believed if they had the middle infielders fall in line with the plan, the rest of the defense would follow.

  Early on, Walker was on the fence. He was looking around to see whether others would buy or reject and contest the philosophy. Walker remembered looking toward Barmes early that spring and asking, “Are you really going to do this?”

  Fortunately for the Pirates, they had an open-minded player at the infield’s most important position.

  * * *

  The first thing evaluators want to see from a shortstop is his arm. Can he make a throw from the hole, the area between the traditional starting setup of the shortstop and the third baseman on the left side of the infield? Then scouts and coaches want to see lateral speed, to see a player gracefully and quickly range to both his left and right, and they want to see soft hands that act with vacuumlike efficiency. Barmes had few of these ideal traits. He does not have an elite first step, meaning he does not have the quick-twitch muscles that allow for fast acceleration in his initial movement. Barmes did not have an elite arm like that of Atlanta shortstop Andrelton Simmons, but he did have the requisite hands. That was his one natural gift.

  Barmes also understood the game’s geometry and timing. He understood the nature of placement and angles more so than any of his teammates. Observers praised Barmes’s baseball instincts, but instincts are hardwiring that we’re born with. Baseball instinct isn’t quite like that. Players are born with certain physical gifts, but what is called instinct is really experience, the by-product of doing an exercise over and over. It comes fro
m intensive, meaningful practice. It’s about creating that instant-recall memory. To remain at shortstop Barmes had to understand the nature of the position, where to be, and the timing of the game better than any other player at the position. So when Leyva first huddled his infielders that spring and handed them spray charts—including their own spray charts, produced by Fox and Fitzgerald, that showed where they most often hit the ball against what types of pitchers—Barmes intuitively understood and embraced the data.

  “The spray charts are huge,” Barmes said. “You look at it and see all these [batted balls] and see one or two that spray up the middle and a ton of balls and lines that were hit in that certain area and you think, ‘Yeah, I’m going to stand there; it only makes sense.’ Having it on paper and going through that [visually] has been a big part, especially for guys to buy into that aren’t used to it.”

  Barmes had first learned to appreciate the geometry of the game while coming up through the Colorado Rockies system. Barmes felt he had shifted away from tradition years ago as a minor leaguer with the Rockies when he heard time after time, “Know who is on the mound.… Know who is at the plate.” If a sinker-ball pitcher was up against a pull hitter, Barmes would move more toward third base. To quicken his timing from catch to throw, he took thousands upon thousands of balls to his backhand side in extra defensive work and during batting practice. By taking balls on the backhand side, he did not have to shift his feet to throw to first base. For Barmes, it was an important half second to shave.

  “I’ve been taking balls in unconventional positions for a long time. That’s a big reason for my sticking at shortstop. I really like going to my right. I’m really confident in my backhand. I’ll work on balls in the hole, balls up the middle. I’ll work in those different spots, different throws and different angles and different spots in the field,” Barmes said. “After practicing and doing it every single day, I’ve got it. It’s muscle memory in a lot of ways. There is no thought now.”

  Despite not being able to rival many, if any, of his peers in first-step quickness, sixty-yard-dash speed, or arm strength, Barmes was one of the most efficient shortstops in the sport, according to advanced defensive metrics. He finished second to Brendan Ryan in defensive runs saved from 2010 to 2013, a defensive statistic created by BIS that measures the number of balls a defender converts to outs compared to peers at his position. BIS tracked where balls were hit in the infield, how hard they were hit, and measured how many balls defenders reached compared to the average shortstop. Barmes was elite. The statistic was a key reason why the Pirates targeted Barmes in free agency after the 2011 season. Another reason was that he had the respect and trust of Hurdle from their time together with the Rockies.

  The importance of positioning was increased by the altitude of Coors Field and the makeup of the Rockies staff. For years the Rockies have targeted different types of pitchers, hoping to find some way to combat the thin, mile-high air of their home park, in which fly balls traveled farther, making it a dangerous place for fly-ball pitchers. During Barmes’s time there, the Rockies had begun to collect ground-ball pitchers with the thought that there had never been a ground-ball home run. But the thin air also made for drier conditions, which meant harder, quicker infields, lessening the reaction time and range of infielders on ground balls. Not only did Coors Field typically surrender more home runs than every major league park, but more ground balls also got through its infield. Barmes got tired of seeing sharply hit ground balls by right-handed hitters get through the infield to his right. So at shortstop he began positioning himself farther to his right when a sinker-ball pitcher was on the mound and when a right-handed hitter was at the plate. He had stored up a library of anecdotal evidence and it helped him be worth 25 defensive runs saved in 2006, and it helped him be open to the idea of comprehensive shifting in 2013.

  But there was a significant difference between what Barmes did in Colorado and what he would be asked to do in Pittsburgh in 2013. Like many other teams the Rockies weren’t employing data-based defensive theory on the field. Data was not making its way into the clubhouse. Many of Barmes’s decisions to play out of traditional position were based upon his own findings and were done sporadically against select hitters. What was happening with the Pirates was different.

  Barmes didn’t like that his subjective decision-making was to be reduced, if not eliminated. The shifts would be data-driven and extreme in number. For the shifts to work, everyone had to subscribe to the plan on every pitch; there could not be impromptu deviations from the concepts. This tested even an open-minded player such as Barmes.

  “I think guys were pretty open [in the spring]. But at the time maybe we didn’t realize how extreme it was going to be until we got involved and started doing it,” Barmes said. “It’s not uncommon for one player [to shift]; it’s uncommon for an entire team.”

  While it was difficult at times for Pirates infielders to accept, it was perhaps more difficult for Pirates pitchers. Hurdle knew that the greatest chance for mutiny against this plan was not from his infielders but from his pitchers. He thought they would be irked when they saw the occasional ball trickle through an undefended part of the infield where an infielder would traditionally have played. Such a batted ball wouldn’t hurt a defensive player’s traditional defensive statistics, but a pitcher would it see it as affecting his earned run average, hits allowed, and future earnings. Getting the pitchers to buy in to the second part of this defensive plan was going to be a challenge.

  When the Pirates unveiled their defensive plan in the spring of 2013 to their players, resistance bubbled up mainly from the pitchers, who took comfort in having defenders positioned equidistant from each other on the field. It seemed counterintuitive to leave large swaths of the infield undefended. It’s one reason the data-savvy Cardinals had shifted little in 2013. Their pitchers were not comfortable with the idea of shifting. In the spring of 2013, neither was the Pirates staff.

  The Pirates pitcher who had some of the greatest disagreements with shifting was one of their most influential players, A. J. Burnett. This was the player who could lead a mutiny. The thirty-six-year-old Burnett carried veteran and alpha-dog status in the clubhouse. Burnett is tall and lithe, sporting spiked blond hair and tattoos. He possessed a cutting scowl and a sometimes-prickly demeanor, which he frequently used to try to intimidate reporters and opponents. He had presence.

  Burnett had been in the game a long time and had made more than $100 million in his career. He was not easily influenced. He was stubborn. When he came up with the Florida Marlins, their coaching staff had harped on Burnett to develop a changeup, a third pitch, to better neutralize left-handed batters. Burnett refused. He trusted two pitches: his mid-90s fastball and a knuckle-curve his grandfather had taught him in his native, rural Arkansas. He had never changed the grip, and he had never felt the need to develop another off-speed pitch. Tired of the Marlins nagging him to throw a changeup, he threw 44 changeups in a start just to show them. Then he went back to his stubborn ways.

  He was an outspoken opponent of the radical defensive alignment. During a game in Texas later in the 2013 season, his disdain for the shift bubbled over into public view. After a ground ball trickled through the left the side of the infield for a run-scoring single for the Texas Rangers, a ball that would perhaps have been converted into an inning-ending, double-play ball with a traditional alignment, Burnett screamed and motioned toward Barmes. The argument continued in the dugout between innings. Explained Burnett later to a clubhouse full of reporters, “I don’t have a problem with Clint Barmes. I had a problem with the fucking shift!”

  However, that spring the Pirates pitchers mainly kept their opinions to themselves and did not talk much openly about their distrust of the defensive alignment. But during games, they often wore expressions of bewilderment and disbelief when they surveyed the field, seeing their infielders overstuffing one side of the field and leaving the other half of it barely defended.

  Eve
ry time a shift was burned by a base hit the other way, it pissed off pitchers, and at that moment they tended to forget about the hits the shift turned into outs. No one seemed annoyed more than Burnett, and no other pitcher was looked up to more by the young pitchers in camp. They were watching him, waiting to take his lead. Would Burnett buy in?

  The Pirates coaches kept having to cool off their pitchers, stressing that they needed to focus on the pitches that were turned into outs. “I think initially they all looked around once in a while [at the infield defense] and said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Where are we?’” Hurdle said. “And we just told them, ‘You have to get through that.’ There has to be trust. There to be buy-in. Every once in a while we’re going to get crosscut. But in the big picture as it plays out, hopefully we can show tangibles of the effectiveness and how much better it makes us as a club.”

  Pirates relief pitcher Mark Melancon was a polar opposite in personality and temperament to Burnett, but he, too, had his reservations about the shift. A video room adjoins the Pirates clubhouse both at McKechnie Field and at PNC Park. Players were encouraged to ask Fox and Fitzgerald questions and to challenge Fox and Fitzgerald’s findings. More than any other player, Melancon could be found near a computer and video screen with them. Melancon felt too many weakly-hit, bleeding, seeing-eye singles were being hit against him. He was different from most Pirates pitchers. He relied on a cutter, which moved away from right-handed hitters. Melancon wondered if the shifts should be based not on a hitter’s overall spray chart, but upon a hitter’s spray chart versus a particular pitcher. The problem was, that was too small a sample to study. Few hitters accumulated more than a few dozen plate appearances against any one pitcher, particularly a relief pitcher. However, he brought up a good question. So in part because of Melancon’s concerns and curiosity, Fox and Fitzgerald dug deeper into the data. Defensive alignment recommendations are a blend of batter and pitcher’s batted-ball tendencies. But for pitchers with an outlying repertoire like Melancon, Fox and Fitzgerald made the alignments anchored more to the pitcher’s batted-ball tendencies than the individual batter’s. They also refined their recommendations for starting lineup construction. They looked at their hitter’s profile against fifteen or so pitchers comparable to that day’s opposing starting pitcher based upon handedness, velocity, and pitch types. There were examples of the data and recommendations being refined and improved through bottom-up communication. It wasn’t just analysts thinking up areas to study and delivering the results. The players could ask a question that led to changes or interesting data findings. These interactions proved that the old school and the new school could not only coexist but could enhance each other. Fox welcomed the challenging questions and the interactions that ensued. It helped him to think about new areas to explore or disregard.