Big Data Baseball Page 9

  In his first full season back in 2008, Liriano lost 4 mph from his fastball and his slider was not biting as it had prior to the injury—the pitch had a more rounded shape. After one start that season, he lamented solemnly to reporters, “I don’t throw hard anymore.” Batters had extra fractions of a second to decide whether to swing. His command suffered as he had never had ideal mechanics or control, but had previously benefited from limiting opponents’ reaction time with elite fastball velocity. In 2009 Liriano struggled again, and was well below league average in both 2011 and 2012. In five seasons since returning from his injury, he had only one productive season, in 2010. As he entered the 2012 season, his velocity was still 2–3 mph below his rookie speed, and his walk rate hovered at 5 per 9 innings. Liriano had become not a prized major league pitcher but a cautionary tale, a reminder of the bust rate of top pitching prospects and the uncertainty of performance following surgery.

  The Twins had seen Liriano’s promise and were slow to give up on him. They still dreamed that what he once was, he could be again. You could count on one hand the number of left-handers in the game who had shown the ability Liriano had as a rookie. They tried reworking his mechanics, lessening his reliance on his slider, and they tried sending him to the minor leagues to see if he could regain confidence. Nothing worked. Liriano kept walking too many batters and allowing too many fly balls to leave the stadium. All too often he was giving the ball to Twins manager Ron Gardenhire prior to completing 5 innings of work, walking off head hung in shame from the mound toward the Twins dugout. The Twins finally grew frustrated with Liriano and gave up on his potential in July of 2012, trading him to the White Sox for marginal prospects. The Twins couldn’t fix Liriano and neither could the White Sox. By September, Liriano found himself demoted to the bullpen at U.S. Cellular Field and looking for answers. If you looked on his baseball card going into the 2012–13 off-season, it was ugly. He had posted ERAs over 5.00 in three of his last four seasons, well above the average major league ERA. Liriano’s ERA in 2012 was an unsightly 5.34. But if you looked elsewhere, if you looked in the right areas, you could see a player with unrealized potential, who was a click away from re-creating magic. Looking closely at Liriano’s history you could see that that he had worked with some of the poorest receiving catchers in the game, and he was a pitcher who could benefit from being paired with Martin.

  The most difficult thing to acquire in free agency was a strikeout pitcher. Strikeouts were the most expensive skill set. After all, strikeouts kept the ball out of play and eliminated any chance of a batter reaching first base. Strikeouts were largely the product of excellent swing-and-miss off-speed pitches, or premium velocity that made batters more susceptible to off-speed pitches, skills that were largely innate.

  Through the noise and clutter of Liriano’s inconsistency, Fox and his analytics staff noticed some encouraging trends. Liriano’s velocity had ticked back up to 93 mph in 2012, still 2 mph off his heyday, but well above the league-average fastball he had shown in 2008, 2009, and 2011. Also, his slider had shown more life in the second half of the season, when he had averaged 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings, his best rate since his rookie year. The number of swings and misses he generated (13.2 percent of his pitches) ranked number one in baseball among starting pitchers, ahead of the four ace-level pitchers, Yu Darvish, Matt Harvey, Anibal Sanchez, and Cole Hamels, who rounded out the top five.

  The indicators went deeper than strikeouts and whiff rates thanks to PITCHf/x and TrackMan data, both of which were employed by the Pirates. The club could study trends and changes in movement, release point, location, and spin rate of pitches, and they could study Liriano’s pitch movement relative to that of other pitchers, or league average rates. They could also study movement in his good years versus his bad years. The PITCHf/x data verified the subjective view of Pirates scouts: Liriano had slowly become stronger since his 2007 surgery, and had three above-average pitches in his fastball, slider, and changeup. But the obvious and significant flaw with Liriano since he’d returned from Tommy John surgery was his struggle with his command. That made him a discounted strikeout pitcher since he was walking more batters than almost every other major league starting pitcher.

  But perhaps Liriano could throw more strikes not only if paired with Pirates pitching coaches Ray Searage and Jim Benedict, whom the club had marrow-deep trust in, but also with an adept pitch-framing catcher.

  In 2012 at catcher, the Twins fielded Joe Mauer, an average pitch framer, and two below-average framers in Drew Butera and Ryan Doumit. Liriano had a 10.57 ERA in two games working with Doumit. Butera, who was most often paired with Liriano, cost Twins pitchers 10 runs per 7,000 pitches in 2012, according to Baseball Prospectus. Mauer saved a negligible 0.4 runs through framing in 2012. By comparison, Martin’s glove over those five years had saved 70 runs by turning balls into strikes. After Liriano was traded to the White Sox in midseason, he was caught by A. J. Pierzynski, another below-average catcher at turning balls into strikes.

  While the Pirates didn’t think they could transform Liriano into a control artist, they did believe that Martin and their coaching staff could better help him throw strikes, avoid walks, and more often get in favorable two-strike counts to make opposing hitters more susceptible to his slider.

  “[Fox and Fitzgerald] liked his indicators: the strikeouts, the ground balls,” Huntington said. “It was a good team effort: a good combination between our scouting and our [statistical] information. [Scouts] really liked the arsenal. They believed in the slider and changeup and talked about fastball command being key.”

  In the 2012–13 off-season, only one team offered more than a one-year deal to Liriano: the Pirates. After agreeing initially to a two-year, $14 million deal with the Pirates, Liriano broke his right arm—his nonthrowing arm—during an accident in his home in the Dominican Republic. Liriano claims he broke his arm against a doorframe while trying to scare his children during a prank. The Pirates and Liriano then renegotiated the contract with Liriano signing a one-year deal with a club option guaranteeing him only $1 million in 2013. On paper, it made little sense. Liriano produced a 5.34 ERA in 2012 and a 5.09 ERA in 2011. He had been one of the least effective pitchers in baseball. As with Martin, the signing drew criticism from fans and the Pittsburgh media as another bottom-of-the-barrel selection, another scratch-off lottery ticket. This bargain shopping concluded the club’s most significant off-season signings in an attempt to upgrade the roster externally. Any other improvement had to come from within.

  5

  POINT OF NO RETURN

  In late February on the first day of full-squad workouts at spring training, the entire Pirates major league team assembled in the Pirate City cafeteria. The Pirates major leaguers spent the first few weeks of spring training working out and going through drill work at the Pirate City complex on the outskirts of Bradenton, Florida, before migrating to their March home of McKechnie Field in downtown Bradenton, where major league spring training games are held. Pirate City is the hub of the club’s minor league, player development, and amateur draft operations. Every player in the system begins rehab there after surgery, and the lowest levels of minor leaguers are housed in its dorms when they begin play in rookie ball.

  Clint Hurdle had called this meeting in the cafeteria, a vast room lit by fluorescent lights and several floor-to-ceiling windows, with cream walls and little personality. The space was designed for utility not atmosphere.

  This meeting would set the tone for the rest of the year. Every year at the beginning of spring training Hurdle delivered a different message. Such speeches are often cliché-ridden and filled with corporate-style motivational messages and are quickly forgotten. This time, Hurdle knew it had to be different. It had to resonate. Leadership is about persuasion, and he had to persuade his players to play the game differently from the way that had got them to the major leagues.

  Communication was key, and Hurdle knew he possessed this strength. He understood what
it was to be everything from a highly rated prospect to a bench player struggling to earn regular playing time. As the manager of the Rockies, Hurdle had often posted an inspirational message in the Rockies clubhouse before each game, pinning the words near where the batting-practice groups were listed on the clubhouse bulletin board.

  “It lets us know how he’s feeling about things. And a lot of times they provide a lot of insight as to where the game ranks in life,” Rockies first baseman Todd Helton told Sports Illustrated in 2002.

  With the Pirates, the messages went from paper to electronic as Hurdle sent out daily e-mails to the players, staff, and friends on his list. The messages are rarely Hurdle’s words, but rather from motivational speakers, historical figures, or one of the many leadership books that scatter his office. He ends each e-mail with the same words, his own Make a difference today. Love Clint. The e-mails were another way to connect with players, to broaden perspective, while also, hopefully, offering motivational fuel.

  Hurdle looked around the room and saw the stubby, gray beards of his coaches and the eyes of his players, some attentive, others wandering or looking down at a table. Some players were chuckling in conversation. Hurdle’s sonorous voice ricocheted around the room as he asked for attention.

  Still regarded as a player’s manager, one who rarely criticized his players in public, Hurdle had changed his leadership style. Clint Barmes played under Hurdle in Denver and Pittsburgh. With the Rockies, Barmes noted Hurdle spent considerable time in the clubhouse interacting with players, being one of the guys. In Pittsburgh, he gave that space back to the players and kept more to the coaches’ quarters. With more separation, there was less chance of complicating decisions or relationships.

  Hurdle began his speech by telling his players this spring they were going to be open-minded and break from tradition. Hurdle often said traditions can be wonderful and meaningful, but also a vision killer. Tradition was preventing the Pirates from realizing their true run-prevention potential.

  Hurdle had two men join him at the front of the room. Most players rarely interacted with these nondescript employees and most did not know them by name. Hurdle introduced Dan Fox and his assistant analyst Mike Fitzgerald.

  Fox and Fitzgerald stood awkwardly before a room full of professional athletes, in contrast to Hurdle, who typically doesn’t stay still when he works a room. He paces back and forth by a podium, walks up and down aisles, makes eye contact. He wants to feel omnipresent. Hurdle told everyone these men knew how to do much more than turn on a computer, and they were going to do everything they could behind the scenes to help the whole team. They were meant to be resources. The Pirates were going to dramatically change how they played defense, and Fox and Fitzgerald could explain why. Have a question? Are you curious about something? Ask them. The team could expect to see both of them in the clubhouse. They were going to be in the video rooms. They were going to be a part of every pregame meeting with the coaching staff in Hurdle’s office for home games, and on the road they would at least be on conference call for the meetings. Instead of speaking with only Fox before every home series, Hurdle planned to include Fox and Fitzgerald in every advance scouting meeting, which occurs before the first game of a new series when Hurdle and his assistant coaches review and game plan for a new opponent. Later in the season, Fitzgerald even began traveling with the club, which would become the norm in 2014. They were going to become as common a sight in the clubhouse as one of the team’s trainers or assistant coaches. Just as Hurdle had gained more trust in the analysts in 2012, just as he saw them less as invaders and more as assets, he wanted the same for his team this coming season. The Pirates were pioneering: few if any major league clubs had attempted to integrate analysts into the clubhouse so comprehensively.

  Hurdle spoke briefly about Fox’s and Fitzgerald’s backgrounds and their work on defensive shifting. But there was one catch about Fox and Fitzgerald: they had never played professional baseball.

  Some of the Pirates players turned to each other, rolled their eyes, and shook their heads in amusement. Who were these guys? They’re going to influence how we play in the field? Right. Sure they are. They’ve never dug their cleats into a professional baseball field. What did these guys know about playing defense on a major league field? This lack of respect for nonplayers had prevented so many smart ideas from quantitative analysts from reaching the field. Some analysts, likewise, did not respect traditional baseball thought. One of Hurdle’s primary challenges was to create a culture of respect. With Fitzgerald and Fox flanking him, Hurdle told his assembled players and staff that they were not better than these analysts. They were to be thought of as equals.

  To some in the room this presentation seemed desperate or crazy, maybe the first fostering the latter. That was true to a degree. Hurdle and the Pirates were desperate and were willing to try just about anything. But if the team thought they would be able to brush off Hurdle’s mission from day one of spring training and quickly forget about this meeting and radical defensive alignment, they would be mistaken. That would quickly become apparent. The next day saw a round of meetings of smaller groups, including pitchers and infielders—the two groups most affected by the two mysterious men introduced at the previous day’s meeting. They reconvened in the cafeteria with infield coach Nick Leyva.

  It wasn’t just the players. Hurdle also needed his assistant coaches to become more familiar and more trusting of the data. Hurdle encouraged his coaches to “initiate some dialogue” with Fox and Fitzgerald. The analysts were “good people,” Hurdle assured them. He told the staff the analysts would be spending more time with them so it would be best if they became more comfortable with each other, believing that most of his assistants would be receptive to change.

  Leyva’s job was to explain in more detail the defensive-positioning plan and sell the whole group on it. From now on, on the first day of every series in the regular season, Leyva was to meet with Pirates infielders in a clubhouse video room and go over the defensive-positioning plans in great detail. He would show video, if necessary, to reinforce why they were positioning against certain hitters in certain ways. Leyva had never before had so much alignment responsibility, and he wasn’t sure if even he was completely comfortable with the plan.

  Leyva had been given access to defensive-positioning data as early as 2011, when Hurdle hired him, but he was never pressured to use any of the findings on the field. He had resisted much of the data Fox had made available to him the previous two seasons. But now Leyva had direct orders to consistently stick to and implement the data-based alignments.

  Leyva, stocky, tawny-skinned, gray-haired, was a self-described “old-school” baseball man. In a 2012 interview with FanGraphs.com, he acknowledged that the Pirates had the analytical tools at their disposal, but often ignored them: “As coaches—and I think Clint would tell you the same thing—a lot of it still comes down to gut feeling. I set the defense on the infield and I can see how our pitcher is throwing and how a hitter is swinging. I know if he’s hot, and a lot of times you can tell by someone’s swing what he’s trying to do.”

  That subjective way of aligning defenders was to come to an end. The transition was not easy for Leyva, a former minor league shortstop. He was drafted in the twenty-fourth round of the 1975 draft by the Cardinals. Although he never reached the major leagues, he worked his way up over the years to become the Cardinals’ first-base coach in 1985 under Whitey Herzog. Leyva first met Hurdle in St. Louis when Hurdle’s career was already in a surprisingly early decline. On the Cardinals coaching staff Leyva told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review he witnessed Herzog track where opponents hit balls off Cardinals pitchers. Herzog would use orange pencil for balls hit off Cardinals starter Bob Forsch, and black pencil for John Tudor. Leyva copied that practice and was exposed to early rethinking on defensive positioning. Still, he wasn’t comfortable stripping his infielders of autonomy and having them ignore their instincts on where to go, but he understood his place in t
he chain of command, and these were orders from the top.

  Leyva wasn’t alone; he undoubtedly felt what a vast majority of coaches and players were feeling as well, but the data suggested that their instincts and subjective judgments had little predictive power on where a ball thrown at 95-plus mph, hit off a bat swung at 90-plus mph, would go. The number of balls in play converted into outs was almost like a scientific law, a constant for the first 130 or so years of professional baseball. You could count on major league hitters batting around .300 when they put the ball in play against a conventional defensive alignment. Even when Leyva had directed traffic in a game based upon anecdotal evidence, he was still only moving fielders several paces from traditional positions. Now Leyva was being told to set aside not only his gut feelings, but to direct his infielders to do the same.

  Hurdle and Huntington wanted Leyva to direct his players to follow a specific plan, but it was by no means guaranteed to happen on the field. For example, Washington Nationals manager Matt Williams had pledged in the 2013–14 off-season to increase shifting. He even hired a new type of coach, a defensive coordinator, Mark Weidemaier, to align the defense based upon data and shift the infield defense more often. But the Nationals finished 2014 with the second fewest shifts in baseball. Players resisted departing from tradition. Would Leyva be able to get his infielders to jump on board? These early meetings were key as the barrier threatening the whole plan was lack of communication. Coaches, and ultimately players, were the gatekeepers deciding what new ideas would reach the field.

  So on the second day of full-squad workouts Leyva had his infielders gather, flanking him at a table in the quiet cafeteria. The presentations to players had been planned long before these early spring training meetings. The new presentations had helped sway Leyva to a degree, and the Pirates needed them to influence the infielders also.