ST. PETERSBURG -- It’s nice to know that in an age of such sophistication, in which every twitch on the field is tracked and every decision gets debated by analysts with advanced degrees, some things in baseball are still done the old fashioned way.
One of them is the Milwaukee Brewers’ starting lineup.
“I do it on this little napkin every morning,” manager Pat Murphy said before the Brewers’ 5-4 win over the Rays in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday. “I send it to Ninja, and Ninja sends it to the whole deal. It's not as complicated as you think.”
“Ninja” is Murphy’s nickname for Evan Martin, a member of Milwaukee’s coaching staff, for reasons most likely related to the quiet way Martin impacts what the Brewers do. His official title is “game preparation specialist,” and one of his duties is relaying the lineup from Murphy to manager of Major League technology August Sandri, who puts it in a template that is distributed to everybody who needs it via digital app.
And, yes, sometimes it comes to Ninja on a little napkin. Usually, it’s a slip of scrap paper.
“It’s whatever he’s writing on that day,” Martin said. “It’s a nice, artful creation. He draws out the diamond, where guys are going to play and where they’re hitting in the lineup.
“It’s kind of like a prescription.”
Here’s an example of what that looks like. It’s the lineup from Saturday, sent to Martin at 9:27 a.m.:
“The picture-taking skills have gotten a lot better,” Martin said. “Because there were some early in the year where it's, like, full blurry.”
Here’s an example of how bad it could get, from Milwaukee's 3-1 win over the Angels in Los Angeles on Aug 1:
Some of Murphy’s good moves are revealed by these snapshots. On June 24 in Cincinnati, Garrett Mitchell started in center field but was called back in favor of Andrew Vaughn against Reds lefty Sam Moll in the seventh inning. Vaughn hit a bases-clearing triple for the winning runs in a 6-5 victory.
And hey, they’re not all winners. Murphy shared Sept. 3, a 2-1 loss to the Cubs in which an improving Christian Yelich was still hitting sixth and the Brewers went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. He clearly had some second thoughts that day before sending in the lineup.
Yes, this really does come from the mind of Murphy every day. The front office and coaching staff work extensively to craft scouting reports and detailed game plans, and provide Murphy with a mountain of information about how to best deploy certain hitters against certain pitchers, down to details far beyond the simple left versus right.
But the lineup, that’s Murphy’s call. He doesn’t consider lineup creation all that complicated.
“You think about who you're facing, who your best hitters are, who's going the best, who can handle this repertoire this way, where's the break in the lineup, what reliever will they bring in for that break in the lineup, how damaging is that,” he said. “You don't want to limit guys’ number of at-bats, potentially. All that kind of stuff goes into making a lineup.”
He added, “If you and I sat down tomorrow and we answered a few questions and I said, ‘Wow, [Rays Game 3 starter Freddy] Peralta, remember, he's going to try to do this, and this is how he handles this and this guy -- you know what I mean? Familiarity, the whole thing goes into play.
"And you and I have a conversation, literally we'd be done in three minutes. It comes down to this or this, and then that -- you can peel that away pretty good.
“Remember, the guys at the top, you want to bat the most. That's kind of how you look at it.”
He’s a good manager to work for.
“He razzed me a little bit early on when I first got here, but he's welcomed me with open arms,” Martin said. “Made me feel like a big part of it.”