The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players

by Ben Lindbergh

To play a part in pushing it forward, Bannister needed to know more. When he was with the Royals, Bannister had an accomplice in his pitching explorations: Zack Greinke. Like Bannister, Greinke saw pitching as a science experiment. In 2007, Bannister’s first season in Kansas City, Greinke recorded a 5.71 ERA through his first seven starts and was banished to the bullpen. There, Bannister says, Greinke learned that although he had great command, he didn’t need to nibble; he could get creative and blow batters way. At the end of the season, Greinke returned to the rotation for seven more starts and posted a 1.85 ERA, launching the peak of a Hall of Fame–caliber career. “We used to try to come up with the nastiest sequences Zack could throw,” Bannister says. One favorite from 2009 was the slowest curve Greinke could throw for a strike—something in the 60s—followed by an upper-90s fastball up and in to a righty, tunneled out of the same slot and often fouled off, and then a coup de grâce 90 mph slider down and away. “That three-pitch sequence alone took him to a Cy Young Award that year,” Bannister says. Greinke was worth 10.4 WAR in 2009, the highest pitcher total in the fifteen years following Randy Johnson’s fourth consecutive Cy in 2002. When he won the award himself, Greinke told the New York Times, “I’m also a follower, since Brian Bannister’s on our team, of sabermetric stuff and going into details of stats about what you can control,” adding, “That’s pretty much how I ...