Darwin Barney Q&A with FanGraphs

[Roast]

Excuse me if this has already been posted somewhere, but I just saw this come up on twitter this morning. Pretty cool...

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/qa-darwin-barney/

 

DL: How important is positioning?

 

DB: As an organization, it’s something we’re always working on. [bench coach] Pat Listach has a lot of scouting reports put together for us on defense — where guys are spraying the ball. I like to take a good long look at that, and I’ll move around. He’s not afraid to move me, as well. It’s a big part of the game. You want to play the numbers.

 

When [Carlos] Zambrano is on the mound, he doesn’t care much about the numbers. He wants me where he wants me, where he feels like this guy is going to go. He’ll move me left or right, and I’m receptive to that. I’m keeping an eye on him and if he wants to move me this way or that way, I’m going to do it.

 

The thing with Zambrano is that he’s been pitching for a long time and knows what he’s trying to do with each guy. A lot of times he’ll look at me and kind of move me one way or the other, and he’s not too worried about the spray charts. He’s worried about what he thinks that guy is going to do in this particular at bat.

 

DL: Is Zambrano unique in that respect?

 

DB: It’s pretty unique. You have to know your teammates. [Matt] Garza is a guy who says, “Hey, go with the spray chart; I don’t care where you play.” He wants me to play where I think I need to play, where Pat wants me to play. Zambrano is different; he wants to move me in different situations. It just depends on who is on the mound, along with who is hitting and what we’re trying to do.

[Guest]

There's merit to both approaches. If Z knows he's going to work a guy with outside hard stuff, then him positioning Barney that way makes a lot of sense.

 

There's also a lot of benefit to looking at a hitter's tendencies and positioning to them.

 

 

Ideally, there is a combination. The pitcher and coach go over the approach they want to take with each hitter based on the hitter's tendencies and then the coach positions the defense based on the combination of the tendencies and the approach by the pitcher.