That day, Bannister, Quattlebaum, and farm director Ben Crockett spoke at the 2015 SaberSeminar before driving to Pawtucket for the Triple A affiliate’s day game. Before the game, Quattlebaum introduced Bannister to veteran lefthander Rich Hill, who had made two starts for the PawSox after being signed away from the independent Long Island Ducks.
The talk represented a landmark in Hill’s professional career, and perhaps in Bannister’s. Hill, Bannister noted, had a spin rate on his curveball that ranked among the highest in the game. Yet as a starter, the veteran lefthander felt compelled to work within a standard framework, utilizing his curve as a secondary pitch.
Bannister helped guide Hill to a radically different usage pattern.
“We talked about a different perspective of looking at pitching. I remember it clearly – we talked for a good hour, hour and a half the first day,” Hill said. “It was so refreshing, talking about shaping pitches, shaping the breaking ball. We talked about other pitchers – Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw – specifically about how they can shape their different breaking balls that they throw.
“All of those things took me from four pitches to maybe 12. It was like I had 12 pitches because of changing speeds, changing shapes, changing locations. If you talk about pitching as a standard, we talk about fastball and location. We don’t talk about changing speeds on our fastball really. It didn’t really click for me until talking to Brian.
“He gave me the freedom of creativity. That’s the best way I can put it. My creativity went through the roof after these conversations.”
Hill said he benefited “immediately.” He punched out 22 batters over 19 innings in his next three starts, then returned to the big leagues and recorded a 1.55 ERA with 36 strikeouts and five walks in 29 innings.
In two months, Hill had gone from a reliever released by the Nationals to an indy league starter to minor league roster filler to a major league starter worthy of a one-year, $6 million contract from the A’s that roughly doubled his career earnings to that point.
Hill represents the beginning of what the Red Sox hope to achieve. An organization that has struggled to develop homegrown pitching for most of the last decade recognizes a need to improve its track record.
The approach won’t net the same results for everyone. Hill noted he might have had a difficult time processing Bannister’s message when he was 25 and trying to find his way.
Still, if Bannister – working in concert with pitching coach Carl Willis, minor league pitching coordinator Ralph Treuel and his staff of pitching coaches, members of the pro and amateur scouting departments, and the Sox’ analytics team – can help to reverse the team’s poor record of pitching development, to help pitchers who cruised through the minors but then hit a ceiling once they reached the big leagues, the impact is potentially momentous.
“Within the industry you commonly hear things like, ‘The Cardinals are always good at developing pitching.’ Or, ‘The Rays always have a good bullpen,’” said Bannister. “Those are common sentiments. My goal is to work with everyone so that the Red Sox, hopefully sooner than later, are shared in that conversation.”
