GIANTS Talking about a revolution
Ex-Giant Bell has plan to modernize farm system
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — In this era of algorithm-driven baseball, “grit” has become an epithet.
The word sounds like an out-of-tune violin to sabermetricians who feel it symbolizes outdated, misguided thinking, an intangible in a player that cannot be quantified and is overemphasized by old-time evaluators, managers and executives too stubborn to see that “grit” means little or nothing at all.
David Bell, the Giants’ new farm director, embodies the theory that the two worlds can coexist.
In a 12-year playing career that included a memorable 2002 stop with the pennantwinning Giants, Bell was the archetype of “grit,” a thirdgeneration major-leaguer known for getting his uniform dirty and maybe outplaying his natural abilities through work ethic and desire.
But listen to Bell now, as vice president of player personnel. Hear the 45-year-old sing the virtues of data, which he and a minor-league hierarchy featuring a dozen new hires will incorporate
into every facet of modernizing and running a Giants system that has slumped recently in delivering players to the majorleague club.
“There’s incredible information, and it has to factor into everything we do,” Bell said during an interview at the Giants’ minor-league spring headquarters. “It’s there. If we don’t access, utilize and implement that information, we’re going to fall behind.”
Bell stressed the need for “balance,” but in the next breath he said that information is “an incredible tool that we’re going to factor into every decision we make, whether it’s game strategy to performance to sports science.”
“We’re not going to turn away from any potential edge we can create, and the information is the edge.”
Bell was not just talking about swing planes and spin rates, but also biometrics and sleep patterns, nutrition and psychology. If a minor-leaguer is struggling, the staff will not just look at video, but ask the player if everything is all right at home and what he is eating. Minor-leaguers will do yoga for physical and spiritual wellbeing.
“We’re going to support them in every way possible,” Bell said. “We’re not going to leave any stone unturned. We have incredible resources and we are going to use everyone to develop that player holistically in every way possible.”
The Giants brought Bell’s philosophy into the organization as part of a larger overhaul that included a coaching shakeup on the big club. New pitching coach Curt Young, hitting coach Alonzo Powell and bullpen coach Matt Herges all came from organizations — A’s, Astros and Dodgers, respectively — that bought into advanced metrics long ago.
Taken together, the moves underscore a broader shift by Giants management toward information and technology that other organizations have embraced. Bell and his assistants hope to work seamlessly with the major-league staff to ensure that players get the same information and learn the same philosophies on hitting and pitching at all levels.
In announcing the minorleague reorganization in December, general manager Bobby Evans stressed the farm system’s success in funneling players to three World Series championship teams but also acknowledged the recent drought, which even impacted his ability to use prospects as trade bait for significant players such as the Marlins’ Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich.
The changes made over the winter were a long time coming. They had to be, given their scope.
“I don’t think it germinated because we were in the throes of a miserable major-league season,” executive vice president Brian Sabean said. “It just became apparent that time was also of the essence to make some changes in the minor leagues, which is tough to do because that minor-league staff, and how we ran development, produced a lot of good major-league players.”
The Giants saw the need to keep up with the Joneses, or even get ahead of them.
They did not clean house. To the contrary, two special assistants who report to Bell are old-schoolers Gene Clines and Joe Amalfitano. Plenty of onfield minor-league managers and coaches are returning, too. Shane Turner, whom Bell replaced as farm director, is a special assistant in baseball operations.
Scouting director John Barr will continue to run the draft, which will supply the players Bell will oversee. Bell said he and Barr are working closely to share ideas and concepts. This is no small part of the equation, particularly with the Giants owning their highest draft pick, at No. 2, in more than three decades.
But two of the five newly created assistant director positions were filled from the outside: former Padres hitting coach Alan Zinter for offense and longtime minor-league pitcher Matt Buschmann in run prevention.
Hitting coordinator Dave Hansen and pitching coordinator Julio Rangel are new, too, as is Dan O’Brien, the former Santa Clara head coach who will be the “development coach,” charged with overseeing what the club terms “leadership, team-building and personal growth.”
The new-age feel reflects the man at the top. In explaining how he plans to handle all 200 minor-leaguers equally, regardless of skill or prospect status, Bell said, “Every single guy in there is going to be treated with the same amount of care, respect and love.”
If the changes are logical, and maybe overdue, hiring Bell to oversee them seemed out of the box at first glance because all of his post-playing experience was in uniform, not in a suit.
Injuries forced Bell out of the majors in 2006, four years after he slid belly-first into home to score the Giants’ pennant-clinching run against the Cardinals.
He managed two Reds farm clubs before becoming the Cubs’ third-base coach in 2013, then the Cardinals’ assistant hitting coach before being promoted to bench coach in 2015.
Sabean cited the Bell family pedigree, which he said is “off the charts.”
Grandfather Gus Bell and dad Buddy Bell played in the majors. Buddy also managed and works in the Reds front office as a special assistant. David toddled in major-league clubhouses from the age of 3. He grew up in Cincinnati and played at Moeller High, a baseball factory that produced Ken Griffey Jr.
The Giants considered Bell’s experience handling prospects as a minor-league manager and work as a bench coach with the Cardinals, a metrics-centered organization under president of baseball operations John Mozeliak.
One of Mozeliak’s protégés is current Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, among the most metrics-driven executives in the majors, who built a tremendous farm system during a rebuild that led to the 2017 World Series championship.
“I would like to think that we’ve moved the needle in how you think about player development and curriculum,” Mozeliak said. “I would hope that David, even though he was not intimately involved in that part of the business, still got to see how things were done and also worked hand in hand with the people who developed that strategy.”
Mozeliak said that as bench coach, Bell looked beyond his duties and was “definitely inquisitive about how things worked and why.”
Bell admitted he saw his future on the field as a bigleague manager, not a farm director. When the Giants called Mozeliak last summer seeking permission for an interview, Bell was surprised, but intrigued. He also loved his lone season playing in San Francisco.
He and his family even moved to Santa Rosa three years ago when he and wife Kristi decided to end a vagabond existence for the sake of their two children. One of the Wine Country fires came within three miles of his house. He did not have to evacuate.
“I don’t know if I would have done this job anywhere else,” Bell said. “What became clear over the last 16 years, as I’ve moved around, I really wanted to be somewhere where I felt a really strong connection.
“Having spent only one year here, it’s hard to describe this. When I came to San Francisco as a visiting coach, I felt a connection to the place more than any other place I’ve ever been.”