It’s not quite ‘Moneyball’

Marlins add analytics to arsenal as number-crunching becomes a vital part of the front office.

“It’s almost more of a voice than I expected to have, coming into this.” Jason Paré, Marlins senior director of analytics

MIAMI — One morning last winter, in the coaches’ conference room in the bowels of Marlins Park, the Marlins’ decision-makers crowded around a table with a problem and a potential solution.

They wanted to start up an analytics department, a task with a fair degree of urgency given that most of the rest of baseball had already done so. The potential solution was the man at one end of the table, Jason Paré, whom they were interested in hiring to run it.

Paré had been an analyst with the Toronto Blue Jays. He had also been on vacation in Brazil for nearly two weeks. When the Marlins called the Blue Jays for permission to speak to Paré about the opening, per baseball norms, the parties realized Paré would have a layover in Miami on his way back to Canada. Did he want to come by the ballpark for a chat?

Wearing jeans, sneakers and a polo — and armed only with an outline of ideas he mocked up on a desktop in a hotel lobby the night before — Paré impressed on short notice. He interviewed with a who’s-who collection of club execs: president of baseball operations Michael Hill, vice president/assistant general manager Mike Berger, vice president of pitching development Jim Benedict, vice president of player personnel Jeff McAvoy and assistant GM Brian Chattin, among others.

“I was a little self-conscious about being in vacation mode,” Paré said. “But I think it ended up going OK.”

That was a year ago. Paré, now 31, got the gig as the Marlins’ senior director of analytics. The months since have been marked by the beginning

of the fulfillment of Hill’s promise to Paré during that first meeting:

TAIMY ALVAREZ/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Jason Paré, who heads the quickly growing Marlins analytical department, sits in his office at Marlins Park in Miami.