Meet Tyler Pill, Outfielder
Let’s say you’re 29. You’re good at your job, but you’re not great at it, yet. You might be, you might figure something out that turns a light on for you. Or, your career might never reach “great” status and you’ll be forced to move on.
I’m 28, so pretending I am 29 is not all that tough. Defining ‘good’ versus ‘great’ is a bit harder in the energy consulting and blogging space that I find myself in than it is professional baseball player. Baseball players are categorized into all sorts of quality tiers by all sorts of people, algorithms, and machines. They’re constantly aware of their job performance; it’s usually put up on a giant board for nearby people to see- something that makes it clear to everyone around when you’re ‘great’, but also painfully obvious when you’re merely ‘good.’
And what if you’re not ‘great’? At what point do you switch jobs? When do you change what you’re doing in pursuit of ‘great’? For Tyler Pill, current outfielder with the AAA Nashville Sounds and former pitcher with the New York Mets, that answer was this January.
Tyler didn’t use those words when I spoke with him on Wednesday. He used words like “try something different” and “fun.” He doesn’t strike me as a guy particularly concerned with the existential purpose of life, though he may be. Rather, he’s a guy trying something new in life because the opportunity presented itself.
In January, Daniel R. Epstein wrote on this very website that Tyler Pill could be a new kind of two way player. Little did we know that Tyler was already in discussions with the Rangers about the possibility. In fact, he signed with the Rangers about the same time that we published the post. As much as I wanted to believe that Dan’s post on our website altered Tyler Pill’s future, it more built his confidence. He had previous managers ask him about the possibility of hitting in addition to (or instead of) pitching.
But the Rangers put money on the table where others had only pondered the possibility. The plan was to throw a few games a week, and DH the other games. He went into spring training with that mindset and went about it for a few games. “Before I knew it, they approached me and said ‘You know, we really like your swing. We really like your approach. Why don’t you put pitching on the backburner and go full throttle on the outfield?‘” “So then I was full bore outfield, playing everyday, which I am not really used to. I am used to throwing one game, sitting out four, and I end up tweaking my groin towards the end of spring.”
“My second game back, I got hit in the wrist and fractured a bone. So I get recovered from that, and what I think what happened is that a couple of guys went down and they needed a guy in Nashville, so they sent me to AAA on May 29th. It was actually my birthday.”
This all happened quickly. But being a position player is something that Tyler has long been thinking about.
“I had always kind of wondered what it would be like if I had chosen outfield out of college (in 2011). There were some teams that wanted me out of college as an outfielder. I have always been curious what would have happened and the Rangers came out of left field and asked.”
So the Rangers get credit for asking Pill out on a date in much the same way that high school dweebs ask the homecoming queen to prom – out of left field, and with an attention-getting offer. Sometimes it works out, sometimes they say no. Tyler said yes, and, like the hot girl going out with the dweeb, there have been a few challenges.
The Rangers placed Pill right into AAA, despite the fact that last year around this time, he hadn’t even taken serious batting practice since college. Now, AAA at bats mean facing “guys who throw 96 with movement.”
But he’s swimming, rather than drowning. Previous managers knew this would happen. They had asked Pill about his willingness to convert to a position player. The reason? “My at bats were good, I wasn’t swinging at the first pitch. I was putting up quality at bats and my numbers were actually pretty good over the years.”
Indeed, the Dodgers’ AAA manager Bill Hasselman was planning to take the idea to the head honchos over the winter. The Dodgers remained interested, but the Rangers jumped on the chance to convert him to a two-way player, or maybe even just the position player route.
Tyler Pill is not alone in this endeavor. His former teammate at Cal State Fullerton, Michael Lorenzen, is attempting to help the Reds on the pitching mound and in the outfield. Lorenzen and Pill actually started the Cal State Fullerton alumni game in the outfield together and took a few rounds of BP together. The current team beat the alums, which probably means that not all of the 13 guys who have played in the Majors this year that were drafted out of Fullerton made the trip back to campus in January.
I asked Pill about how he prepared for the season. Pitchers and position players train for slightly different things with slightly different emphasis in the weight room and on the track. Pill went about his business this offseason as a position player, thinking “I could always dial it back to focus on the arm.” The transition to the batter’s box sure seemed like something he embraced.
Lorenzen hasn’t really been a two-way player in the Majors. He’s much more a pitcher, having logged just 14.1 innings in the outfield this season despite coming into the regular season intending to play there frequently. He has two hits in 9 at bats this season. He’s also one of the Reds better relievers.
And Pill hasn’t really been a two-way player in the Minors. He’s an outfielder now. I asked him what kind of player he is at this point. His answer was fascinating in how honest and different it was from Drew Ferguson’s response: “This is my first year trying to do this full bore. So right now, I’m just trying to have quality at bats. I am just trying to play solid defense, minimize my ‘pitcher days’ in the outfield, and put together solid at bats.”
He’s hitting .238 with a few homeruns. He’s yet to find his groove, but that does not change the fact that he’s doing something different. He’s having a bunch of firsts this year, including being subjected to new types of heckling as an outfielder. He hasn’t had his first game where he struck out three times in one game yet, but he has hit his first AAA-homer with the opposing pitcher treating him like a threat.
He’s certainly not great, yet. But we also do not know how attainable “great” is for Tyler Pill, the outfielder. For Tyler Pill, the pitcher, it was elusive (though the guy did make the majors). For all of us, “great” can be elusive. I hope he can find it with great regularity as an outfielder. More people deserve that.
As with most Off The Bench interviews, I finished by asking Tyler Pill our all-important questions (AIQs). The rule is that you have to answer and you have to answer honestly.
- Who is your favorite pokemon? There’s so many. My favorite starter is Charmander, obviously.
- Could you beat Clayton Kershaw in a paper airplane contest? No.
- Best color of M&M? Blue.
- Joey Chestnut’s record is 73. How many hot dogs could you eat in 10 minutes? 2. I hate hot dogs.
- Where are the best tacos in LA? El Pueblo in San Diego – I think that’s what it’s called. (Note that this isn’t in LA)
- If you could be a member of any TV-sitcom family, which would it be? The Office. I would be one of Jim’s brothers, but I would like Pam.
- If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Maple.
- Do you believe in ghosts? No.
-Sean Morash
