One morning last winter, in the coaches' conference room in the bowels of Marlins Park, the Miami Marlins' decision-makers crowded around a table with a problem and a potential solution.
The issue was 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 Pare, whom they were interested in hiring to run it.
Pare 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 Pare about the opening, per baseball norms, the parties realized Pare 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 the desktop in a hotel lobby the night before _ Pare 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," Pare said. "But I think it ended up going OK."
That was a year ago. Pare, 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 Pare during that first meeting: This is something we want to invest in. We want to make this a big part of what we're doing. That's why you're here.
