ST. PETERSBURG -- Pat Murphy’s lineup card starts with something a lot less high-tech than the modern game would suggest.
Before the Brewers’ 5-4 win over the Rays in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday, the Milwaukee manager said he writes out his starting lineup “on this little napkin every morning,” then passes it along to Evan Martin, who Murphy calls “Ninja.”
“I send it to Ninja, and Ninja sends it to the whole deal. It's not as complicated as you think.”
Martin, a member of the Brewers’ coaching staff with the official title of “game preparation specialist,” takes Murphy’s handwritten lineup and relays it to manager of Major League technology August Sandri. Sandri then drops it into a template that gets shared through a digital app with everyone who needs it.
Sometimes Murphy’s notes really do land on a napkin. More often, Martin said, it’s scrap paper.
“It’s whatever he’s writing on that day,” Martin said. “It’s a nice, artful creation. He draws out the diamond, where guys are going to play and where they’re hitting in the lineup.
“It’s kind of like a prescription.”
Martin also said the photos of Murphy’s lineup cards have improved as the season has gone on.
“The picture-taking skills have gotten a lot better,” Martin said. “Because there were some early in the year where it's, like, full blurry.”
Not every card has been a clean snapshot, either. Martin pointed to Milwaukee’s 3-1 win over the Angels in Los Angeles on Aug 1 as an example of how hard the writing could be to decipher.
The cards can also offer a peek at Murphy’s decision-making. On June 24 in Cincinnati, Garrett Mitchell was in center field before being pulled in favor of Andrew Vaughn against Reds left-hander Sam Moll in the seventh inning. Vaughn followed by hitting a bases-clearing triple that drove in the winning runs in a 6-5 Brewers victory.
There are misses, too. Murphy shared his Sept. 3 lineup from a 2-1 loss to the Cubs, when an improving Christian Yelich was still batting sixth and Milwaukee went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. Murphy, by his own description, appeared to be reconsidering the order before turning it in.
The process may look old-school, but the Brewers do plenty of work behind the scenes. The front office and coaching staff put together scouting reports and detailed game plans that help Murphy think through how to line up his hitters against certain pitchers, with details that go far beyond a basic left-versus-right matchup.
Still, the final call belongs to Murphy, and he doesn’t treat lineup construction like some giant puzzle.
“You think about who you're facing, who your best hitters are, who's going the best, who can handle this repertoire this way, where's the break in the lineup, what reliever will they bring in for that break in the lineup, how damaging is that,” he said. “You don't want to limit guys’ number of at-bats, potentially. All that kind of stuff goes into making a lineup.”
"And you and I have a conversation, literally we'd be done in three minutes. It comes down to this or this, and then that -- you can peel that away pretty good.
“Remember, the guys at the top, you want to bat the most. That's kind of how you look at it.”
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