Baseball Vet Swings Against Big Data

“If it feels wrong, it’s right. If it feels comfortable, it’s wrong,” Bob Turcio says from behind the pitching machine.

Turcio stands on the outside of the 65-by-14-foot mesh batting cage. A net with a hole for the machine separates him from the batter. 

Turcio’s student, an older teenager, tugs the back of his flowing hair, adjusts his black Yankees cap, re-Velcroes his white batting gloves, chews his gum, and steps back into the batter’s box. He stares down the machine as if he could scare it into throwing a pitch down the heart of the plate.

Many players this student’s age would focus on hitting the ball as fast as they can, controlling the angle of the ball’s flight, and striking the ball in the exact center of the barrel. They’ve grown up in the wake of baseball’s statistical revolution, a two-decade-long movement that has seen Major League teams supplement traditional scouting and coaching methods with data and technology. 

At the dawn of the 2023 season, there is little doubt that the number-crunchers have won the war over baseball. Old-school baseball staffers are being pushed out of the game — between 2019 and 2021, Major League teams cut 150 scouting jobs, which were some of the most traditional voices in a front office. 

Regardless, Bob Turcio wants no part of this data-infused newfangled playing style. His gym is a time capsule, and mechanically-measured advanced statistics will not sneak their way in. 

Turcio, a 65-year-old vestige of a simpler baseball era, retains a straightforward philosophy. He was one of the best baseball players in the University of New Haven’s history, and his training facility has been open for 35 years. He must be doing something right.

Turcio raises the ball with his right hand and sets it into the machine. Whizz. The batter taps his left toe and swings, striking the ball too high. In a real game, it would be an easy groundout to the pitcher.

“What happened?” Turcio asks.

The student bends over and shrugs his shoulders.

“You bent over! Look at the shit that happens,” Turcio says.

The student takes a breath, resets his stance, bounces his bat, taps his toe, and swings. He grounds it again. Turcio turns off the batting machine, walks around the edge of the cage, lifts the netting, and joins the student at the plate.

“You alright?” Turcio asks.

“Yeah.”

Turcio takes the bat and demonstrates the proper wrist action. He hits lefty, but the kid can translate. Satisfied, he gets back behind the pitching machine and instructs the batter to hit from a closed stance (where the left foot is closer to home plate than the right). In just one swing, Turcio provides corrections to the student’s arms, hands, wrists, shoulders, waist, and feet. Then, the batter hits a screaming line drive right up the middle. I refuse to believe Turcio has only two eyes.

***

When I first visited the Batter’s Box, Turcio’s baseball facility on Marne Street in Hamden, I struggled to find it. The only signage is a piece of paper taped to the glass door. The facility is tucked between a Korean church and a realty office in a Hamden industrial building that takes half a mile to circumnavigate. (A high school junior named Matt is all too familiar with this fact. Turcio once made him run eight laps around the whole building as a punishment for being, in Matt’s own words, ​“really stupid.”)

These days, many baseball gyms are littered with expensive tracking cameras and fancy hitting gadgets. You’ll find none of that inside the Batter’s Box. It looks like a warehouse (if you removed the five batting cages, weightlifting equipment, turf carpet, pitching machines, helmets, tees, bats, mitts, buckets of balls, and motivational posters). 

But it undeniably sounds like baseball. 

On a busy day, 30 kids, a handful of parents, and a few coaches share the space. The pitching machines’ soft whirs and rhythmic snaps are punctuated by the sharp clangs of aluminum bats smacking baseballs.

Gloves make a crisp popping noise as they receive pitches. Turcio’s New England accent booms across the room as he critiques a swing or a throw. The soundtrack of the sport echoes all around the large rectangular space. All that’s missing is the smell of freshly-cut grass.

The Batter’s Box is open to anyone who likes to hit balls with bats. Youth players get lessons from Turcio. Yale graduate students combine the netting into one giant batting cage for cricket. Town baseball teams run indoor practices, hooting and hollering in playful competition.

The main event at the Batter’s Box is the Connecticut Bombers, a youth baseball program with six or seven teams for students between ages 10 and 18. Turcio coaches two of the teams and his former students and teammates coach the others. 

While other programs may offer fresher philosophies, Turcio’s old-school techniques still sell. He likes to emphasize that he teaches more than just baseball — his students develop habits that will help them personally, academically, and professionally. 

Though the Bombers boast an impressive list of alumni (including a freshman All-American, an Olympian, and an MLB All-Star), Turcio tells me that those are not his favorite students. ​“We have CEOs, heart surgeons,” he says, ​“which is the proudest thing that you can do here.”

Bob​Turcio is what you’d call a ​“baseball lifer.” He grew up in the Morris Cove neighborhood of New Haven, which he described as ​“tough, tough.” He biked a paper route twice a day. When he looks back on his childhood, he’s grateful that his mom cooked him a full breakfast each morning and now bemoans the fact that many of his players’ parents won’t ​“get the fuck out of bed” to do the same.

He picked up baseball at St. Bernadette’s Middle School and never stopped. After playing on the varsity team at Notre Dame High School in West Haven, he morphed into a mustachioed Ohtani at the University of New Haven, starring on the mound and at the plate (he was a pitcher, outfielder, and designated hitter). Turcio called UNH ​“the toughest program probably in the country,” and one of the best.

During a game against Yale, Turcio cemented his place as a local legend by launching what is believed to be the first home run to fly over the Eli’s mammoth center field wall. A newspaper cartoon that hangs on the Batter’s Box’s wall shows Turcio standing between two military tanks. A salesman announces, ​“Here we have the Bob Turcio Model: capable of launching baseballs 400 ft. and more.”

Unlike that cartoonist, Turcio was not impressed by his home run. ​“What do I remember? I hit it,” he said. ​“What do I remember? I struck out three times before that.”

After graduating, Turcio spent time in training camp with the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles. Looking back, Turcio does not think he was prepared for Major League Baseball. ​“I wasn’t ready,” he said. ​“I was young.” 

Instead, he spent four years playing in the Italian Baseball League.

After competing for Team Italy in the 1984 Olympics, Turcio married a woman from Hamden and moved back to North Haven. He worked odd jobs for a few years before opening the Batter’s Box in 1988. He’s been playing and coaching baseball his whole life and cannot imagine stopping. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Turcio says. ​“I’m 65 years old. What am I going to do?”

***

In Bob Turcio’s world, if you want something done, you do it yourself. He’s not just the Batter’s Box’s founder, owner, and coach; he’s also the painter, electrician, and plumber. If the forecast is poor and the fields are flooded, Turcio lays dry dirt over the infield with his own two hands. ​“I do my own stuff,” he summarizes. The notable exception to this maxim is self-promotion — Turcio dreads writing advertisements or producing content for the Batter’s Box website. He says he’s the ​“worst in the world when it comes to English” and outsources the work to his neighbor, a corporate speechwriter.

For Turcio, doing it yourself means doing it without much help from modern technology. He carries a cordless landline in his pocket during practice. He will not download Uber Eats. He hates texting. He is not on social media (because it ​“is destroying the world”). He pays so little attention to his computer that he did not realize his mousepad was shaped like home plate until I pointed it out to him.

His one-man battle against modernization extends to the baseball field. Turcio has a radar gun, but he barely whips it out. His only modern ​“tool” is a tee with an adjustable plate that helps teach a proper bat path. He hangs a laminated advertisement from 2001 that reads ​“MARK McGWIRE BEGAN HITTING MORE HOME RUNS IN 1995 AFTER INCREASING HIS USE OF BRATT’S BAT.” 

Turns out, there was something else in the water/syringe; McGwire has since admitted that he used performance-enhancing drugs during those seasons. Now, that ad is like using Enron to showcase your accounting software. When I asked Turcio why he still displays the advertisement, he replied, ​“It’s a great bat.”

Bob Turcio sees statistics as a false prophet. 

Today, velocity is seen as the key to success in baseball. Throw fast or hit fast and you’ll get paid. Young pitchers who try to throw as fast as possible might find short-term success, but the good players learn to ​“pitch, not throw,” which includes being able to anticipate what will happen after the batter makes contact with any given pitch. Throwing fast doesn’t trump knowledge and control.

It’s not just pitching velocity: Turcio finds all advanced statistics gimmicky. His students won’t hear a word about their pitching spin rates, hitting exit velocities, or batted-ball launch angles. (Turcio says that launch angle is ​“the stupidest and dumbest thing that’s ever happened to non-professional baseball.” He believes that a good, healthy swing will result in a so-called good launch angle, and chasing launch angle is a reductive approach.) Instead, he ensures that his students develop what he calls a ​“good feel for the game.”

Some of Turcio’s criticisms of modern baseball and statistically-inspired training sound silly to me.

I’ve seen my favorite Major League players use advanced technology to reinvent their swings, deconstruct their pitching motions, and save their careers. But at the same time, it’s refreshing to talk to someone who cares about a player’s development so much more than their numbers.

In this gym, Bob Turcio is God. Thou shalt not worship velocity.

***

In 1977, Turcio hit for a .477 average, a ludicrously high mark that remains top-five in University of New Haven history. 

That same year, a security guard at a pork and beans canning factory self-published a book called the 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 Categories of Statistical Information That You Just Can’t Find Anywhere Else. Bill James’s compilation of player data sold only 75 copies, but it ignited a statistical revolution, albeit one that would take decades to arrive.

In the early 2000s, MLB teams took note of the nerds. Small-market clubs with lower payrolls like the Oakland A’s and Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians) embraced advanced statistics as a way to spend money more efficiently. 

I fell in love with baseball during this transitional period of rapid quantification. 

After my family moved to St. Louis in 2005, we spent dozens of summer afternoons watching the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. I cheered at Albert Pujols’ towering home runs and David Eckstein’s slap singles. While I buried myself in peanut dust and played with my melting cup of Dippin’ Dots, the game was quickly changing.

Between 2006 and 2015, Major League Baseball equipped all of its stadiums with cameras and radars to capture baseball data. Now, teams could see their pitchers’ precise release points, break distances, and spin rates; their hitters’ launch angles, exit velocities, and hit distances; and their fielders’ throw speeds, fielding positions, and transfer times. Armed with previously unmeasurable statistics, teams integrated more data into their front office decisions. A prime example is the Houston Astros, who hired a former NASA mathematician to build an advanced analytics department and have since become a modern baseball dynasty.

But the statistical optimization of baseball can result in games that are less fun to watch. In recent years, I saw the career of Cardinal fan favorite Matt Carpenter crumble as teams stacked three infielders on the right side of the field to rob him of ground ball hits. A numbers-based approach increases wins, but is it worth the damage to the entertainment value?

In the past few years, Major League Baseball has altered its rules to minimize the side effects of baseball’s statistical optimization. To restore ground ball hits, teams must maintain relatively ​“normal” fielding positions. 

To speed up the game, teams must keep a relief pitcher for at least three batters (or until the end of the inning), which makes it harder for teams to constantly bring in a pitcher with the same handedness as a batter in pivotal late inning moments. 

To encourage stolen bases, which teams had decreased due to their poor expected value, the league increased base sizes and restricted pickoffs. 

Major League Baseball is responding to the numerical coup and attempting to restore balance — the Bob Turcios of the world have not been forgotten.

Baseball’s statistical revolution is not confined to its professional levels. From Little League to college, players can now track their development quantitatively. A company called Driveline Baseball stands at the forefront of statistical training at all levels of the game. Founder Kyle Boddy read Moneyball and wondered why teams focused so much on finding the right players instead of developing their current ones. Even though he had no scientific background, he set up a biomechanics lab where he experimented with weighted balls and plyometric bands to help pitchers throw faster. Since 2015, All-Stars, MVPs, and Cy Young winners have flocked to Driveline seeking the sabermetric fountain of youth.

Driveline’s headquarters on the outskirts of Seattle hosts 15 youth teams ranging from under-10s to under-18s. Coaches mix eye-test feedback with numbers from their HitTrax system, a virtual-reality-infused device that shows the batted ball flying through an MLB park of the student’s choice and lists stats like exit velocity, launch angle, and distance.

Driveline youth programs focus on what they’ve dubbed ​“skills that scale”: bat speed, exit velocity, and throwing velocity. The company believes that a strike-first approach is ill-suited for youths. ​“If you aim at a strike,” explains Zach Novis, head coach of Driveline Youth, ​“more times than not, the 12 and under hitter is going to get themselves out. But when you go to the next level in high school, where the players are… stronger and better at hitting strikes, that’s just not gonna really play.” 

Novis points to the ​“millions of kids” quitting baseball between middle school and high school as evidence that to stay in the sport, you have to throw fast and hit hard.

Turcio scoffs at Driveline’s training methods, calling them ​“asinine.” He doesn’t doubt that it helps their kids throw faster, but he asks, ​“does it help them throw strikes?” Driveline founder Kyle Boddy would probably turn around and call Turcio a ​“dadtroll.”

The two factions dig their trenches and prepare for baseball’s civil war. On one side, we have the outsiders like Sig Mejdal and Kyle Boddy. They may not have played baseball, but they sure know how to analyze it. On the other side, baseball lifers like Bob Turcio preach the old-school style they grew up playing. Who will the kids choose?

***

I identify more with the young generation of baseball fans than the older baseball lifers. I appreciate batters’ exit velocities, watch YouTubers who try to increase their top pitch speed, and love seeing MLB pitchers throw mind-bendingly fast. But spending time in Turcio’s gym has endeared me to the old-timers’ arguments. His kids, just as plugged in as me, may goof off behind his back, chuckle at his ways, and occasionally roll their eyes, but they revere his insight. 

Maybe if everyone had a Bob Turcio at their side, they wouldn’t even want to see their advanced statistics.

Turcio coaches a young boy, probably 10 or 11, who wants to pitch. Two nights ago, he was the Bombers’ starting pitcher, but he struggled to find the plate. The pitcher’s dad stands outside the cage, filming, listening, and miming throws. During the year his son has worked with Turcio, Charlie Haskes has been in awe of Turcio’s coaching skills. ​“I’ve watched baseball for almost 50 years and he suggests things that I’ve never picked up on,” Haskes tells me.

To start the lesson, Haskes’ son throws into the net a few feet in front of him. As the ball rolls back, Turcio stops him — he was throwing too quickly. Turcio works the pitcher through a few drills, slowly increasing the distance to the target. In the final exercise, the kid steps up to the pitching rubber. He aims 40 feet away at a net divided into nine squares, each representing one part of the strike zone. He lifts his left leg and separates his arms just like Turcio drilled into him. He fires the ball, holding his finish as if a magazine photographer were putting him on the front cover.

Turcio stands cross-armed watching. He demonstrates proper elbow movement and head tilt.

“It’s hard,” the pitcher says.

“It’s not hard. It’s how your brain works,” Turcio replies. He scratches his mustache in anticipation of the next pitch.

A few minutes later, after an off-topic conversation about people who do not sweat, Turcio notices that something feels off and stops the kid mid-windup. ​“We changed the subject, we talked about something stupid. See how easy you lost your concentration?” Turcio says. ​“That can’t happen in a game. What happens when you throw a ball, a guy fouls a ball and breaks a window of a car. You going to focus on the car or the baseball field?”

The kid laughs. But I feel that in my bones. I imagine Turcio staring down the fourteen-year-old version of myself.

I was an awful youth baseball player. In my final year, I don’t remember getting a hit. But that eighth-grade season, I did manage to work one walk. I trotted down to first, proud of my plate discipline. You’d think that I’d be laser-focused during my long-awaited first visit to the bases. But there was a lacrosse game on the field next to ours. Between pitches, I watched their game. I drifted off the bag, engrossed by the rhythmic cradling. The pitcher threw over to first. I got tagged before I could pull my head out of the clouds. I think Turcio would have murdered me. But I would have been a better player.

***

I’ve only picked up a (non-wiffle) bat a few times since that fateful eighth-grade pickoff. I have since conquered puberty and regained the coordination that middle school growth spurts robbed.

When I go back to the Batter’s Box a few weeks later, I ask Turcio if he can critique me as I swing off a tee. He agrees, as long as he can keep repainting the six-foot-tall blue stripe that runs along the lower portion of the walls.

I fling the mesh of the cage over my head, pick up a blue aluminum bat with a nearly non-existent grip and spin it in my hands as I wait for Turcio’s gaze.

“I can see ya,” he says from afar. I forgot — many eyes.

I twirl my bat a few more times, silently asking the ball to fly as fast as it can. I step up to the tee and dig my pretend spikes into the turf. Turcio stops me. ​“You’re a mile and a half away from home plate,” he says. ​“You’re actually in another zip code.”

Reset. One batt wiggle. Eye on the tee. I swing and bounce the ball three feet in front of the plate.

Launch angle: ‑45°. Exit velocity: abysmal. My arms felt restricted, my wrists turned oddly, and my feet were confused. But Turcio said feeling unnatural was good, right?

“How about using your bottom half?” Turcio says while starting to clean up his paint job. ​“You gotta rotate your hips when you swing the bat. The bat’s going one direction, your hips gotta go the same direction.”

On my next few swings, I continue to ground the ball, and Turcio continues to pick up small details from the other side of the building. He tells me to ​“stay down and rotate,” ​“stay behind the ball,” ​“stride to the ball,” and ​“stay under the ball.” Eventually, I smack a line drive. Content with my progress (or a one-time fluke), I set down the bat.

Despite thousands of hours of watching baseball, I do not look like a player. I don’t even know if I look like a t‑ball coach. Can Sig Mejdal or Kyle Boddy hit a home run?

There are plenty of things that Bob Turcio can’t do well, but when he takes one sideways glance at someone’s swing, a whole world unfolds.

***

One Friday afternoon, I go to the Batter’s Box but Turcio is nowhere to be found. After a week of rain, he went out to fix the public field where the Bombers will play that weekend. Meanwhile, Matt is ​“coaching” a group of younger boys. (They are all watching the Yankees playoff game and taking a swing every once in a while.) When Aaron Judge comes up to bat, everybody stops what they are doing. It’s Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series. The Yankees won the first game and are now tied with the Guardians in the bottom of the ninth.

Judge is exactly who you would want at the plate. Aside from setting a new American League home run record, Judge led MLB in a variety of advanced stats like average exit velocity, average flyball/line drive velocity, hard hit percentage, and barrels. But he’s struggled mightily in this series, striking out seven times in the first two games.

Judge’s whole style is hitting big and playing big. At 6’7” and 282 pounds, he is a hulking figure. When he hits the ball, everyone thinks it’s going to fly out of the park. When he moves too quickly, fans worry he’ll break.

Turcio does not endorse his kids using Aaron Judge as a model. Turcio doesn’t watch much baseball anymore because ​“the games take too friggin’ long,” but if he were to choose an example for his students, it would be ​“guys who don’t strike out a lot.” In 2022, Judge struck out more often than all but two American League players. Besides, if a teenage boy who skipped breakfast and does not have the body of a Greek god tried to adjust his swing to focus on hitting home runs, he would flounder at the plate.

In New York, Judge swings with a 2 – 2 count. He weakly bounces a ball to the third baseman, slowly jogs to first, and is easily thrown out. ​“I really don’t understand,” one of the Bombers players says.

“Hustle out ground balls and you have so many more hits.” If Turcio weren’t out sprinkling dirt on the basepaths, he might crack a smile. Not all of the kids want to swing for the fences.

Bob Turcio’s students grew up watching sabermetric-powered stars. When they go to college, their coaches will point a radar gun at their pitches and analyze their swings with slow-motion cameras. If they become MLB coaches, they’ll meet with statisticians who provide insight on swing tweaks and roster construction. But these students will always have Bob Turcio in their heads reminding them how baseball used to be, even if it will never be that way again.