GOODYEAR, Ariz. — The path to the majors starts in obscurity, on the back fields at spring training, where the prospects wear T-shirts with numbers but no names, and the music plays only for the people on the field. No fans watched a recent minor-league practice at the Cincinnati Reds’ complex. Few of the players will ever spend a day in the majors.

But there is always a chance to stand out, to beat the odds and prove you have something valuable to offer. That is how it worked, anyway, for Kyle Boddy, the roundish guy in the black pullover who was leading the drills.

Boddy, the founder and president of the renegade Driveline Baseball training center in Kent, Wash., has gone mainstream. Last fall the Reds hired him for a new position called director of pitching initiatives and pitching coordinator. Several other teams had also recruited Boddy, an outsider whose scientific approach once clashed with baseball’s stodgy establishment.

“I truly didn’t think it was going to happen for another five or 10 years,” said Boddy, who had only consulted for teams before. “But it just made too much sense for it to fail.”