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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL A

March 7, 2017

Jerry Weinstein

Seoul, Korea

Israel - 15, Chinese Taipei - 7

Q. Within a span of less than 24 hours, you went from, I think you termed you guys as an unknown to now in the driver's seat in this group. Can you sum how this team has lived up to your guys's own expectations for yourself?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: I think just that. The old Denny Green saying, most people in here don't know who Denny Green is. He was a football coach in the NFL. He says: "They are who we thought they were: And that's kind of how I feel about our team. They are who I thought they were. Very competitive group, and offensively, that's who we are today, offensively. And so that's a good thing.

Q. You played the two games, and Israel, you are playing with chances, so in your opinion, what is the power to combine the team together?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: I'm not sure what that question was.

Q. What did you do to help get the team together?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Oh, I'm just along for the ride. I really just helped put the team together, and then my job is to put the players in a position to do what they are capable of doing, and hopefully they are good enough to do. But it's all about, I tell them it's all about the inmates. It's all about the guys on the bus. We're just basically, as coaches, we're just kind of along for the ride.

Q. Yesterday you had a Korean play, and today, as well, you used a defense shift. It's a very difficult tactic for short term tournaments, so how did you collect the information and how did you come up with this idea?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Well, that's an astute observation. It's a little risky, because we're basing it on a small sampling size, and it's our best guesstimate. We've looked at a lot of the videos and we've had our pro scouts out, led by Alex Jacobs of the Houston Astros and Ben Werthan of the Baltimore Orioles, and they have done a lot of background work and looked at spray charts and things like that. That's the genesis of our positioning. That's why we're positioning the way we are.

Q. I have two questions. You have higher chances for the second round, so what is your ultimate goal? And when you advance to the next round, are you planning to use another pitcher?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Could you repeat the first question?

One of the goals is to not put the cart before the horse. We're not in the second round yet. We're preparing for the game with the Netherlands and that's what we're thinking about right now. When we're in the third round, we'll start thinking about the third round. My experience has been that when you start getting ahead of yourself, you get out in the future, you're not taking care of the present. We need to do take care of what we're doing here right now and when we know we're going to be in next round, then we'll start talking about the next round.

Q. You mentioned that you cannot imagine about the second round. However, you may meet with the Japan team, so can you share with us about the Japanese team, your impression about the Japanese team?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: No. 1, again, we try not to get too far ahead of ourselves. We have people at the tournament in Tokyo, and I don't want that information now. I want to concentrate on these games, this tournament here. When we're done here and we do qualify to play in Tokyo, then I will look at that information.

So I really don't have any information on the Japanese team or the teams playing in Tokyo. But I will have information; I will have as good of information as I've had here, and if we're lucky enough to get there, it will be a tremendous challenge.

Q. I was going to ask you, if you do get to the second round, do you plan to dip into your designated pitcher's pool?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Probably. Not definitely yes. A lot of it depends on those designated pitchers committing to do this. And so yes, we do plan on doing that. That doesn't mean we're going to do it. Depends on those pitchers being available, a; and want to go travel 14 hours or more to get here or get to Tokyo if we get there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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