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NL DIVISION SERIES: ROCKIES VS BREWERS

October 4, 2018

Craig Counsell

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Workout Day

Q. I'm wondering if you gave David any advice about being a dad or if you haven't yet, what you would tell him about what's ahead.
CRAIG COUNSELL: I have shared pieces of advice with him. I don't know if they're for everybody to hear, to be honest with you. Yeah, I mean, I've encouraged him to come to the game today, to come on the road, but I don't know if Whitney will be a fan of all those encouragements that I've made.

No. I think the best thing for David and Whitney is that they were able to have the baby yesterday, and what a great time for his family. It's absolutely unbelievable, and he'll look back at this time in his life, I'm sure, and just be like, wow, that all happened in the same week?

Pretty cool. Pretty cool. He's got to be on cloud nine. Hopefully with a pillow, too, up there. He's probably a little tired.

Q. I'm sure everybody is interested in roster stuff, but particularly the pitching, going with Woody and also keeping Davies and Anderson, who had been in your initial out-getter group there for a while, just kind of how you picked the guys that you're going to pitch with, and especially just 11 guys, too.
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, well, so going with Woody today, look, he's been throwing the ball very, very well. And I think from our perspective, Woody is -- he's not a reliever.

He has the ability to do more than that, if that's what the game calls for. So that's -- one, he's just throwing the ball really well, and two, I think he has the potential to do a little more than a reliever maybe.

As far as how the roster is composed, look, I think the off-days played a part in it, how we came into the series played a part in it. The guys we kept are all guys that have the -- they're starters. There's a lot of starters in that group, and they have the ability to -- I think they've done both, I guess, is what I'd say. They've pitched, and they have length kind of attached to them, which we think is valuable.

And then there's some guys that we think are good matchups in the series against this particular team.

Q. Is one of those guys, Freddy, would he have been more of a difficult decision if this wasn't the Rockies in the first round?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, Freddy has had some success against this team, and we like what he brings against this team.

Q. You mentioned yesterday you wanted to sort of get away from the labels of starters and relievers. I'm wondering how much of that is specific to this team at this time, and how much of that is, no, this is just the way the game is going, at least the way the Brewers play.
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean, I think it's part of the strengths of this team that we're trying to take advantage of. You know, I do think in the National League, during the course of the regular season, you need starting pitching, the way the game is structured.

At this time of the year, the off-days, you know, the all-hands-on-deck mentality that you're able to take because it's a five-game season essentially, you can think about it differently.

And that does mean we're going to ask some guys to do some different things. I mean, we have -- one of the tougher decisions for us was not keeping Xavier CedeÃ±o on the roster, who's pitched very well for us in September, but we feel like with Geo and Wade that they will be used out of the bullpen in games, in addition to probably being at the start of games.

You can't necessarily think like that during the regular season, but I think a playoff series with off-days allows you to think a little differently.

Q. You mentioned CedeÃ±o, but how much of the roster decisions was specifically the Rockies' lineup and their success against lefties in terms of choosing the guys that you wanted in there?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean, I think -- look, everything kind of goes into it, so a part of it -- I would say Freddy was the biggest -- the guy probably that was most team-specific, and the rest, a lot of the other decisions were really that we came into this series with two days off. There's two days off during the series. We never play more than two games in a row. That probably was the other reason that we felt -- and we feel like we've got length in a lot of our -- the ability to get length out of a lot of our relievers, and we don't have to worry about matchups necessarily with a lot of our relievers. That probably affected the composition of the roster.

Q. I know you only had 25 guys, but I'm sure Thames, at least emotionally, was hard, because you guys like him so much. And is Broxton just defense pinch running, and obviously Santana, the pinch hitting, were those the factors?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean, with Eric, the left-handed bats is always something that is tough to leave off for sure. But it came down to as much as anything as Domingo has just played so well over the course of this month and done this job so well. That ended up being the bigger factor.

And then what was the other part of your question? I'm sorry.

Q. Broxton.
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, Broxton is -- he's just -- to me, he's a versatile player. He's a player that he can steal a base. He's a very good defender in a really big outfield, in Coors Field, that could be valuable.

He has -- there's the threat of the home run there, too. So to me, it was a player that kind of adds a lot of -- it's probably kind of niche roles, but there's a possibility that we feel like there's going to be games where those skill sets will fit.

Q. The last time Milwaukee was in the postseason you were on the roster. Now how much different does it feel to be in the position of the manager of this team as you go into the postseason this year?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Closer than you think because I never played, so I was doing a lot of the thinking about this stuff because I knew I wasn't going to play.

I probably had some -- you know, when you're in that stage of your career, you do put yourself in that position of thinking about what the manager is doing, and I think that's kind of natural for guys that are on the bench at the end of their career and are sitting on the bench most days.

But I think as a player, you're thinking about your job, that one job, you've got your job to do, and my job now is facilitating success and trying to put these guys all in a good spot and making good decisions for everybody to help them be successful.

I've probably got more to think about now, yeah.

Q. Could you tell us a little bit more about Chase Anderson? I think maybe there was an expectation when he didn't start that St. Louis game that he would play some kind of role down the stretch, and he didn't.
Was it just performance, and do you see any scenario where he figures in the rest of the postseason, or has it just been too long since he's pitched?

CRAIG COUNSELL: No, I mean, I think it -- look, we went the other way in the St. Louis game, specifically for -- to get what we thought Freddy was a very good matchup against that team. And then we just -- we didn't use the fifth starter with the day off the next time through. That ended being meaning Chase didn't pitch.

If we do advance, the composition of our pitching will change. We haven't made any decisions there yet, but I know our pitching, we're going to have to structure our pitching differently in a seven-game series for sure.

Q. We started off talking about you giving advice to David. How has that relationship between you and David kind of grown over the last couple years? We're seeing the general manager, or whatever you want to call it these days, and manager relationship more important than ever, and how has it grown over the years with you two?
CRAIG COUNSELL: I mean, it -- the best -- you just communicate a lot. It's not -- I don't know that -- I think we're pretty clear on how each other thinks. As you do with the players, we try to -- David and I try to put each other in spots that we're good in, and when we make decisions for each other and collectively.

But the biggest thing is that you collaborate on a lot of things, and you have disagreements. You have opinions. But it's always make the decision and move on to the next one.

I think we both kind of enjoy that process of what's the decision, what's the decision, let's make a good one, and let's move on to the next one. We take different views of the organization, like he's got an extremely global view of the organization, as he should, and I'm providing a kind of day-to-day view or day-to-day opinion a lot of times, and I think that works that way.

Like I say, I'm fortunate. It's been a good relationship.

Q. Having played on a couple of championship teams, does that impact you in any way as a manager? Do you take anything from that that'll help you now or anything you can share with your players?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean, I think what I try to do is just kind of sense where we're at. I just think we've been in such a good place as a team. We do have the right thoughts, and I think that's shown up in the way that we've played.

So you keep an eye on all that and use your experience and what it's going to look like. But we've played in these games already. I mean, the game Monday in Chicago, that was a playoff game. You know, the games in St. Louis, those were playoff games for us.

We've handled a lot of these games, and I think the guys understand that this atmosphere, we're going to get the best home atmosphere we've had for a whole game this year. And most of them are going to play in front of the best home atmosphere they have ever. But as far as the road things, we've really handled a lot of the road challenges that I think playoff scenarios are going to provide.

And then this weekend against Detroit, I thought Saturday night we got -- Saturday night and even Friday night at the start of the game, we got some glimpses of what it's going to feel like and what they're going to feel like as players, and it's going to be the same today.

Q. We've been asked a lot since Monday by readers and followers, what happened with Jeffress. We never were told anything. What can you say or not say, and was there ever any question that he was going to be on your NLDS roster?
CRAIG COUNSELL: No, there was no question. He's ready to go. Look, on Monday, we were -- we had to make decisions about -- it was such -- we never ended up talking about this, but it was such a strange game Monday that you have to prepare -- we have to be ready for the game on Tuesday.

So in the end, my goal was to not use one of those three guys. I really thought it was important that we didn't use one of Josh, Corey and J.J., and so we ended up not using J.J., and that puts J.J. as the most rested guy and a very rested guy going into this series.

And really, we were able to get -- we talked a lot about Josh's usage all year. There was certain -- I was concerned about J.J.'s usage frequently this season. He got to his innings in a different way, on much more frequent appearances. And I thought in the month of September, getting him a break if possible would be very fruitful for the month of October, and the way his usage worked and the games worked, we were able to do that.

He's not -- he's good to go, man. He's going to pitch a lot of innings this series.

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