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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DODGERS VS BREWERSOctober 16, 2018Craig CounsellLos Angeles, California - pregame 4 Q. What do you and the player personnel department in your organization value in a reliever beyond velocity? And what kind of stats or metrics do you use to evaluate relievers? CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I don't know if my brain can get all the way around that question. I mean I'd say outs right now, really, outs are a big priority for me right now. I think there's different ways to get outs. And so I think it's important to recognize that different guys have different talents. Strikeouts are I think the No. 1 easiest thing to point to. It takes the luck out of the game. It's hard to score when you strikeout a lot. But there's guys that limit damage by getting a ton of ground balls. That's an effective way to do it. There's guys that are really good against the same-sided platoons, have pitches that are very effective against that. So you've got to be willing to look at a number of different factors and understand that guys get to providing value for your team in a lot of different ways. Q. We've seen in this series both teams routinely using 19, 20, 21 players in the game. What are the challenges of managing when you know you're going to be using your whole roster, almost? CRAIG COUNSELL: Well, I think the challenge is probably the fear of running out sometimes, is getting past that. And just understanding that use your guys and then if there's an extra-inning game or a crazy game, that you're going to be out of players and you're going to run out of kind of moves to make. So I think it's an important thing to do, though, and I think Dave is very good at it, actually, over there. He really makes sure he kind of fires all his weapons. And it's something you account for with him, for sure. So I think the challenges are that more so that you know, from my perspective, they're going to try to capture every matchup that they get. Q. With Hader, he's such a good weapon to use, you have ideas you want to use him, what parts of the lineup, what parts of the game. How many moves ahead do you have to think as far the temptation to winning the game that day to making sure you don't use him too much and blow a chance to use him later in the series? How difficult is it to balance that and maximize his effort? CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, Josh is -- I think anytime you get relievers that are really talented and you're not strictly using them at the back of the game, I think everybody's got great ideas on how they should be used. The most important thing is that we have to look out for -- for me the easiest way to start with, really, is, is Josh able and ready to pitch and able to be effective when we give him the ball? Now, is he always going to be effective? Is he going to give up runs? Of course. But that's the place you start. So that makes it easy, to me it makes it easy to be disciplined and it's an easy decision, really. It's not even discipline, it's an easy decision because we want to try to keep him effective and healthy and ready to go the next time we need him. Q. (Off microphone.) CRAIG COUNSELL: You're faced with it all year. He's done special things for us. And Jeremy Jeffress has done special things for us during the season. I think anytime the reliever is on a roll, you're always tempted, teams are always tempted by it. But you've got to keep it structured so that you have them for the long haul. And the thing is, part of being effective is having rest. That's part of what creates their effectiveness. Q. You've put Johnny Schoop in good situations to have success and he hasn't rewarded it, mostly. There was a swing against Madison Bumgarner that stands out as an exception. Why was he the right choice today in obviously a huge game? CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, it's really -- you know, I think he's got Rich Hill stuff and Johnny's swing, and where the ball is going to end up where Rich throws it a lot is a good matchup. And when I compare it to our other options it's the option that I like the best tonight. Q. When you look at Ryan Braun from like when you were his teammate to now, how do you compare him? What's changed both on the field and maybe in the clubhouse? CRAIG COUNSELL: Well, Ryan's, he's, whatever, is 12, 13 years into a Major League career. And the thing that's constant is he's got a beautiful baseball swing, and I think he's always had that beautiful baseball swing. It's the swing that guys on the other team want to come watch in batting practice swing. And so it's still fun to watch him hit because of the swing is esthetically pleasing, it really is, for a hitter. And I think as his career has went on, like every player, physically you change. And then I think mentally you get sharper and smarter and wiser. And he's definitely played a role I think in us, and he's done a really good job of kind of recognizing where his role is as this team's evolved this year. I compliment him as much as anything for doing that. Q. As great as Josh has been at bridging the gap to the late innings, Corey Knebel has been the right-handed compliment to that. He's been doing the same thing, and he's kind of in that what you call the sixth-inning closer role that J.J. was in earlier, and now he's kind of doing it. And I was wondering when J.J. was scuffling recently, at this particular point in time, have you thought about flipping him back? Or has Corey just been so good that you don't want to mess with that? CRAIG COUNSELL: I think this is where we get off track on this whole thing because Corey closed Game 1. The roles aren't changing like every three days. We're going to use him in different order and I don't know the order they're going to be used tonight. It might be different than last night. I'm not trying to get any one player to the back of the game. It's how the game evolves and what players are up for the other team, what's the game state, and we're just trying to put our guys in the best position. Corey has thrown the ball really, really well. And my reason last night was really I thought he was in a good spot to get -- once Jhoulys got through the 5th inning, there was a chance I thought he got through the 6th. I thought if Corey had to pick up the 5th inning, he was going to get us through the 7th inning. So I kind of tasked him with the one-plus innings role last night. And it was the right hitters to go through it. Obviously he's been very good against left-handed hitters. So the first hitter he faced I think was -- Machado was the first hitter and then Bellinger followed him. So Corey could pitch in the 5th tonight. He could pitch in the 9th. And I would say the same for Josh. And that's how we'll continue to use him. Q. What have you thought watching Clayton Kershaw in this stage of his career? What do you think about what he's evolved into in terms of how he's getting outs with the fastball that's not consistently in the mid 90s like it used be to? CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, the great players evolve and they change. And they came up with new tricks -- not tricks. They come up with new weapons to get hitters out, to keep hitters off balance. And so as velocity has changed for Clayton, he used his cutter more. It's a good pitch. And he was able to do a lot with it. And it's why players stay great, because they change, they evolve, they adapt. And it is the true sign of a Major Leaguer that lasts and excels is that you have to be able to adapt because eventually physical skills change, the League adjusts to you, and you've got to be able to make adjustments back and kind of learn on the fly. Q. When you guys brought Miley in this spring, what were the expectations for him and has he exceeded them? CRAIG COUNSELL: He's certainly exceeded them. I think players that -- he was brought in on a Minor League contract. Obviously it's a player who's been a staple in rotations for multiple years and with multiple teams. He was coming off a difficult season. So I think really when you sign guys like that, their depth, but you know -- you know that -- in Wade's case, this is a guy that's had enough success that success is in there. And talent is there. Experience is there. And Wade had made some adjustments, and I think Derek Johnson has done a really nice job with Wade and kind of moving along with that, but I credit Wade a lot about making some adjustments. And he's kind of put himself -- he's really pitching as well as he's ever pitched at this point, with different stuff. A little bit like the previous question on Kershaw, it's different stuff. But he's found a new way to be effective. Q. Two-part question. I was wondering did you expect your bullpen to be as well rested as they are at this point in the series with the last two starts being very strong? How does that kind of effect the flexibility that you'll be able to have tonight against the Dodgers? CRAIG COUNSELL: I think we're at really probably where I expected. We probably haven't used a couple of guys as much as I was anticipating using them because we've gotten such good starts from Jhoulys and Wade. But I think we're in a spot that I guess I would expect after three games in the series, pretty close. I think we're at the point in the series where what I thought is that we will have to pick games where we may stay away from a guy. And that's what I expected to happen. And this is where your depth I think is important and comes into play. And a day off does wonders for these bullpen guys. And so there will be times when we may -- we stayed away from Josh obviously in Game 2. And we'll choose to stay away from a guy for a game. Q. I want to follow up on Corey Knebel. This is a guy who was removed from action the end of August, and came back and was arguably your best guy since then. How did that happen? CRAIG COUNSELL: I think as much as anything the fact that Corey just took a step back and kind of took a deep breath. It was a ten-day deep breath. But he just took a deep breath. And we worked, Derek Johnson, and Lee Tunnell, they worked on some things. But as much as anything, I think Derek's idea behind this was let's just take a deep breath and get away from it and relax a little bit and understand really how close you are to having a lot of success. And then to Corey's credit, I think he was able to do that. And so it was as much as anything else sometimes it was like a vacation, really. He needed a vacation (laughter). You can't take a vacation in the middle of the season. But if it helps, you should take a vacation. We may be giving some players some ideas (laughter). Q. You mentioned earlier on Ryan Braun that you appreciated his accepting what his role is now. How do you describe what that role is? CRAIG COUNSELL: Well, look, as we've gotten going here in the playoffs he's taken a bigger role. But I think during the regular season he was not an everyday player for us. And it was important, I think we both agreed, that it was important that there be days off in there. And that he was going to be a more productive player if there was some days off in there. And I think that's not easy always for players to accept and to buy into. I think Ryan showed a lot of humility in accepting that and understanding that at times it was best for the team and best for himself. And I think it's -- and when we added Curtis in the month of September, it made a big difference. We've had some off days in the playoffs. I think Ryan has been able to keep himself in a pretty good spot health-wise, and we're good to go. Q. About Hader, at one time you were 22-1 with Hader pitching. You ended up 48-7 with him. But you're 25-0 when he pitches two innings or more. How do you contain yourself? How do you hold back? CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I think generally that has been a good recipe, it feels like a good recipe if we have him for two innings. I think you hold back because that's already 50 innings right there. You're at 50 innings already. And there's not much left after that, really. So the innings, when you're pitching in multiple innings, the innings add up real fast. Obviously the rest that is needed goes up. And these games, the original idea around Josh was how can we get more -- how can we use him for more innings and bigger innings and more of them and how can we match that to how he recovers as a player and a pitcher. And so that's how we kind of got there with this. But like I said, I think I've said this, that early in the season he was on a close to 100-inning pace, and I don't think that was sustainable. It worked out well for a little while, as far as the sequence of the games but we backed off a little from that. And we've also at times shortened the appearances in the second half of the season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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