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MLB WINTER MEETINGSDecember 11, 2018Rick RenteriaLas Vegas, Nevada Q. What did you think of the signing today or the trade? RICK RENTERIA: We're looking for somebody to help us a little bit with the hole that was left with Kopech, because we know he's going to be recovering. We think he's going to be able to eat up some innings and pitch effectively for us. I think the front office was doing their due diligence in trying to acquire someone of Nova's status and stature, and all the reports from everybody we've spoken to, this kid's a good pick up for us. Q. Rick was talking about mentorship as being an important part of it. RICK RENTERIA: Well, he's been around a little bit. I think that a lot of these guys that we have now that have started experiencing playing at the Major League level and having some successes and hitting some bumps in the road, sure, they're well served with the guy that has experience behind them. And I think Shields did something like that for us the last few years, to try to be the guy. I think Nova's experience in time will certainly be a part of that. Q. You talked you were extended last year. What does that mean to have the faith in the organization that you're going to be here through this process, or at least for the foreseeable future? RICK RENTERIA: Well, I'm very happy obviously that that occurred. I want to be here through the completion of the task. You guys hear me say this, but I worry about doing my job; I don't necessarily worry about my job. And I think that at the end of the day everybody here knows, the whole baseball world knows that it's ultimately about winning. So you're going to have a particular time in which you're developing players and getting them to become those players that can win. And at the end hopefully I can get to that point and have success with these guys, do some winning and I can continue my career in a different capacity, as opposed to just bringing a lot of young men to fruition in terms of what they're going to be capable of doing as a club. Q. Was it rewarding because you have young guys gradually making that step up? RICK RENTERIA: I think when you're understanding the process that you're in and there are moments during the course of a season and games in particular where you see a pitcher make a step forward in particular situations or hitters have an at-bat or defensive play, anything that puts them in a better position to be a better player, that's ultimately very satisfying. But you still at the end of the day when you're walking away, you'd like to walk away with a few more victories than losses. I think everybody understands that's the goal of any professional club. I think those young men know that. I think they go in wanting to do their part in having success, to give us a chance as a team to do what we need to do. I think these last years have been good for those young men, gaining experience. We've had some kids that have gotten better in different aspects of their play. So happy to continue to see them evolve. Q. How excited will you get, and for your coaches, knowing you've done so much hard work and the losing has been a part of it, the year, the front office is involved in conversations with big-time free agents, generational players, how do you feel about that? What are your thoughts about it? RICK RENTERIA: Well, I think for us it's a big boost because now we're in a position, potentially, to be able to possibly acquire someone of a status, of a reputation, of a skill set that can impact your club in a significant way. It's a part of that process now where the organization is putting itself on the footing of being able to do things like that and hopefully being able to solidify the club for the near future. Q. What kind of impact on the team, on the players, would adding a talent like that have? RICK RENTERIA: Well, I think it makes your team better in and of itself, the caliber of players that everybody is talking about and hopefully trying to acquire, it changes the dynamic of your club. You're not going to win with one guy, but it's a big piece that helps now build a bridge with the rest of the men that are on that club. And you ultimately start off to do it as a team. But getting a guy that has the talent that some of these guys have that are out there right now, it would certainly enhance our club. Q. What is the biggest selling point? RICK RENTERIA: It's the future. The talent we have. We've got some really good-looking young players that are not far from being here and impacting us and helping us hopefully do what we're searching to do, which is win ballgames. Q. Do you think fans should be enthused about where you're at as far as the aggressiveness? And do you think they should be disappointed if you can't get one of the two big guys? RICK RENTERIA: I think disappointment is a lot about not getting things you want. It would be foolish to not think that the fan base would be disappointed. But I do think that they also understand and appreciate the talent that we have from within the system at this particular time and how they're evolving. It certainly would give us a boost in the arm to be able to acquire a player or players of significant talent to help us as we continue to move forward. But it's like anything, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen, we're charged with trying to go out there and put a good product on the field and compete and try to win ballgames. And hopefully the experience that these guys have attained over the last couple of years is going to help them for this upcoming season. Q. How much will getting a guy like Alex help? RICK RENTERIA: Obviously he solidifies the back end of the bullpen. But we've had some success stories with some of the young men that we've brought up. So we had some good arms in the bullpen. He's going to be able to hopefully give us the confidence to be able to use him to close out ballgames. We've had a couple of young men that we used, as you guys are aware during the course of the latter part of the season, we had a lot of closers last year. Some of them had some good games, some not as good a game as you would have wanted. But they all have gained experience and knowledge from those opportunities. But you get somebody with the experience that he has, and the ability to do and has proven. You combine him with all the other guys in the bullpen, we have a chance to hopefully close out some ballgames. Q. (Inaudible.) RICK RENTERIA: Well, we were excited to see him last spring. I think that the process of allowing these guys to have their Minor League careers help them in evolving and working on the things that they have to work on in order to make them a much more complete player, I think he's done a lot of those things. He had obviously a great season last year. It's going to be nice for us all to ultimately see that young man in Chicago as a part of the Chicago White Sox. He's a truly gifted and exciting player to have. Q. (Inaudible.) RICK RENTERIA: Well, I'm hoping, my hope is that he's going to be a 30-plus type homer guy, who is probably going to hit for average. I think he's going to be a pretty good defender. I think he's worked very, very hard at that. He's a big man. His understanding and knowing and learning about maintenance and diet and all those things, he looks really good. And so we're hoping that this young man's career for us is going to be one of those future impact guys, that I don't want to call him a Hall of Famer, because that's a lot to put on a kid's plate. But he has the skill set to potentially be a very, very impactful front line Major League player. Q. When he arrives could he have a similar kind of effect as the one you were talking about earlier from a free agency? RICK RENTERIA: Absolutely. And I think it's because the expectation and the understanding of who he is and what he's about and the skill set that he brings to the table, you know, we're all excited about the possibilities. But not only with Eloy, but a lot of the guys that we have. Our pitching has continued to improve. I know we had a setback with Kopi, but he's going to be a special pitcher, as well. As we continue to move forward with these guys, Eloy certainly has a chance of being one of those big-time players that you see on every other club, and maybe similar to some of the guys we're trying to acquire. Q. You guys have lost a lot of games over the last few years. Is there something to be said for people that come in who have won elsewhere, that can help establish a mentality? Is there such a thing as a winning mentality that has to be established? RICK RENTERIA: Well, I think that the one thing that you need to focus on or understand is that there are ways of approaching situations that give you a chance to have the outcomes that you need in order to give you a chance to win ballgames. Some of these guys that have been on winning clubs or have been a part of winning their whole life, they have a feel and a determination. There's a certain edge to that type of player. Can you learn that? Absolutely. I think you need that. I think everybody wants to be a nice guy and this and that. I think at the end of the day that edge to compete and to do what you need to do in order to have success, you can learn that. I think it's driven. I think all our guys are driven to do that. I think what happens is you want to make sure they don't lose the confidence, especially since we've had so many losses over the last few years. You want them to understand you guys are winners. When you get players that have been part of winning clubs, there's a certain edge and respect that comes with it. Q. Saw that with Anderson evolving last year. It seems difficult. It's not easy to really put a handle on that. RICK RENTERIA: Well, I think that most of our guys handled the season as best they could. They reported the victories and the losses and how they needed to handle those things. None of them liked walking away from a ballgame, as none of us like walking away from a ballgame without victory. We've got to understand what it is that is failing, where we're not doing what we need to do to to come out with the victories. We have the talent now, they're developing those talent, they're going to have successes, and you're going to have more victories hopefully as they continue to move forward. Q. Do you see that vision opening up with Cleveland maybe making some trades and cuts in payroll? RICK RENTERIA: That's a safe observation. We have three clubs that are changing their direction a little bit. So absolutely. Some of them are going a little younger, some of them are trying to move some of their veteran players in our particular division. I still think that you've got to look at what you're capable of doing as a club. And maybe we can take advantage of what's happening, how it's opening up a little bit as you say. But you still have to go out and compete and you've still got to do the things necessary to not only win your division, you want to continue to have victories, you want to be able to compete against some of those big boys. Q. Waiting for guys to get to the majors, waiting for wins to come together, are you excited to see that wait maybe at the end of the tunnel? RICK RENTERIA: I think we're at the point now where we're seeing those young men come to the Big Leagues. They're still going to have their hits and misses but the talent itself, that talent pool that starts to come into Chicago, it's real. And once they start understanding and being confident and learning what it is that they can really do, and they come together as a team, I think there's potentially a lot of exciting times coming on the south side. Q. How pleased were you to see Juan take it upon himself to go to Arizona and work on things? RICK RENTERIA: Two or three weeks before the season was over he came into our office and was talking to coaches. He said, I want to come down to Arizona and work on a few things, which for us was like, okay, this is pretty cool. So Trick was there. I spoke to him there. Trick is the one that's been working with him quite a bit. I thought the work that he did was starting to bear some fruit. There were some adjustments that he was making to be able to manage a little bit more in the zone. He obviously has a great eye. So it's not just trying to make sure that he can manage as many pitches as possible throughout the strike zone and be impactful. The numbers are a little deceiving. When he hits pitches in the zone, his batting average is pretty good. Obviously the strikeouts were some things that people talked about. I think those will start to fall off. Is he still going to have strikeouts? Probably. But I think those will start to fall off a little bit. But I think that for anybody, I want our guys to understand situationally how to handle particular moments. And I think that was a part of the process and part of the conversations that we had when he was in Arizona. Q. Are you impressed by his ability seemingly to handle failure, which is a big part of it? It doesn't seem like when he goes in a slump he gets down on himself. He knows it's a process, he knows one year doesn't make a career. Is that what he says? RICK RENTERIA: Like most players or any competitor, in speaking to him after the season was over, you know, he expressed how there were moments when he was upset at himself for not doing something. And he could take a step back and try to put himself in a better frame of mind to approach a situation the next time a little better. I think he's a young man who is experiencing things for the first time and he's learning about what he can and cannot do. And I think this kid is going to still be a pretty good hitter and a pretty good Major League Baseball player. Q. Talk in the offseason perhaps he should go to third base. What are your thoughts on how he could handle that? RICK RENTERIA: We talked to him during the course of the season. And I don't know if people ever really noticed but Joe would move him around the infield and he was subtly moving him over there, taking ground balls, allowing him to have some fun and get a feel for what he's doing. He's played third base before. And I think that if there's a situation in which we can have some more flexibility with the number of positions that he can play, primarily more third and second than thinking about short. It would just be to down the road make some moves within that diamond and have a lot of those young guys playing alongside of each other. And it's something that we're going to explore this spring. We've talked about it a lot. We're going to explore it, see how it goes. He's in. He's all in. Whatever we want, he wants to do. He's a very confident young man. Q. Do you expect even if you manage in a certain way, you do demand players to run out ground balls, if and when you acquire a premium type talent, can you manage that type of player, those types of guys in the same way as you can a young player? RICK RENTERIA: I think that the conversations that I've had, I've made it pretty clear to the guys, I'm a no-nonsense guy. I'm not going to -- my job isn't to embarrass somebody or do anything that's going to make them feel that they're not pulling their weight. My job is to make sure that these guys understand how important we believe that process and how doing things a certain way is for us as White Sox. I think that these guys, these young men that we have right now, we've been engraining this now for two years. And we've taken some steps where we'll pull a guy, but it has nothing to do with trying to embarrass them. It has everything to do with trying to set a particular standard of play or effort level. That being said, I also have guys that have played hurt, sore, whatever the case may be, and I know those days when they're capable of giving me a hundred of what they have. You heard me say, if you have 50 percent, just give me a hundred of your 50 percent. And there are going to be situations in which I might have to have conversations with guys that are coming from the outside. But I will venture to say this, I've said it enough publicly, they know how we want to play the game here. I think anybody who is thinking or contemplating becoming a White Sox, that we go about it a certain way. I think the beauty of it now is that I can have players deal with players, which is what we've been trying to get to. Ultimately they're going to be able to police themselves. Q. As an example, for the younger guys, how critical would it be for a talent to buy into that kind of thinking? RICK RENTERIA: Well, again, you want those guys on the field as much as you possibly can. And you want those guys, when they're capable of giving you the effort that they have available to them, to give it. I think that, again, it's a learned attitude, so to speak. When players get to the Big Leagues, in my humble opinion and in my experience, you take care of all of those issues in the Minor Leagues, period. It's a philosophy that you have as an organization. Every organization is different. So when they get to us what they do has already been taught. So I don't have to deal with any of that. It's a little more difficult at the Major League level to change an attitude of an individual if they've been doing that their whole life, if they're not giving you the effort all the time, absolutely. But it requires conversation. That person is that person. Your job, my job, is to get the most out of that individual to the best of my ability. Will he be able to do that 100 percent? Probably not. But I'm going to give it a shot. But I've got to be creative and find ways to communicate with the players. At the end of the day it's their game, not mine. They're playing, they're performing, they're failing, having success, enjoying it, and they should. They are the game. My job is just to be a little bit of -- I told somebody one time, as coaches we're just like salt. We just put salt, a little flavor on the player, they're the meat, and we're putting the spices. Ultimately they determine how good they taste. Q. Would you possibly hesitate to take a person off the field that's $350 million player that's out there and not giving you what you want? RICK RENTERIA: I think that that's a great question. And I think the answer will be everybody has to be comfortable with me making and taking an action like that. And when I do I think we'll be backed. Q. When you say the future is the main selling point, is that message being heard? Is that a factor anymore? RICK RENTERIA: It is a factor. I think anybody who is considering or contemplating coming here, they like what they see and what the foundation of the White Sox is right now and how we're moving. So it's a big selling point, because it's a real point. It's a talent of players that are going to be around for a nice block of time. And if they can have performances that equate to success, you do that, there's a window of opportunity. We're getting to that point where hopefully we're nearing the beginning of rush, so to speak. Q. Question about coaches, and the salt, so to speak. We've seen recently some nontraditional coaching staff hires. What are your thoughts on that? Is that the start of a trend? RICK RENTERIA: I think that any ownership has the right to pursue the hiring of any candidate to any position that they wish. I do think that they're not doing it -- I'm assuming, and I could be wrong, they're not doing it without a thoughtful process as to how they view how they're going to move their organization in a particular direction. Good for them. They get hired. They're asked to do a job. That's on them. As far as where we're at, you know, I think we do a really nice job of trying to combine both elements of old school and new school thought processes and try to manage the understanding of all that to give us the best possible output. But in terms of the hirings that are being done, everybody has the right, every ownership has the right to pursue and go in the direction they like, if they believe it will move them forward. Q. Do you think players are receptive? RICK RENTERIA: I'll say this again: I'm not a reinvent the wheel guy. I'm a guy that understands and appreciates the long ball. Let's take the long ball, and the whole thing, but as a baseball person it's kind of -- some of the frustrations that comes, not only to myself, probably to the fans and anybody that's watching the ballgame. If I've got a man on third base and I have to put the ball in play and I've got a guy walking back in the dugout and he strikes out and all I need is a ball in play, it's the ninth inning, it's a potentially winning run, it's over. I think that we're going to have to continue to evolve. And I believe there will be a cycle, there's going to be a circle. And ultimately they're going to understand that managing the barrel of the bat, a situation dictates what you should be able to do or not do. And the home run, I get all the numbers, the probabilities. The reality is, the game of baseball is really as simple as you want it to be. And we want to take advantage of all those skills, including the long ball. But also try to make sure that these guys understand that you're managing situations. And sometimes a base hit or just contact is as good as you need in a particular situation. Q. Bruce Bochy, the last year of his contract, this could be his last season, what are your memories about him? RICK RENTERIA: You know, I was in San Diego while he was managing -- I was in the Minor Leagues. I always viewed Boch as a great manager, a great manager of bullpens, a great strategist. He did a lot with the clubs that he had in San Diego, probably more than people might not realize. I think he's probably going to go down as one of the better managers in the game of baseball. He's a three-time World Series champ. He won three World Series in the span of five years. That's pretty good. So I think he deserves a lot of credit. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. Q. Talking about the long ball and just needing a hit, is that something that is taught in the Minor Leagues? RICK RENTERIA: We're talking about and what we talked about as an organization is understanding is situations. So, yeah, are we trying to address those things as well? Absolutely. Ultimately the player is going to do what he wants to do. I think it's based on our ability to convince them to do and understand the situation and be as creative as possible to make them understand that it is important because, believe me, I know I've sat in the dugout many times, going, gosh, all we needed was just a little contact. And we didn't get that. Q. How are you? Are you ready to go? Have you changed anything? RICK RENTERIA: No, I haven't changed other than my suit. No, I'm doing well. I'm very excited about the upcoming season. And everything that we're doing in the organization, how we're moving forward. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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