WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: QUARTERFINALS - ITALY VS JAPAN

March 15, 2023

Mike Piazza

Tokyo Dome

Team Italy

Workout Day Press Conference

MIKE PIAZZA: First I want to say it's great for myself. We are extremely honored to be in Japan as the national team of Italy in the World Baseball Classic. I think you've seen, we have a very exciting club, very interesting club.

We know the game is going to be very difficult. We know Japan has a very good baseball team and we are aware of the traditions and the crowd, I'm sure we'll be very excited but we just played a very good series in Taichung in a very difficult environment.

So hopefully we are ready. We feel we are ready and we think if we play our game and play good baseball with very little mistakes and get some timely hits, we think we have as good a chance as any team.

Q. Welcome to Tokyo. You flew from Taiwan and had a practice day; throughout your view, what's your team's condition overall?

MIKE PIAZZA: Obviously in the part of the season for all of us, it's still spring training. Condition-wise we have been working with our training staff to do other things to make sure that the guys not only are fit but stay injury-free for our guys that have to go back and play. The last thing we want for any team is for someone to sustain an injury. That's very important.

The timing of this tournament is not, I would say -- it's impossible to really get a great time for it just based on the length of our season, but it's worked out pretty well. Hopefully we will continue that. It's still early for a lot of the guys and the tournament obviously has restriction with the pitchers and the pitch count, and that's been difficult in my experience as the manager. But I have an incredible coaching staff and they have done great job with preparation.

Q. You have experience playing with some of the Japanese players, since then, many Japanese players traveled to play in MLB. What's your impression of Japanese baseball players?

MIKE PIAZZA: Well, I was honored to catch Hideo Nomo, who was I think the second Japanese player. I forgot the name in the '60s, but in the modern era, and I was extremely fortunate and honored to catch him and he was very gracious to me with expressing gratitude helping him adjust to the major lesion.

Hideo was a pioneer for Japanese players and he basically made it clear that Japanese players are major-league calibre players.

So I brought a lot of honor to Japan and paved the way for Ichiro and the many other players that have success in the major lesion. And I believe Masato Yoshii, I played with him in the Mets, too, I caught him, the pitching coach of Japan.

So the Japanese players have been very proud of their accomplishments in Major League Baseball and I think they owe a lot of gratitude to Hideo Nomo who was the first modern player. They have a strong tradition and good players, and we know it's going to be difficult. But we also feel if we do the right things, we have a chance to win as well.

Q. Tomorrow's probable starter for Team Japan, Shohei Ohtani, is going to be the starting pitcher. How do you see Shohei Ohtani playing in your view?

MIKE PIAZZA: Well, I mean, I think he's probably a unique, once-in-a-lifetime player that you do not find the effectiveness of pitching and hitting of Ohtani. I'm not sure if he is going to start -- oh, he is going to start? Interesting.

Okay. What can you say, there's very few in the history of Major League Baseball that were great pitchers and hitters. I believe there's a couple I played with who were very good hitters but were not full-time hitters. I think he's very impressive in that realm.

But like any player, if you make good pitches on him and if you're able to get the right pitches as a hitter and be disciplined and not swing as his good pitches, you have a chance. I mean, everyone has an opportunity, if you do the right things, you'll be successful and that's what we will try to do.

Q. So let's talk about your defense. You have a unique shift, and when you play against Team Japan, do you have a very unique defense shift, as well?

MIKE PIAZZA: The defensive plans for us are just based on the hitters' tendencies. It's kind of common sense. We have the data that a lot -- even more than when I played.

But as I said I trust the coaching staff and the players to defend themselves where they feel they are most effective. For me, I retired in 2007 and so a lot of this is new to me to learn and I find it very fascinating. For me, that's the most interesting thing about being a manager at this time in history after I've been retired for a while.

But I think you see that they are very good and they strong defensively. We have to catch the ball against a team like Japan. We can't make mistakes the defensive placement is very important. Hopefully we do the right things.

Q. A while ago, the Japanese manager mentioned to us, tomorrow's game is going to be an all-in game. What's in your mind right now?

MIKE PIAZZA: Well, I would agree with him. I think both teams have to do everything in their power to try to win the game, and that for us is not different.

We feel we are lined up pretty good. We feel like we have the pitchers that have been effective throwing and as I said, our hitting the last game was very good. So hopefully we can carry that in.

But yes, we will do everything in our power to win. There's no restrictions in that department for us. We have to, we say in English, all hands on deck, and hopefully we prevail.

Q. Looked like you should still be out there playing, get a couple swings in.

MIKE PIAZZA: You're too kind. Thank you.

Q. Obviously you had that relationship with Hideo Nomo, and you came to Japan to play with the touring teams and you did a commercial in which you spoke the words "just meat," and since then, the Japanese and Japanese media have maybe mischaracterized how that term was used and for me, I remember it from the '80s as being a pitch that's right there to hit but how did you mean it and did you realize how much that took after you left because it's still part of Japanese vernacular.

MIKE PIAZZA: Thank you, yes, I was very fortunate that Hideo gave me that praise and fortunate to have those, Komatsu, which was the company, include me in that campaign.

I was told when it was first produced that some words in Japanese-style English don't translate in a particular way. So maybe to a native English speaker, it wouldn't sound quite in the same text or the context it was meant.

But I found that kind of charming, actually. I didn't really find it confusing. So I enjoyed that success and a couple of trips, I came here just as a tourist and doing a few appearances with Hideo and it was a lot of fun. I can't believe it's been since 2000 when we opened with the Mets, the last time I was here.

But I'm excited, I look forward to coming back now with my family now that I have children. They are very much into Japanese culture and the things that are here.

My daughter said I have to get her very good face cream because they have good face cream here, so I have to do that today, with pearls and things in it. It's a wonderful country and it was an honor pore me to do those things here. It's flattering people remember it as well. I'm very honored, and again, hopefully, going to the game tomorrow, we'll have success.

Q. You have such great players on your roster and it looks like your team has a strong bond. I think it's because of you because of your stature of baseball in Italy. How do you feel about it?

MIKE PIAZZA: Well, true, I think we have a very good team bond, very quickly. But it goes back to, we've been planning this project for a while and we had a trip, we called it the mission, last year, where we brought the core of this team to Italy, not only for vacation but to work out, to train, to reconnect with their Italian heritage, and to work with our coaches and our youth and try to grow the game in Italy, in Europe.

And so that was a huge step in building this -- this team Zen, I guess, for lack of a better word, and I think it was very important. Because it would have been very difficult for us to just pick a roster, go to Taichung, especially for the major league guys and work out for three days and expect to be a team, almost impossible.

Fortunately we have Andrea Marcon, who is the president, and Marco Landi, our team coordinator John Marco Ferroni, when we all conceived of this concept of forming a group early to plan for the Classic, which we knew was going to be a very important international tournament.

So we did get together and the guys knew each other and we want to build a movement, not have it stop after the Classic. We want to continue this, do exchange and bring people to Italy, to Europe, to grow the game, and we want to collaborate, not only with European teams but also Japanese teams.

So hopefully one day we will have Japanese teams in Italy, so we want to try to plan to build a facility there that would be acceptable for the quality of baseball, and it's not easy. But these first steps are very important.

So this is a very big event to bring awareness to that.

Q. So this tournament has seen Great Britain win, has seen Czech win and you guys advance and Australia advance. What is the level of competition and play in Europe, and how is this experience going to help the Italian-based players in the future in things like this fall's European championships?

MIKE PIAZZA: Well, I think we want the to bring awareness that there's a lot of room for improvement in Europe. Major League Baseball does the London Series, which is an exciting event.

But as far as true player development, it's not what we need. And I think baseball in Italy, the last 20 years, has not been its best self, and the only way to improve that is to bring Italians -- American Italians, of Italian heritage back, and have them reconnect with their heritage to grow players from Europe, Italy specifically. Because it's not just Italy, it's European. It's a Continental thing; it's not just Italy. Yes, Italy is where I live and my heritage and something we enjoy, but there's also a movement of baseball.

I've been coaching in Italy since 2007, two European Championships in Stuttgart and Rotterdam, and obviously with the Dutch and the Germans getting better and the Czechs getting better, that's a great story. But we need to keep it going. We need to encourage investment, pragmatic investment, and academies, regional development. I think we also need a home in Europe and that's one of our main long-term goals, it's not going to be easy.

For us, we are now encouraging Italian players to go to school, colleges and high school, for that matter in the U.S. to play baseball. They don't have to play for the top, top teams but just to go play because the one big thing that Asian teams, that American teams that, Latin American teams have is they play more games and in Europe they don't. So in my opinion, that's going to be the best-long term long term success to develop European players. There's a few but I think it's still relatively untapped and that's -- hopefully we can do that.