NL DIVISION SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS VS DODGERS

October 6, 2023

Derrick Hall

Mike Hazen

Dodger Stadium

Arizona Diamondbacks

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Mike, you guys saw the Dodgers very early this season, came out running, had a lot of success. I'm wondering how intention it was in your part going into this season to put together a team that could just steal bases and use that as a vehicle for success?

MIKE HAZEN: I've been asked this question a lot. The majority of the players that fit the mold that you're talking about came up through our system. We drafted them four or five years ago.

So trying to make it seem like now that that was prescient -- that we knew rule changes were coming four, five years down the line -- we ended up drafting a lot of high athletic, speed guys that have kind of come up through our system, and it coalesced with the rule changes.

And, yes, as the rule changes came out and were coming out and we heard the discussions of them, we felt like we had an opportunity with the team we had to make a jump from where we were last year and turn our offense into a different type of offense than we were able to have before. And we had a lot of success with it.

Q. Derrick, can you just talk about the decision to extend Mike and just kind of how that process went?

DERRICK HALL: Yeah, we actually talked about it months back. I made a few references to Mike that it was probably time to start talking about his future and extending.

He had one more year left. And, of course, Ken and I are thrilled with the job that he and his team have done, his regime. So we started talking, really, two or three months before all the rumors came out with some of the recent news that had taken place.

And it just gave us a reason to accelerate it. And we had real good conversations and were able to wrap it up before the end of the season. But for us really a no-brainer. We've loved the direction that Mike has taken us. He and his team have put us in obviously a good spot. And it's something we've been building.

When we first hired Mike in '17, one of the top priorities then was let's fix the farm system. And we went from a bottom five to a top five in quick fashion. And at the same time he was also building what we were hoping would be a very sustainable model.

And we're thrilled with the job that he's done and with his leadership. And things have been very smooth. So I'm excited he wanted to be here, first and foremost. That was the conversation we had.

Obviously Mike's got -- and he can speak to it more than I can -- it's him -- he has the history in Boston. Ken and I wanted to make sure he wanted to be here. And he made it clear he did.

He also took it upon himself to sit down with his family and his sons, which we thought was very special, before he agreed and wanted to make sure they were on board. Of course they were. That makes me very happy that they're all happy as a family in Arizona. And he's made it home and he's been a tremendous leader for me.

Q. Could you expound a little bit on that, on your thinking of it and reaction to it?

MIKE HAZEN: Yes, Derrick and I started talking about this a while ago. And I am so very grateful and appreciative of the opportunity that I have. I felt that from the day I've gotten one of these jobs, and I wake up every day trying to prove that I deserve to keep that job because of how special it is to be able to work in this type of job and for this organization.

And, look, yes, I have a lot of family back in Boston. I have a lot of my best friends that I worked with back there.

We committed when we came out here to building something that involved winning, not just doing this job to do this job or some perception of what could be deemed doing this job well -- building a farm system or finishing .500, I don't know -- going deep into the playoffs and winning a World Series. That's not done. We're not even close to that yet.

And so I felt like that part was very much left undone. And when I started this process with the guys, men and women that I've brought into the organization, some from other organizations, some that we've hired, there's a responsibility to kind of still be here and not be the first one to leave before they get opportunities to go do those things, too. And that weighed a lot on me.

As Derrick said, I sat down with my kids. The vote wasn't, you know, it wasn't unanimous, but, like, I didn't really weight all the votes the same. The senior in high school had a little more pull than the eighth-grader had, you know what I mean?

But they all love Arizona. We love the community we have here, the family we have here. And Derrick, from the very first thing, I told him I'm not going anywhere. I want to be here. We need to get something done. We want to get something done.

It's very important to me that the group around me gets done too. So I'm even more appreciative that Fitz and Amiel got taken care of the way they did. And the trust they showed those two guys who are the backbone of what we do, who are literally the reason we have been successful to this point -- those two guys and the people underneath in our front office.

So I'm even more appreciative that when I talk to Derrick and Ken about that, that they were equally as excited to make sure those guys got extended too. And I think that's going to pay long-term dividends for the organization.

Q. You said "I'm not going anywhere" after the Boston thing opened up?

MIKE HAZEN: No, as we were having conversations through the course of the thing. We would -- the first conversation was very casual, didn't talk about anything specific. He knew I wasn't going anywhere.

I get what was swirling around publicly, but I think what we're trying to create here is going to take a little bit longer than where we're standing this season.

DERRICK HALL: He's our shrewd chief negotiator and he took away all of his leverage, which was really fun to see. (Laughter).

Q. Derrick, the organization obviously walked through a very tough time couple years ago. My question is, was there ever a moment of doubt that you made the right choice, and how did you guys work through such a down period together with Mike to get to where you are today, as a team, when I say as an executive team?

DERRICK HALL: He's family. We felt it. We were going through it with him. And looking back on that, there were no regrets whatsoever. We knew we made the right decision in hiring Mike.

We knew we had to give him as much time away as needed. Mike just complimented the rest of his staff, his leadership team. And we know how vital they are and important. They stepped up at a time when we needed them to and they were willing to. They wanted Mike to take as much time with his family as he needed. He did take time away, but I can tell you he was never really away.

And so we almost felt guilty because Mike never stopped working. And he's tireless. He's committed.

But the game was important to his wife, too, and she watched every pitch with him and was right there for every moment of the journey with him. He was by her side, as were others.

This entire organization gave them the support they needed. Torey's wife sat there with Nicole every day.

It was tough to go through it. We all grew even closer because of it. But absolutely no regrets, and we knew we had the right guy.

He remained as committed to our organization during that tough period as he did when we first hired him or as he did when we extended him just a week or two ago.

Q. Derrick, just curious, for you guys, what does it mean to you to have the kind of stability in this particular role in your organization? Mike's obviously been here for six years, and this would potentially make it more than a decade.

DERRICK HALL: The stability has been great. It's been a breath of fresh air for the organization and for our entire leadership team to know that they have the same baseball leadership and place. And that's our field manager as well.

They've been here since day one together, and for me -- and Ken and I talk about it. We wanted to create that sense of stability. And what we were trying to build and hopefully have a sustainable model, we need that.

It doesn't make sense to continue making changes when you like the direction where you're heading. And we certainly like the prospects that we have in the organization. We like the results we've had the last couple of years.

This is a team that two years ago, I don't have to remind everybody, but lost 110 games. For a dramatic turnaround, quick turnaround, it's because of their vision and their creativity and expertise, but I'm thrilled. And that's stability. That's the right word. It's stability.

I'm excited we have stability in this organization on the baseball side. We've always had on the baseball side. We have people who have been here from day one as well where we just celebrated those that have been here 25 years during our anniversary.

But we have so many folks in our organization who are vice presidents who started as interns or started in ticketing now they're senior vice presidents in our organization. That's the same stability we want on that other side. So I'm thrilled and very proud.

Q. You talk about stability. When you go through a season like you guys went through a couple of years ago, how tempting can it be to make changes for perception or whatever it might be, instead of staying the course and getting the results that you've gotten now?

DERRICK HALL: It makes it so much more rewarding today when you know you made that decision. And we could have. We could have made changes. We of course had conversations about making changes, and we had conversations about making changes.

But we thought at the end of the day we had the right people in place. And I think it's proven to be true.

We're extremely excited about our manager, his style, his philosophies, the relationships that he has. Of course he and our general manager are very close.

But, again, I think in the past we may have made changes and we did for years, and we've learned that that's not always the right move. We do need that stability, and I'm just thrilled that it proved to be the right decision. And here we are a couple years later in obviously a much better place.

Q. Marte was one of the first players you acquired when you got here. What's it been like to watch him grow over the years and what kind of catalyst has he been this year?

MIKE HAZEN: Last year we brought him in the middle of the season and we made him the shortstop for the remainder of his rookie season. We ended up playing here, and we think about that stuff a lot.

Obviously a lot has changed since then. He's moved around quite a bit. I think it was the first trade we made. It was obviously a fairly significant trade, right around Thanksgiving, I think, of 2016.

At the time, we thought we were getting a really good hitter -- young, athletic kid that was going to play shortstop for us. We watched him grow and mature into a middle-of-the-order hitter and our second baseman.

You can see at the top of the lineup, with Corbin and Ketel, what they did in the Milwaukee series is what we're capable of doing offensively. And hopeful that that's going to continue now into the rest of the postseason.

Q. This bullpen wasn't exactly this bullpen a few months ago. How did it all kind of come together, and is this what you envisioned or how did it play out?

MIKE HAZEN: Is anybody's bullpen ever this bullpen six months ago? It's crazy. We talk about this stuff all the time.

It's the most difficult thing to do in this game, in my opinion, is putting a bullpen together, keeping that bullpen healthy, having them go out and throw 60, 70 games at a very high level.

This organization, the one we're playing against, has done it pretty consistently, probably rooted in a lot of their success the way they've been able to do that over and over again. It's a model we're striving after a little bit.

Kevin Ginkel has been with us a long time but really started to take steps in the second half and became solidified the eighth inning.

And getting Ryan Thompson was certainly something that we were very fortunate to be able to do at that time. It's a little bit of a not typical, transactional type thing, where he was released and we were able to sign him as a free agent.

And when we acquired Paul, we had talked about not having a closer for a couple of years now. That was my fault. We tried to piece it together in various ways. When we did acquire that closer, when we got him, I think what it did by pushing everybody a little bit forward was settled everybody into roles and allowed for stability to happen around that.

I think it started around the trading deadline, but we started to really see people emerge from there.

And calling up Andrew Saalfrank and have him make his postseason debut with bases loaded, one out and on the road, not probably how you want to draw it up for a young kid. But Torey fired him in there, and he's been nails since we've gotten him too, brought him up.

And now this bullpen has become a strengths of our team, for sure. We saw it in the Milwaukee series, but we really saw it from the trading deadline on.

Q. Derrick, you were around 10 years ago, anniversary of the pool celebration at Chase Field. In the event the Dodgers are celebrating is there a protocol from such a celebration taking place again?

DERRICK HALL: No, the rivalry was strong and thriving then which is a good thing. I think looking back it's all in good fun. And it's a completely different group of guys here on the other side as well.

It's just -- this place is special to me. I've got a history here. I grew up a Dodger fan. Always wanted to work for the Dodgers. Was fortunate enough to be able to do that.

To go from Vero Beach to LA, and to work for so many different ownership groups here, including the O'Malleys, this place will always have a special spot in my heart.

So it is all in good fun. Just coming back here and seeing everybody I worked with for so many years who are still here, that's beautiful. You talk about stability, it's everywhere you walk around in this historic place.

But no, look, we know -- like Mike said, this team here, they're so good, and year after year they proved if you're going to go somewhere, you've got to go through them. And they've earned that. They have the right to celebrate however they want, wherever they want. They've certainly earned that opportunity.

MIKE HAZEN: I wouldn't mind jumping in the pool again.

DERRICK HALL: I didn't. He did.

Q. Mike, we heard Gabby, sounds like he's doing better. Obviously Jake is down. What other --

MIKE HAZEN: Didn't hear the second one.

Q. McCarthy -- what other roster considerations are you guys weighing right now?

MIKE HAZEN: I'm anticipating that we maintain the split we had. We're talking about a position-player move and a pitching move that would involve a bullpen and bench or platoon scenarios that we might just -- we've kind of had some conversations already. Obviously we'll file that tomorrow.

I'm sure we'll finalize that tonight and there's not going to be seismic changes to what we've been doing.

Q. Has there been any change in Mike's title or general description or job duties with this extension?

DERRICK HALL: No, he's responsible for all the baseball operations and continues to be regardless of the title. But the title's the same.

Q. The organization enjoyed a nice attendance bump this year over the last year. Now you're in a playoff run. Will those issues or I should say those things inform your future payroll discussions more so than, say, the change in the television contract?

DERRICK HALL: We hope so. The great thing about our ownership group -- I think you know this -- they've never put a penny in their pocket, and they're always going to invest it in the product on the field or to enhance the experience at the ballpark. So that will continue.

The more that we can hopefully grow revenues, which is the whole purpose why we're looking at where we're going to be in the future, whether it's Chase Field or elsewhere so we can grow our revenue, is to compete. And we always want to push the envelope as much as we can when it comes to player payroll. That commitment is never going to change. We'll continue to do as much as we can to give them more to use resource-wise.

Q. How do you guys view the challenge of having this Dodgers team in your division?

MIKE HAZEN: I don't really think about it. They're a really good team. They're in our division. You pick a lot of other divisions you could be in that you could ask that question of a lot of other teams.

They have consistently shown the ability to go out and retool and repurpose their roster, bring on the next wave of guys and be just as good if not better. They're probably the best-run organization in baseball from my perspective.

But that doesn't mean we can't be, too. That doesn't preclude us from doing similar things. We have access outside of maybe some players. We have access to all the same resources, the same decisions in the draft, the ability to go out and make trades, going out and getting Ryan Thompson. Anyone could have gone out and got Ryan Thompson.

The fact that we got him this time but if we miss on the other ones we didn't get, then that's not -- the excuse of the Dodgers being in our division is not what we talk about in our walls. I don't really think about it too much.

We have a strong division. I actually think getting into the playoffs helps us when you play in a strong division because you get battle tested during the course of the year. Having to walk into this place and play these guys and get throttled sometimes and sometimes stand up to them and beat them like we did earlier in the season, I just think that prepares you for playing in this environment right now where every single pitch and every ounce of preparation matters to win in October.

DERRICK HALL: I think it's exciting to be in this division. And any given season, any of these teams in this division could have a successful season. You look at what the Padres did last year, and even at the end of this year they were coming on. The Giants were in until the very end. It's anybody's division in any season. I have confidence in our baseball leadership that we can compete and we always will.

Q. Mike, I was curious what your observations are of the continued evolution of Merrill Kelly?

MIKE HAZEN: When we first signed him, you know, we were extremely excited to get him. We didn't really know what to expect. I know a lot of pitchers have come back and been very successful. We thought he was going to be a solid back end to the rotation starting pitcher.

What we've seen with the emergence of his ability to command his stuff, throw multiple pitches, not just rely on extreme velocity, is kind of the old-school way of pitching in a lot of ways, and he embodies that to me.

As he's gotten older, he's gotten better. And every year I think this is probably going to end up being his best season. I'm guessing he'll get Cy Young votes, I'm going to guess, given the year he's had. He and Zac at the top of our rotation are one of the main reasons we're here.

Q. What you guys have done the last two years, what the Orioles have done -- Reds almost made the playoffs -- what does this mean for the industry? Have you had a lot of guys reach out from other teams giving them hope?

MIKE HAZEN: Yeah, we hear from a lot of different -- I think when you're the small market/mid-market team, the team that lost 110 games, I think the rest of the league roots for you a little bit more so, maybe, than the other teams that are there every single year. You get a lot of those types of messages from our folks around baseball, at least in our positions.

I think what we saw this year was probably the most end-to-end competitive season that baseball's had in a while. Like, there were a lot of teams like us in our situation. I mean, the Wild Card is going right down to the end. The amount of teams that were competing, I think that's only going to continue going into the offseason. I think you're going to see almost every single team going out there with a chance to win.

I think watching what we've done, what the Rangers did, what the Orioles did, we didn't do it with a lot of mass changes. We started playing better baseball. We started making some smarter decisions but we started playing better baseball. And having the extra Wild Card was a huge separator for us.

Couple of years ago we won 85 games in '19, we didn't make the playoffs. Now we won 84 games and we made the playoffs. That carrot is now going to be out there for so many more clubs, and I think it's great for the game.

DERRICK HALL: I think I'm excited for our fans because you have a narrative. You tell the story for a couple of years saying, we're proud of our draft picks, we're proud of the moves they've made and just trust us; wait until you see this Corbin Carroll play, wait until you see Jordan Lawlar, Brandon Pfaadt, Brian Nelson, Kyle Nelson, Gabby Moreno.

And the fans need to see that it's real. They've seen that at the end of last year and into this year, the momentum we created last year, to say we do have this exciting brand.

Mike talked about the style of play, the young players, the athleticism, the speed, and I think the changes -- I applaud Major League Baseball and the commissioner's office for the changes we had in the rules, but it sort of favored our style of play as well.

I think you're seeing that throughout baseball. There's an exciting brand right now in baseball and the teams that are turning the page and making the next step are showing the same sort of style, with the speed and athleticism and youth. I think it's been a lot of fun for our fans to experience it and I'm thrilled for them.