AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS VS ASTROS

October 7, 2023

Derek Falvey

Minute Maid Park

Minnesota Twins

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. The thinking behind sticking with 14 position players and the fact that it doesn't include Bux?

DEREK FALVEY: As we went through the roster, obviously the workout day yesterday, as the workout days have been for us, all mattered and we've gone through each day trying to navigate where we are from a health perspective. There actually have been 14 and 12 too. I know that's something a lot of teams in these five-game series you see a little bit more of.

We made a decision, ultimately Bailey came back on starting Game 1, and made the call to make that swap for a pitcher. We just look at the way our team is broken down, the way we're going to utilize the bench, the way Rocco continues to utilize the bench of having a chance to maybe have a little bit of speed, a chance to pinch run. Obviously we have some guys that are still not running at full tilt.

So the opportunity to have that as an option versus that last pitcher that we would add to the group. We're in a unique position. We have all five starters from our starter group on the roster, plus on top of that, you have guys like Chris Paddack and Louie Varland, who have gone deeper too.

While we count the bodies up and the number of players on the roster, it's really about how many innings you think you can cover with the group over the course of a five game series, and we feel like we have that.

Ultimately the Byron question continues to be the same conversation we've been having for a few weeks now. He progressed and hit on the field, as many of you saw yesterday. I thought he did really well, was feeling pretty good, but there's other aspects to the game he would have to do and move to to really get there.

Ultimately, with the way the rest of the roster is shaking out, Royce and where he's at right now, just felt the best thing for us to do is deepen the position players so we have more flexibility. Byron hasn't progressed yet to running the bases, pushing, running a lot more, and that's probably the gap there at this point.

Q. Derek, Tucker and Alvarez being more platoon neutral as lefties, does that play into comfort at all with taking Fundy off at a second lefty?

DEREK FALVEY: A little bit. Every round has you assess the roster you're facing. You're looking at how that's going to play out, and Rocco and Pete and Jayce and that crew, they're kind of walking through how they might utilize each person in the series and ultimately just had to make that call, is it the extra lefty, is it the position player that, as we said, could maybe add a little speed to the group.

At this point, the way he thought about it, he felt like, as you just said, not exactly the same. This group's great. They're playoff experienced. They're tremendous hitters, both left and right side. So ultimately, just wanted to go with the whole staff that we felt gave us the best chance, gave us the most length, gave us the ability to pitch through some tight games, and this was the group we landed on.

Q. I think Rocco mentioned it yesterday that Ober hasn't seen these guys since '21. How much did that factor in? What was some of the bigger factors for you in Ober over Joe?

DEREK FALVEY: We had really three guys, Ober, Joe, and Kenta all part of the conversation as to how we could start this series, and also roll back around with the guys that went in the last series. But we looked at it and kind of thought, all these guys are going to pitch. They're going to find a way to pitch in these games.

Bailey is on a good routine right now, throwing the ball well, we feel like. Obviously he's performed every time we've asked him to perform through the course of the year. I thought that reset for him late in the season was really good for him ultimately, slow that down some, and he's come back really strong. Really just a call of whether that's -- Joe is ready to go out of the bullpen today. He may be called upon. So is Kenta. And ultimately have to think about getting to a Game 4 and a Game 5 and what it could look like at that point.

You talk about home, road, all the matchup considerations. Rocco felt like, as he thought through all of that, Bailey starting today gave us the best opportunity. All of those guys have to be ready to go too. They all had great conversations with Rocco yesterday, and they're ready to go.

Q. Is Royce playing in the field a discussion at this point, or is it kind of happy with him as a DH and sticking with that for the series?

DEREK FALVEY: I think it's day to day. He got in the field yesterday. He moved around pretty well. He felt good. I think -- obviously at this stage he's DH'ing, but I would say that Rocco and Nick are going to talk every day and see how Royce comes out of each of the games, and that could change throughout the course of the series.

We're not precommitted to him not taking the field. If that were the case, we wouldn't have had him take ground balls yesterday. I think that they feel collectively the best thing for him right now is to stay in that role and see how he responds and how the next couple of games go and keep kicking that decision out. If there's the right time for it and the right matchup and he's feeling good and all of those things and how deep in the lineup, I'm sure Rocco is going to consider that. We'll keep an open mind throughout the course of the series. We're not ruling that out.

Q. How would you assess Jorge's play at third base from where he was a couple months ago when he first started getting opportunities to now?

DEREK FALVEY: Obviously he had some struggles of late. He knows that. Hasn't had as clean -- he hasn't been as clean defensively lately. That said, I think at the front end of it, when he opened up the conversation to it -- and I think we talked about this back then -- he was looking for a way to just help the team.

Obviously Eddie was playing really well, had really only played second. Jorge has a lot of experience on the left side of the infield, having played shortstop historically. It's a continued work in progress for him, but he stepped into it every time. I think he's ready to go. We're confident in his abilities over there. We know he can play it.

And I think it just gives -- with what we have right now, with some of the limitations we have with Royce, the ability to get the best bats in the lineup ultimately, for Jorge to play third and Eddie to play second, I think it works out really well for us. We'll continue to progress him over there.

Q. Rocco said he was looking for spots to get Louie Varland into the games. You obviously didn't take it easy on him with the sixth inning roles. What kind of made him that guy? What gives you faith in a rookie in that spot?

DEREK FALVEY: Louie's gone through so many changes and so much maturation this year, it's really impressive on a host of levels. We think about the kid that came in even last year and continued to grow as a starter. We asked him late in the season to shift to the bullpen. It's well documented he wasn't sure about that.

As he learned and adjusted, he adapted. He came in to us and said I now understand the role, how this works, and now I can be a weapon, because that's what we told him at the time. He's worked into a really nice role there that bridges to some of the back end guys. I think the re-emergence of Brock and the stuff we saw middle of the season just really deepens that group where he can go maybe even a little bit earlier to that group toward the back end of the game.

What he saw of Brock in the Toronto series, what we know Louie can do. He's really adapted to it. He's learned how to get up in the pen. He'll get going quickly. It's not always easy for a guy who has done nothing but start. I think he'll be another weapon for us in this series. I hope so.

Q. The last week of the season you guys used Andrew Stevenson kind of in the role I'm guessing he could do in the postseason. How much of that helped? You knew his speed, but being able to see that the last week.

DEREK FALVEY: Ideally for us, when you look at the entire roster we had over the last week or so, there's guys who haven't had as many experiences and opportunities to do what they were doing. Brock coming back healthy. Chris Paddack throwing a couple times out of the bullpen. Louie Varland continuing that bullpen role. We fully intended for Andrew to come up late in the season if we could find the right spot to do that, to test that. We saw in games where it made a huge difference.

We know that as a team, some of the guys might not like me saying that, but some of the guys aren't as fast as they'd like to be or think they are at times. We have spots to run. Because of the way Rocco's used the bench and the ability to deploy those guys when you have someone like Willie Castro who can really run and then you have Andrew Stevenson, it just adds a little bit of a dynamic to a team which in a tight game, in a tight series, which we fully expect this to be, you're going to need those spots to go get a guy, and he's done a great job since he's been up here. And good defense really in the outfield.

Q. Did ballpark play any role in the decision between Bailey and Joe?

DEREK FALVEY: One of the factors for sure, as you think through kind of who fits where, who's going to pitch up north versus here, the conditions will be different, temperature-wise or otherwise, even though it's looking it's going to be nice up in Minnesota this week as well. So all those things play a little bit of a role. There's not one overriding factor. I think that it just is part of the equation. It felt like it fit a little better with Bailey starting Game 1.

Q. Alvarez and Tucker are so good at hitting lefties. Did that make it easier to just go, instead of take the traditional second lefty, just plan to face them with your best stuff kind of guys?

DEREK FALVEY: Yeah, these guys, as I said earlier, these guys are really good hitters through and through. Whether it's left, right, matchup or otherwise, obviously sometimes there's some benefit to that platoon situation, but we fully expect that you're going to need your best stuff, whether you're right or left-handed to go through the middle of that order and all the way through the back end.

We're going to go -- Rocco will obviously deploy those guys how he sees fit, and matchup-wise, and hopefully our starters can get through them a couple times and get deeper into the game.

Q. As fans of analyzing things, how much does your organization analyze an organization like Houston and their sustained success and why they've been able to do that?

DEREK FALVEY: Yeah, this is -- there's no secret that this team has represented the American League in the World Series or has been in the ALCS for -- I don't know the total number of years in front of me, but it's a lot of years. They've been good for a really long time.

Credit to their players, first and foremost, their staff, the way they've built it. It's hard not to look at them and think that's what everyone is hunting for, to get a chance to play as often as possible in a World Series environment. That's what they've done. So credit to them. Tip our cap to everything they've done to this point.

You're always looking at ways to get better, and I think they've done some things along the way from how guys are deployed, what their rosters look like, that a lot of teams have tried to figure out and tried to emulate because they've done it. They've proven it. This will be a real tough challenge for our group, but I know they're up for it.

Q. You were in Cleveland as they got a little better, a little better, and then suddenly made the World Series in '16. Do you remember what that felt like? Did you see any parallels between how this team feels right now?

DEREK FALVEY: I think it's not even just about that experience, but every off-season when you're not in this position, you're watching the other teams, and you're really studying like how they got there. Yeah, you have some personal experience with it and seeing it go through.

But I think what you see of the best teams, Houston being one of them for sure, is you have this -- you have to have kind of three layers of your team.

You have this -- I'll start with the rookie group. You've got these young kids that are maybe a little naive. They're enjoying it. They're having fun. But they're the energy to your club. I look at guys like Royce and Matty Wallner and Eddie Julien, Kirilloff, other guys that have stepped up and haven't had a ton of Major League experience or exposure yet.

Then you have this core prime group that is leading you on a daily basis, playing every day for us, Carlos Correa, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, those are the guys that have been around a little bit.

Then the third phase of guys that are veteran, veteran that have been around it, have had the real experience and are complementary parts at times all the way through. Sonny with some experience. Michael Taylor having played in playoff games. Kyle Farmer having been around a little bit in spots.

So there's no perfect blueprint for how this plays out, but I think we have phases of players at different stages of their careers that are all complementing each other in a really good way, which leads to a really good environment in that clubhouse. I think that's allowed for, when we've had our tougher times, for the group to really lean into each other, learn from each other. Maybe get that spark one day from the young kids because the older guys need it. Maybe it's the young kids getting nervous about their play and not going as good as they have been and older guys slowing the game down.

I remember that a little bit during my tenure in Cleveland, that shift, and I feel like I've seen it in other clubs too, and I'm starting to see it in ours too.