MLB WORLD SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS VS RANGERS

October 27, 2023

Mike Hazen

Globe Life Field

Arizona Diamondbacks

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. How much of an emotional roller coaster have the last two years been for you?

MIKE HAZEN: Yeah, it's been a lot for this organization, from where we came from -- with these two teams picking second and third a couple years ago, now to be here. It's very satisfying.

All the work that went in, Torey and his staff and our players, to be here, we're very proud of them and very proud to be here.

Q. Could you talk about the evolution of Torey as a manager since the two of you guys came over here?

MIKE HAZEN: I think he's always been an incredible game manager. I think he does a great job in our clubhouse, relationships with our players.

I think that has taken on a new level. I think when we went through the skid in the middle of July and August, I think that's where we really started to see him take control of some things -- in the clubhouse, a little bit more aggressively -- that I think that could have sunk a lot of seasons, and it didn't sink ours. And I think he was a big reason for that.

Q. Back to Torey. You stuck with him after a 110-loss season. Obviously this was the plan. I think maybe it happened faster than maybe anyone can envision. But what does it mean to know that you guys as an organization decided you're going to stick with your guy and give him the opportunity to continue to grow this team and now seeing the fruits of that labor?

MIKE HAZEN: We talk about accountability a lot. When you lose 110 games it's pretty hard for a manager to have that much impact on that. That's a roster issue. That's me.

It's kind of hard to fire somebody when your overarching feeling is you didn't do your job. So he was still doing a lot of the things, zero complaints during a 110-loss season about that type of stuff.

That's important. I make mistakes, we make mistakes. We don't always give him a perfect team. We didn't have a closer for the first half of the season. I never hear anything, yeah, we need a closer; never, we can't win because we don't have X.

I think those are important characteristics. Those are the things that he brought to the table. That made it a little easier with the question that you're referencing.

Q. With that, too, building the roster, seems like luck, skill, whatever it was, you've got a mesh of young players that feel a bit older. What's the secret sauce with that? Is that just pure luck? What is it?

MIKE HAZEN: I hope not. I hope my roster construction isn't down to pure luck. I don't think the guys who work in our front office would really characterize it that way.

I think our player-development people do a really good job raising our players, quite frankly. We put a lot of effort into developing them all the way through from the second they get here to their families, to understanding who they are and trying to pour every ounce of energy into making them the best they can be.

Watching guys like Brandon Pfaadt, Alek Thomas sort of step up on the stage when parts of their season may have been a little rockier, yeah. I don't think we anticipated that happening.

That's what happens. Evan Carter is doing the same thing. See why -- I don't know what he would tell you his answer is, but I don't know that any of us have that magic wand to be able to put people on the stage in these environments with the anxiety and the pressure that ratchets for these guys and then see them do baseball superhero stuff.

That's the part that we don't know. But as far as getting to know our players and developing them, yeah, we put a lot of time and effort into that.

Q. What has it been like to work for an owner in Ken Kendrick who, when he hired you he didn't just offer you a job opportunity but offered, as he's shown, a job opportunity backed by belief?

MIKE HAZEN: Ken and Derrick, for me, have supported me on a professional and on a personal level that I am truly grateful for.

He very rarely, if ever, says no to me on anything that I want to do or pursue. He makes me explain all the things and all the reasons why we want to do it.

And I really appreciate the freedom to be able to do this job in a way that they allow me to do it and that he allows me to do it. I think that's the thing that I take away from it the most.

Q. I know when you go out and make a move like trading for Gallen, you're thinking about roster construction over 162 games, not necessarily individual moments. But does the thought when you're making a move like that cross your mind that he's the type of guy that could eventually be starting Game 1 of the NLCS or World Series for you?

MIKE HAZEN: Not really. We're trying to acquire the players we think are going to, yes, lead a pitching staff. Where that takes you, no, I don't go that far down the line. You never anticipate where this is all going to take you.

I think when we made that move, we thought he was an impact, top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. We've been proven right by that clearly. The fact he gets to start Game 1 of almost every one of these series is rewarding to see. And we'll go with him as long as he goes.

Q. When you made the trade, the Varsho trade, he wasn't a guy you parted with easily, but what was it that you saw in Moreno and in the opportunity to get two starters for one starter that made that deal important to do?

MIKE HAZEN: That was a major piece to it. We had been lacking in both of those spots. We were dealing from a position where we felt like was a position of strength.

Daulton Varsho is a incredible player and he's going to be for a long time. We knew that. We were giving up the power and the incredible outfield defense.

But we didn't have a lot coming behind the plate, and a right-handed-hitting outfielder was something that we needed. And that trade seemed to match up for us.

Gabby has taken extraordinary strides this season. I think it's probably fairly rare to see a young catcher, specifically, someone that young at that position come along as quickly as he has. And we're not here without either one of those guys.

Q. Another deal, couple of acquisitions you made in season to shore up the back of that bullpen, could you take us what you saw in Thompson and what made you pursue him the way you did, and Sewald, how that came about?

MIKE HAZEN: So, Thompson, if I'm being intellectually honest, cleared unconditional-release waivers, so we all had access, including us, and passed. And he became a free agent, and we signed him on a minor league deal.

The guys in our office had been pursuing me all off season to go get him. I talked to the Rays about trading for him at the time, but it didn't really end up happening.

But they were on me. And we should have done this. And they were right. It only took me five months to not be so stubborn and actually go sign him.

And so we benefited from having -- obviously he hadn't pitched up to that point, so getting him on the minor league was important, so we could watch him go pitch and make sure he was back up to speed before we thrust him into a Major League environment.

And Paul, look, we talked about this, an 84-win team, I hear that a lot. I get it. I feel once we solved some of our bullpen issues, which was my fault, the team doesn't look like it did three or four months ago for that reason.

Getting Paul helped push everybody forward, solidify guys into roles. And I think as you've seen through these playoffs, through the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth inning, I think Torey has a little more consistency with the decisions that he's going to be able to make and be aggressive in that consistency with those decisions. And Paul has enabled all that.

Q. What can you tell us about your counterpart with the Rangers, and also your alma mater's ability to populate the game with bright minds as well as folks --

MIKE HAZEN: He's exceptionally tall. He's a very tall man. You look extremely small standing next to him.

I just told this story on the MLB Network. After they lost Game 5 in Houston -- or in Texas, sorry -- we had just won a very emotional Game 4. And he sent Amiel and I a congratulatory text message.

And I went around to those guys and I was, like, who does this. They're, like, would you have ever done that. Like, being devastated from Game 5, probably not. That's who he is as a human being. That's the real deal from him.

He's incredibly smart. I think you said it. I'll say it, we were very fortunate to be able to attend a really good institution that fostered a lot of relationships that I have until this day. Some of those guys our teammates. My teammates will be -- we have different teammates; I'm a little older than he is -- that will be here today to watch. And Scott Bradley, our coach, is going to come, who was instrumental for the both of us, not only in developing us as baseball people, but also getting into Major League Baseball.

I'm not here without Scott. And so Chris and I had him come in as a thank you to be here to watch. And I hope he's rooting for us, but I think Chris got him the ticket so he might be rooting for Chris.

Q. It's no secret to you and the organization what Ketel Marte brings to the table, especially when he's healthy. But can you tell me about this coming-out party, so to speak, for him? Probably more of a household name. And also his maturation process in the last two, three years and how you guys have committed to him?

MIKE HAZEN: Yeah, I think getting him some stability on the field in a position -- we tried to bounce him around sort of Chris Taylor-esque for a while. And I think that probably took away from the offense a little bit. It put him in tough spots physically because dealing with the outfield and coming into the infield.

That was my idea. That didn't go the way it should have gone. So I think some of the inconsistencies were due to that.

You talk about it all the time, what does it take to win in the playoffs. It takes star players to play like stars and one of our star players -- he's one of our star players -- is playing like a star right now. And he's a major reason why we're even doing this right now.

Q. You mentioned your college coach coming in. Have any of your family from Massachusetts going to be here as well?

MIKE HAZEN: My kids will be here. My mom and mother-in-law are coming here to Texas, which is nice. And I have loads of people coming to Arizona for Game 3 -- my sisters, my nieces and nephews.

My nephew told my sister the thing he's looking forward to the most he gets to sit in a suite and eat chicken fingers. So that's what he has to look forward to in the Game 3 of the World Series. She texted me that.

It will be awesome. They don't get out much to see a lot of games. We've always said, if you get to the World Series, we're coming. They have a lot of kids, we have a lot of kids. It's a lot to come across the country. And they just said they were going to do it because they always said they were going to do it.

Q. How much have your boys enjoyed it the last few weeks?

MIKE HAZEN: I don't know if I can put it into words, the moments we've gotten together, throwing out the first pitch; when we've been on the road, they haven't come. When they're in Philadelphia, they were with my mom, mother-in-law, watching the games.

She's like, you know how much they're enjoying it, they actually put down their phones now and again to watch the game. And everybody knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Q. I think you said at the beginning of this that Torey kind of took more control maybe in July and August when you guys were struggling. I'm curious how that manifested itself, if that's something that maybe you guys had a proactive conversation about.

MIKE HAZEN: We talked about that every day from the start of Spring Training through the offseason about how we're going to approach situations or how we're going to address certain things that are coming up. With the baseball season, everything breaks all the time. We're always dealing with some part of our roster or whatever.

He and I were talking about it. We just weren't playing well. We were making a lot of mistakes on the bases. That wasn't what we were doing in the first three months of the season. We weren't hitting the ball at all, not hitting fastballs. There were some clear things we weren't doing.

And he began to call players in, have one-on-one conversations with them, ask what's going on, why are some of these things happening.

He had a team meeting at one point. We just kind of recommitted to getting back to doing some of the things we had done so well in the first three months of the season.

He was relentless about that for the remainder of the season all the way through the playoffs. And I think we are being rewarded for that now.

Q. Could you talk about Geraldo Perdomo and the season he's had after some struggles last year? And going back to the Gallen trade a few years ago, I'm curious how much his presence in the system maybe allowed you to feel more comfortable dealing away a guy like Jazz Chisholm?

MIKE HAZEN: When you're making a trade like that, we were giving up our top prospect in our system, who was in Double-A at the time. We knew that was a risky move.

Trading away a position player, a young position player who plays in the middle of the field that's as dynamic and talented as Jazz was, we knew it was risky.

Perdomo was different than Jazz, I think Perdomo was more of the true shortstop for us, defensive first, great on-base skills. Didn't have quite the impact Jazz has. We felt in time his power would come. He's maturing every single day.

We've seen the leadership skills -- even last year when he wasn't hitting very well, he would still try to take charge on the field. Young players don't always get that opportunity when their RPS is where it was last year, but he would still do it. He still demonstrates that leadership for us.

I think within that young group, where you talk about who the leaders are, that's what's emerging for us. I think that's what I'm excited about moving forward even beyond this series.

Q. How old is the nephew, the chicken fingers?

MIKE HAZEN: Oh, boy, you're putting me on the spot here. I don't know exactly how old he is. He's probably seven or eight. I can't keep track of my own kids' ages sometimes, to be fair.

Q. When you add veteran players, it seems like you just have a knack for or you look for guys with postseason experience. What does that mean to you, and how does that filter its way through your clubhouse?

MIKE HAZEN: I think playing in these moments with these veteran players, with Tommy, with Longo, I think when they've been around this, it helps the younger players, for them to walk through the more challenging moments, when the stress ratchets up.

We can all say that everybody feels it. And it's normal. It's okay. Like, this is the biggest stage. Somebody asked me about Andrew Saalfrank coming in and making his first postgame appearance. I was, like, that's our entire roster. You could ask about any one of our players and I'd have the same answer for you.

I think that's part of our charm as a team and why I think we go out there and have gone into Milwaukee and LA and Philly, notoriously tough places to play, and have played very well.

I don't know if it's because we're immune to the stress or the anxiety or we don't know any better. But either way, we played good baseball even in challenging situations, being down in games in Milwaukee, being down two to Philly, and I think those veteran guys help keep everything pretty stable.

Q. Circling back to bullpen questions. Early in the year, the team tried the committee approach, for lack of a better phrase. That didn't work out. Was that more because, in your view, personnel issues, which you just rectified by bringing in a couple of good pitchers, or do some of these moves actually represent a philosophical shift for you in terms of constructing a bullpen?

MIKE HAZEN: I don't know. I feel like the personnel had the ability to tackle the seventh, eighth, ninth inning. I feel like Torey -- and I have talked a lot about this stuff, since Rodney, Bradley, others -- having that ninth inning settle down allows him more freedom to do other things in front of that, and now it's kind of settled into a semi pattern. But even before that, he had more freedom. So philosophically, yeah, I've seen it.

Our team played better. Our relievers were better when he had the ninth inning locked down and knew where that was going.

Whether that's a thing or not, that really happened to us in a pretty dramatic way. So that will be something, that, yes, that we'll think about more consistently moving forward, having that guy from day one.

Q. Merrill Kelly, when you signed him, even he doesn't have any training from the Major Leagues. What makes you make confidence when he came to the Major Leagues, you made the seamless transition, where was the confidence from?

MIKE HAZEN: We have really good scouts that saw him pitch, went over there a lot. Pounded the table for him. You never really know how the transition is going to go. But they were adamant that this guy was going to be a Major League starting pitcher.

We had seen some of the stuff tick up, and he's been even better than that since he's come over here. Again, I've said this about a number of our guys, but we wouldn't be here without him. He's had a Cy Young-caliber season as well.