MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 4, 2023

Ron Washington

Los Angeles Angels

Press Conference

Q. You mentioned when we talked to you a few weeks ago that you were going to reach out to Anthony Rendon and Mike Trout and kind of see where they are and get them going for next year. How did those conversations go?

RON WASHINGTON: Those conversations went extremely well. I like the excitement in their voices. I like the fact that they can't wait to get to Spring Training to get going. It's just been so great of conversations.

I really can't remember everything that we talked about, but it was mainly down the road of can't wait to get started and start leading.

Q. With Rendon in particular, I'm curious, what did you talk about? How did that conversation go? Do you kind of see him as your everyday third baseman and having that role solidified?

RON WASHINGTON: Well, as of now he is our everyday third baseman. Certainly we talked about his health, making certain that he can get himself to the point where he can become Rendon again. If we can get him to the point where he can become Rendon again, that's a winner. He's been a winner.

So he's having a great winter as far as his health goes, and now we just have to get him in Spring Training and make certain that we keep him on the program that will keep him able to be on the field. I don't have a magic ball, so I can't tell you if that will happen, but our mindset is for that to happen.

Q. How do you feel about the overall state of leadership within the clubhouse just based on the conversations that you've had with Rendon and Trout?

RON WASHINGTON: I feel great about the leadership. I think when you look back on the history of their career, it shows that they are able to lead.

Leading happens in many ways. You know, you lead with your presence. You lead with your performance. I want them to understand when they're not performing, just lead with your presence. They will perform, so I just want them to lead with their presence. That's where we are headed to right now. Trying to get them to the point of showing up and just lead. Just lead.

They don't have to do it by themselves. They have myself. They have my coaching staff. They have the rest of the players. They have the organization. So they will have some backing. I just want them to lead. Where the pressure has to be taken off, we'll take it off. I just want them to lead.

Q. When we last spoke to you at your welcome press conference, you had mentioned that you were happy to be in a position to amplify other people of color, Black and Latino people, to be in coaching positions. What have you overall made of the team that you have assembled in the coaching staff?

RON WASHINGTON: Well, I think we've done a good job. We have youth. We have veterans. We have Black. We have white. We have Latins. I mean, it's very diverse. Each and every one of them are teachers, and in the game of baseball today, the way youth is making it to the Big League so fast, you need teachers.

I tried to put together the best coaching staff of teachers that I possibly can. If I have to teach them, I will teach them because that's what I do.

Q. What did you like most about Barry Enright and Steve Karsay? With what you know about the pitchers you have and having the addition of them, how much do you think that can help?

RON WASHINGTON: Their energy and their wisdom and the fact that they believe in the little things. So they're going to help our young pitching staff with the little things that they have to bring to the ballpark every single day, and it will lead to the big things. That's the thing that impressed me the most about them. Their energy and their wisdom and their attention to taking care of detail. You have to take care of detail in the game of baseball. You have to take care of detail in the game of baseball.

The big picture will always be there, but we have to be in a position when things start to moving inside of that big picture, we see it before it gets out of control. I think that's what Enright and Steve Karsay and the rest of my staff will bring to this organization.

Q. When you talk to Perry about what this team means and when you talk about free agents or trade possibilities, where are the areas in this club you feel like can still be improved?

RON WASHINGTON: I'm not going to give you any of the inside stuff that we talked about, but you can always improve pitching. You can always improve pitching, both in the starting and in the bullpen.

Then you look at the players themselves and then you start to thinking about how can you get more versatile. Every area is being discussed, but to give you specifics, I don't have that for you.

Q. (Indiscernible) to play with more of a chip on their shoulder. It's a bit of a vague comment, but how do you feel like that manifests in terms of just wanting guys to care maybe a little more?

RON WASHINGTON: Everybody describes a level of play the way you describe it. Chip on your shoulder. That's the way Perry described it. I describe it as playing the game of baseball. Whatever the game of baseball asks you to do, be ready to do it. And if we can get in that mode where we're ready to do whatever the game asks us to do, our chip will be shown in the way we play between those lines.

So I don't think you want to be out there with a chip on your shoulder because then you might forget something else and you are too busy worrying about that chip on your shoulder. So I think we're going to get out there and just recognize what the game asks us to do.

Q. This team used a six-man rotation the last few years with Shohei Ohtani. How much do you think about going to a five-man rotation?

RON WASHINGTON: We haven't had that discussion yet. What we've really been doing is how to break down what we have in the pitching department. As I said earlier, trying to find needs in the pitching department.

That decision will be made as we move forward. Right now every one of our young pitchers and whatever other pitchers we decide to bring in, we just want them to come in and compete.

As far as us having the five- or a six-man rotation, that will take care of itself as we move through the Spring Training and into the season and look at the schedule.

Q. How many players have you reached out to and talked to so far?

RON WASHINGTON: I would say about 14. In the beginning it was all the young players. I mean, that was very classy of them to give me a call. When they didn't get me, they left me a message. When they didn't get me on the phone, they sent me a text. Instead of me texting them back, I called every single one of them.

So far we've gotten off on the right foot. I think that's class of young kids to do that. I've heard from the veterans also, but in the beginning it was a lot of young kids. They're excited, and I'm excited for them because they will get a chance to perform and show what they are about.

Q. Have you been reaching out to free agents at all to (indiscernible).

RON WASHINGTON: I'll keep that to myself. Really. I'm sorry I can't answer that, but I'll keep that to myself.

Q. Could you share who some of those younger players that have kind of reached out to you?

RON WASHINGTON: Neto, O'Hoppe. Ain't that something. Y'all done locked me up. Rosenberg. I can't really think of the names right now because a lot of them is still a little down on the totem pole, but it was nice.

Q. I'm curious if you could expand on your own pitching philosophy? What do you think of the role of having a traditional ace of staff? Is that something that you would hope to find in this offseason?

RON WASHINGTON: Yeah, you would hope to find that, but if it doesn't happen, we have to work with what we got. That's the way our mindset is.

We're going to work with what we got until we get what we want. So I want everyone to come into camp competing with the mindset that they are coming in to win a job. If we get to do what we want to do in the pitching staff area, we'll be fine. If we don't get to do everything we want to do in the pitching staff area, we'll be fine.

Q. In your perception of the Angels from afar the past few years, when you see the struggles they've had, like you just said, you have to work with what you have, where do you feel like those struggles have been, and how could you as a manager address whatever you can?

RON WASHINGTON: The way I would address that is let's not talk about the last five or six years when the Los Angeles Angels were struggling. Let's talk past that when they were the team that everybody was trying to run down. That's what I want to think about because we do have the personnel to go out and compete every night.

Through the competing every single night, we just have to learn how to sustain. We just have to learn how to be consistent, which is the game of baseball. When we learn how to be consistent and through the consistency we start the sustaining, we'll be past those years when they weren't doing well. That's where we are.

Q. When you look at this division right now with the Rangers and Houston and seven straight ALCS's and Seattle last year, what is your approach to catching up with those teams?

RON WASHINGTON: Playing good baseball. If we play good baseball -- they play good baseball. So now we match their baseball, and once we get to the point where we can match their baseball, that's what I mean about running them down.

Just being able to match their game. Once we match their game, which I believe we will at some point, that's how you do it. That's how you do it. Take it a game at a time. It's not the best team that wins every night. It's the team that plays the best. And all my senses have to be that we're going to be the best team tonight and go out there and play the way the game asks us to play and what it asks us to do.

You can get out of town being the best team. I don't care. But in the three or four games we played, we was the best team then, and that's all that matters.

Q. Do you look at this as an immediate chance to be successful and win games, like win a division this upcoming season, or is there a rebuild here?

RON WASHINGTON: There ain't no rebuild here. I'm not thinking about the division right now. I'm thinking about preparation, getting prepared for a season. Once we get prepared and ready for the season, I'm ready for whatever comes in front of us.

My players will be ready for whatever comes in front of us. That's the attitude you've got to have in the game of baseball, and then you take it a day at a time.

As long as you answer the questions in the night you're playing that the game asks of you, I think you'll be able to move forward. If it so happens when we get five or six, seven, eight months from today and we win a division, then I can talk, but right now it's about preparation, understanding how to sustain, understanding how to be consistent in the game of baseball, not taking any part of the game of baseball for granted.

Be prepared for every part. We're going to be fine, and that's the only way I'm thinking right now.

Q. The Angels have one of the most diverse coaching staffs presently. I'm not 100% sure about that, but what do you think that says about the state of diversity in coaching and the managing roles league-wide?

RON WASHINGTON: Well, I brought in the best people that I thought could fit the positions that I had open. I brought in the best people that I thought could fit the positions that we had open. That's the only way I looked at it.

It just happened to turn out being a very diverse group, but every one of the guys that we brought in is capable of getting the best, in my opinion, out of the players that we're going to have and the players that we bring in. That's what coaches do. They spend the most time with the players. So when the players start to complaining about things, they can either direct them in the right direction or they can bring them to the director to direct them in the right direction.

So that's what that's about. I brought in the best teachers for me to help us move forward, and we are thinking about each day that comes. Not about what's ahead or what done happened behind. We're dealing with what's in front of us in the moment.

If we can continue to deal with what's in the moment, we will create the memories that need to be created.

Q. It's still just you at the top in the bigs in terms of brothers. That's a pretty big position in terms of singularity. What does that feel like and what you're representing?

RON WASHINGTON: Well, I've been this type of leader all my career and all my life in the game of baseball. Right now the buck stops with me. Whether the buck is big or whether the buck is small or whether the buck is indifferent, it stops with me.

I'm ready for that. I'm not afraid of failure because I'm not a failure. My players aren't going to be afraid of failure because they're not failures. Failing is temporary. So that part of it, I'm not concerned about.

I'm only concerned about making certain that the preparation is right, and I hope that my talking about making the preparation right and how you treat the game of baseball can help diversify the game of baseball. You see what I'm saying?

I learned this type of stuff from people like Dusty Baker. I learned this stuff from people like Reggie Smith, who were my mentors when I first got in the game of baseball.

I'm willing to take on the pressure because, in my mind, pressure is what you put on yourself. Pressure is not what you have to deal with, because every time you fail, you should have learned. So I don't worry about it, because if I fail, I just got educated.

That's the way I look at it because I'm not going to continue to fail, and I'm not going to let the group around me continue to fail because I got strong leaders around me. That's how you continue to be successful is surround yourself with strong people. Strong people. Because I'm only one person, but I am the leader.

Q. What's it been like for you the last two days just having people come up and say it's great seeing you back in this position again?

RON WASHINGTON: It means everything because if you have never sat in a manager's seat on a baseball field, you don't know what that feels like. You do all this work behind the scenes, and then you get to watch all this work you did behind the scenes come to fruition through your players on the field. And you begin to feel so proud because you see them do something that you've been pounding and pounding and pounding, and at the time you was pounding it, they wasn't quite getting it. All of a sudden you see it gotten. That's satisfying.

They did the work, not me. They did the work, but it's satisfying to see them put it to fruition between those white lines. So having them come up to me and saying things like that, I really couldn't describe it in words. I really couldn't, but it's satisfying. It really is because this is where I belong. I belong leading. Although when I wasn't the head manager, I was still leading, but now I don't have to watch anything that I don't like.

Q. How do you hope to be remembered in Atlanta for your time there?

RON WASHINGTON: That I made a difference. That's all. That I made a difference. Every single day that I was there I made a difference.

I didn't cheat anyone every single day that I was there, and I didn't let the players that I was around cheat each other every day that I was there.

So that's what I want them to remember me by. I made a difference. I made a difference. It was the players that did it, but I made a difference.

Q. Is there an emotional conversation with Ozzie Albies when you left?

RON WASHINGTON: Yeah, there was. The main conversation that I had with Ozzie was one guy don't run any show. I don't care how good he is. One guy can't do it.

Okay. I'm gone, but the winner in those guys is still there. That's why you teach and you help people to be self-sufficient, and you never stop teaching them so they can be self-sufficient. The umbilical cord has been cut.

Now, all of the wisdom and all the time we spent together, they have to use it on each other and not let anybody come there and uproot their winning ways. Not let anyone come up in there and change the work ethic and the preparation that it took for them to sustain the way they've sustained in the last seven or eight years.

That's the type of conversations we had, and I was on the other end trying to make them understand. They don't need me. I'm here available if they have questions, but they know how to win. And they don't let one person stop them from being what they are and who they are, just like one person cannot control the game of baseball. It will continue to move no matter who it is. That's the conversation I had.

Q. How much attention are you giving to signing Shohei somewhere?

RON WASHINGTON: I don't have much to say about that yet because I don't want to let anything out the bag.

Q. Is there anything to let out of the bag?

RON WASHINGTON: I don't have anything to say about that right now because I don't want to let anything out the bag.