MLB WORLD SERIES: INDIANS v MARLINS

October 26, 1997

John Hart

JOHN HART: We drafted Chad as one of our profile drafts in 1991. We had a great draft, Ramirez, Perry and Ogea. Obviously we liked Chad when we drafted him. He was a winning pitcher that didn't possess the stuff of a Jaret Wright, if you will, and not a dominant stuff guy, but we watched him, his last couple of years there at LSU, he was a winner. We felt he would be a guy that would probably fit into a starting rotation maybe as a third, fourth starter. But when he got into our system, as Grover alluded to last night, even though his stuff wasn't outstanding, he won, he took the ball, he was never injured, and when we brought him to the Big Leagues we used him in a variety of roles. He started some for us. He pitched long out of the bullpen. And he pitched mental out of the bullpen. But we always projected him as a starter. I think we showed our feelings about Chad this spring. We signed him to a three year contract, multi-year contract, invested some money in him, because we believed that Chad was ready to step up. Where a pitcher goes once he gets into the rotation is always open. Greg Maddux is not a stuff guy and certainly has become a dominant type starting pitcher. We feel certain that Chad is going to be a part of our rotation. Where he fits in down the line is still to be determined.

JOHN HART: You know, I think we believed in this club because we did make some very difficult decisions, I think some very -- probably controversial calls starting with the Carlos Baerga trade, the decision to let Albert Belle go, and then obviously the Kenny Lofton trade. And we knew that we were bringing in some different types of players, very talented players that were changing leagues, to go with the nucleus, what we considered to be quality players and quality guys with character. We also recognized that right out of the gate we lost our No. 1 starter in Jack McDowell, and it continued to plague us all year, the injuries, to our pitching. Chad Ogea for two and a half months, Orel was on the disabled list. We were constantly, I felt like the guy with his finger in the dike, trying to plug the rotation. It's difficult to sustain a winning streak. It's difficult to sustain the hundred win season when the rotation and the bullpen we started out without Jose Mesa, it was just incomplete. And this club won 86 games. I think without a consistent starting rotation throughout the year, and without a consistent bullpen. With McDowell and a healthy Ogea and a Mesa right out of the gate we probably win 95 ballgames and there's not maybe the questions about the club. We believe in this club all year and felt that we had put together a ball club that would -- had a lot of talent but had a mindset that was a club that could play in big games. You look at our line-up, the position players, there's a lot of All-Stars, a lot of Gold Glovers, a lot of Silver Sluggers, and a lot of players that have been good postseason players. And so our job was to try to fix our pitching, if we could, and fortunately our rotation started to come together in September and albeit we had the terrible misfortune to John Smiley, we entered the postseason without McDowell and Smiley, and we've gotten some great performances from some people we had to call from on the season like a Jaret Wright and some others.

JOHN HART: Well, right now the off-season -- does start tomorrow, believe it or not. We have, I think, made a lot of decisions on our club this year. I think if you look at our every day ball club it's intact for the most part. We have very, very few free agents. Tony Fernandez and Bip Roberts will be free, but the rest of the club is signed up. And so I think that our position player club is going to return somewhat intact which is good. We have a number of players signed through the year 2000 and beyond. We recognize that right out of the gate we have another set of organizational meetings beginning on Wednesday, I think to determine our strategy for the expansion draft. That's going to be the first hurdle that we have to overcome. We have some very difficult decisions to make. When you have an every day club that's as talented as ours, that is secure and you have some young pitchers that sit there, you have some quality bullpen guys and four or five young players that may be impactful type players, however you cut the cake we have a chance to get stung in expansion. And I think once that draft is over it will give us a little clearer road map, I think, to where we want to go, either through the trade route or free agency. My sense is right now that we'll have to make a decision, if we elect to pursue a front of the rotation starting pitcher or a big time second baseman. Those will probably be the two bigger decisions we make. And then we'll obviously look at our bench, with the loss of Kevin Seitzer and some of these other guys. But our decisions are not nearly as big, other than the expansion draft, as they were going into last winter.

JOHN HART: You know, I think first of all whether we win Game 7 or we don't win Game 7 will have no impact on what decisions we make. I think the franchise, at least from a decision making process, I think the season has been justified by where we are. And I think we've had a longer window to evaluate the players that we have, and I think those decisions will be made based on the relative skills of the players. We've talked with Orel throughout the year and still have taken the same stance that we have to wait until expansion to make a decision as to what we do. We will factor Orel into our decision, as we do all of the free agent pitchers that are out there. What happens to us in the expansion draft and what available pitchers are there, either through trade or through free agency. I will say this, we made one of the better signs we've made after the '94 season when we signed Orel Hershiser. He has been a winner for this organization. We've been to two World Series. Our record was the best in baseball. Orel was a big part of it. I guess he's averaged about 14 or 15 wins, plus postseason victories for us. And we still feel that there is more gasoline in his tank. Whether he is the guy we bring back or someone else, I think still remains to be seen. I think it's safe to say that you'll see a passing of the torch with the commitment we're going to make to some of our young pitchers to put them in an atmosphere to pitch behind a veteran club that catches the ball, an experienced club, it will be easier for us to transition a Chad Ogea, Brian Anderson, Colon and Jaret Wright. And where we go for another pitcher or two still remains to be seen.

JOHN HART: You know, I think it probably, if anything, just allowed Grover's character, which has never been questioned, but allowed his character to be seen in a moment of tragedy. Mike Hargrove is very stable. He has a beautiful family. He's a very caring man. I think as the leader of the players that we provide, the day-to-day, hands on ability that Mike has, I think he certainly showed those qualities. We, of course, have known it's there. I think that if anything, at that stage, Mike, like a lot of us at that period with the Indians, we were a growing franchise. We had taken some risks. We had a team full, a locker room full of very, very young players that had not been through anything like that. This was a club that had been together for two or three years, there was not a free agent on that ball club in '93. These were all kids. And I think it allowed Grover to perhaps do some of the things he does best, which is allow his character, his caring, to show.

JOHN HART: Well, I think we would have been able to have a good year or two as our young players grew. I think we would have competed and contended for a much shorter window. I think if there were a club that people in baseball said needs to be moved in the late '80s and early 90's it would have been the Indians. Our owner made it very clear that wasn't going to happen. The politicians, the city made a decision to keep the club in Cleveland. The voters voted in the tax issue. Our ball club has, I think, been able to sustain a run because of the revenues that a new stadium does provide. We are a middle sized market. We do not have the luxury of a large, local media, a large local media money, you look at the Yankees with MSG and the Orioles with Home Team Sports and some other avenues that clubs have for revenue that is normally spent on players. Our revenue is stadium driven and the ballpark allowed us, I think, to compete to provide a good product. By that I mean we could sign our own players, we could compete somewhat in the free agent market. We've never set any markets for free agents. We are not that type of a club, but we have had the ability, I think, to put a product on the field that the fans are going to buy into. There's no question that our success certainly is tied to the revenues that a new stadium provides. But the caveat, as it is with anything, is the decisions that are made, how wisely do you spend your money. The landscape is littered with clubs that have made poor decisions that have dollars and we've been very fortunate that I think the players we've had have been able to play and that means a good product. The fans have gotten excited about our ball club and that's translated into just about three executive years of sellout. It's been a great story, but the ballpark certainly, and the revenue streams that we're able to enjoy allows us the ability to sustain a championship caliber club.

JOHN HART: Jay Robertson was looking -- we were looking for a pitcher that year and I think we had the 10th pick in the country. Jaret Wright was very highly touted. Jay Robertson saw him a couple of times and I think he contacted me in early April and said there's a young kid out on the West Coast that has the best arm in the draft. This kid has got a big makeup, plus makeup, great body and I don't know if he's going to be there for us, but this is a kid we like. The other player I remember clearly that we liked also was Doug Million, which obviously a very most unfortunate situation that happened was the left hander out of Florida. I think people in that draft as highly touted as Jaret was at the time, I think the fact that he was a high school pitcher, perhaps allowed him to slip to No. 10 in the draft. We had heard up until the last four or five days of the draft that Colorado was -- they picked 7 and they were going to take a high school pitcher, and we really didn't know until the morning of the draft when I talked to Bob Gebhart and he said he was going for Million. And we recognized at that time that Jaret was going to be an expensive sign. We met internally and obviously included our owner in that meeting and said that our budget is going to take a hit, here, because if we draft this young man it's going to take more money. And so we made the decision that we wanted him, that he fit the profile for a potential front of the rotation starting pitcher and when our turn came we selected him. It took us a very difficult four or five-week period to agree to terms with him, but we did and here he is three years later.

JOHN HART: If you look at our track record over the last seven or eight years, we have put length and dollars into position players. And the longest contract we've given a pitcher here that is a free agent has been two years. We gave Dennis Martinez two years, Orel a year and an option, we gave Jack McDowell two years. We have made offers for longer length, but I think our feeling about starting pitching is that it is a bigger gamble, from a health perspective than is an every day position player in his prime. Jack McDowell does not change -- the unfortunate injury this year to Jack, does not change our, I think, ongoing pursuit of starting pitching. But we do recognize it's a very fragile position and it's one that no matter how you slice it, when you look at the track record of a pitcher, how many innings he has thrown, what's his body type, both Jack McDowell and Alex Fernandez never missed starts, they were big inning pitchers, and that's usually a good sign, especially when they've gone through five, six, seven years in the Big Leagues. But it is always a roll of the dice whenever you sign a starting pitcher. Jack McDowell, we have an option on Jack. My sense is that we will address that, obviously, here in the next week. But my sense is we most likely will not pick up the option, and we'll talk with Jack, as we do all the pitchers that are going to be available out there this winner.

JOHN HART: You know, Cleveland is, I think, a very special community, and I say that, it is probably a town that is rooted as a small town mentality. And I say that in a very positive way. The people, the community of Cleveland supports its sports teams, as it did obviously with the Browns, year in and year out, 80 thousand people every day. They played. What you've seen with the excitement around the Indians, it is a city that has a tremendous amount of pride. They were long suffering baseball fans. I know when I got there and went out on the stump trying to sell a baseball team that we were going to turn this around. It seemed like there wasn't much hope because we weren't selling many tickets. But everywhere I went you could just see the passion in the eyes of the fans. So this is a town that I think although it has been long suffering in its quest for a title, and a title would mean a lot, obviously to the city. I think it's a town that has represented a tremendous comeback. I think our success over the last four or five years has probably mirrored the success of our city, with the reemergence of downtown, obviously it's a great city to live in with beautiful suburbs, but I think there's been a lot of national attention that's been paid to Cleveland and very well deserved attention. And I think that Cleveland probably doesn't need the -- maybe the tag that would be placed on it as Championship, because it is a Championship community whether we win or whether we don't.