NL DIVISION SERIES: BRAVES v ASTROS

October 10, 2001

John Schuerholz

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: I think the opposite. I think to the contrary. I think it's been a remarkable season. I think with all of the adversity that we've had to deal with in terms of losing players to injuries and some underperformance of some players, but mostly injuries, we have over the course of the year we end up now with a new shortstop, a new second baseman, a new first baseman, a new catcher and six new members of our bullpen. And making that number of changes on the run in the course of action and still being able to win our division for the tenth consecutive time, I think it's a remarkable accomplishment. I don't think it's a disappointment at all. I'm as proud of what Bobby and his coaches have done and what our players have done this year as any one particular year.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: Well, one of the challenges we as general managers have in putting teams together is -- has to do first with talent, of course. Then it is the effective meshing of that talent, how they support each other. And you can't simply put a team together based on the most talented individual positions. You have to have some understanding about how they will work together. So the difficulty then, when you construct a club during the winter as we did this year and you see that that mix is not working for a variety of those reasons I gave earlier, to reconstruct on the run, the challenge is not necessarily only highlighting or focusing on the players you think are the appropriate ones to get, but how they fit. You don't have as much time to analyze that aspect of it as you're playing during the season as you do during the off season. So that's where the difficulty lies, in getting the players to replace the injured players or the underperforming players or the whatever players, traded players, what have you, and seeing that the new mix works effectively and well as a team. That's the challenge.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: We tried to do two things. We tried first to deepen our bullpen. At the beginning of the season, one of the areas where we didn't feel we had as much strength as another area was in the depth of our bullpen. We had some individual performers out there that we thought were fine but we didn't have the depth. With the opportunity to acquire two top-notch relievers in Karsay and Reed, Steve Karsay and Steve Reed, for John Rocker, we were able to increase the depth and the quality of the depth of our bullpen. We also felt like the make-up of our bullpen and the make-up of our team would be more solid as a result of that deal. I think that proved to be true.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: I don't know if I'd used the word "foresaw." We had some thought that that might happen because we weren't certain how much John would be able to pitch after coming back off the surgery. And we did give some thought to the fact that he might be a closer when he came back, but that was so distant a thought that it wasn't something that motivated us to make this move trading our then closer. We just felt like the bullpen would be better suited to make this deal, and it was.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: In fact, it does. I mean, that's what we've said all along unabashedly. We've built our team principally around pitching and principally around starting pitching. This year we tried to strengthen our bullpen, as I just said answering the earlier question, and we did that. It's no secret to us in Atlanta, sitting here in our tenth consecutive division -- with our tenth consecutive division title, in the playoffs again, that good pitching helps you get here. I think it's no secret if you were to ask members of those organizations that had those magnificent performances yesterday in Cleveland with Colon, and Schilling and Morris with Arizona and St. Louis, those were great pitching performances. I think that's the principal ingredient in allowing you to win consistently throughout a year and over a decade. That's my view.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: Ordinarily, that's true. I think, though, if you look at the quality of the pitchers involved in those clubs that are involved in these series, there is depth of quality. I don't think any club is concerned about the quality of the depth of their pitching, starters or relievers. There might be some area of their pitching that they feel more comfortable with, either starting or relieving, but I think the quality has to be there. You could not have gone through the season and be champions of your division without that depth of quality. That's true, you put your No. 1 guy out there on day one. Then the real test is how you can sustain that over the next three or four games, whatever's required. But, again, all the teams that are here I think have quality and have depth.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: Well, as a closer, John Smoltz has been nothing short of sensational. What you've seen in post-season we saw at the end of the season when he came back to us. And when he got his arm fully conditioned for pitching in that role, the dynamic and electric stuff that he brings to that role is easily seen by everyone. So he's really been an asset for us in that role. John and I met when we were in New York just after we resumed play, and we talked about what his role might be with us. I told him from our standpoint that we see him in the role he's now in. That's the role we'd like to continue talking to him about as we discuss the future. We have not discussed the future yet, but I wanted to share with him and get a sense for what he felt. I don't want to speak for John - I think he's coming in here - but I think John feels he could start or relieve, either one, and I think he has an interest in both. I think he'd be delighted to be in the role he's in for us now in the future if we can work all the details out. That will be something we'll discuss this winter.

JOHN SCHUERHOLZ: I do. There is a great similarity, I think, between the careers of Eckersley and John Smoltz at least to this point, where Eckersley had, I believe, around 150 wins as a starter then went on to a magnificent career as a closer. John equals that number of wins in his starting career, or near it - more than that I think, slightly more than that - and has the potential, we believe, and I think all of you would probably concur watching him pitch, depending on how long he chooses to pitch or how long he does pitch, to amass the same kind of save numbers Eckersley was able to do. That's high praise, to compare somebody to Dennis Eckersley, because as we know, he was one of the premiere guys in that role once he made the transfer from starting to relieving.