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MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 7, 2005

Mike Hargrove

DALLAS, TEXAS

Q. You've done a lot of thinking since the end of last year about what went right and went wrong, do you have any new thoughts on what the team needs?
MIKE HARGROVE: Yeah, I think there's some things we want to do differently. I think that the normal progression, you know, that thought process probably started in mid-June, July, starting with Spring Training all the way through. Certainly there are some things that we can do differently that we'll do differently but there will be some things that we continue to do the same way, things that I believe in that had worked before and they will work again. We just have to be consistent with it and that's probably the biggest thing is just be consistent in whatever we do, just be consistent from day one.

Q. What were you encouraged by as last year went on?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, I was encouraged -- No. 1, I was encouraged by the fact that our ballclub showed up to play every day. That we got an honest effort every day from everybody. At times our talent level was such that it didn't allow us to go ahead and win games that maybe we could have or should have.
But the ballclub, the veterans and the young players alike approached every game with the idea that they were going to win that ballgame. They went out and played that way. That doesn't mean we played well every day but I didn't see our guys, you know, just start looking forward to the next year. We played the season out and we played hard every day.
You know, the main encouraging thing, obviously Hernandez coming on the scene is encouraging. The main thing was the fact that we showed up every day and played hard.

Q. I know it's hard to evaluate for next year because you don't know what you're going to have, but do you see the pieces, with a few additions being a contender?
MIKE HARGROVE: You know, our younger players are a year older, a year's more experience under their belt, but a year older doesn't mean better. But certainly, it gives the chance for things for them and the ballclub to be better. We're trying to do some things right now that I think will help the ballclub, if we can get some people that can accomplish those things, I think that there are good things ahead of us. I think we're moving in the right direction.
Sometimes the steps you take are baby steps, but as long as you're in the right direction, that's progress and we get closer to the goal that we wanted to attain, and that's to be a contending ballclub in the post-season. So I see nothing that I think we're not moving in the right direction and how quickly that may be, but I'm encouraged by what we've got.

Q. What was your overall assessment of Adrian's year?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think it was a year of adjustment. I think that he did a good job in that. We're talking about a guy that had been with one organization since the age of 15, 15 or 16 and to come into a new environment and be one of the count-on guys stepping into that, I think that's a huge responsibility and it takes a while to adjust to that idea.
There's so many things that Adrian brings to the party other than just his physical tools that make him a winning player and make him a guy that is a go-to guy, and is the guy that you want on your ballclub, with a lot of intangibles. For a young man at the age of 25 to have those intangibles and have them there every day, is tremendous.
So this season, you know, he struggled at times. At times he would have some good streaks but again, you know, not trying to see if the glass is half empty or half-full, Adrian never begged off of anything. He was there every day and played and play hard just like the rest of our guys. I think that given the talent that Adrian has, that bodes well for his years to come in Seattle.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about getting a left-hander back, what would that do to the lineup?
MIKE HARGROVE: If we get a left-handed bat, it balances our lineup a little bit more. It's tougher for the other club to stack up their pitching or match up their pitching and get outs on a more consistent basis and it adds protection.
And it's just not a left-handed batter, but somebody that's got a little gizmo to them. The whole idea is to get the other team to pick who they want to pitch to, pick their poison and get a left-handed bat with a run-producing bat, it just gives protection to guys like Ibanez and Ichiro and Sexson and Beltre, all of those guys, and then it bounces out of the lineup to where a manager has to think about who he wants to bring in the ballgame.

Q. What about Raul?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think depending on our ability to get that bat, I'm very comfortable with Raul in left field. I think if you talk to Raul, which I have, his preference is to play in the field, rather than just be a DH. I understand that. Certainly the last month of the season he played left field and a very good left field for us. I have no fear at all of putting him out there and really, again, depending on who it is that we are able to obtain, my idea is to play him in left field.

Q. I don't know if you've been asked about this yet but I was wondering do you have any concerns about player participation at the World Baseball Classic?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, No. 1, I think this is a good thing for baseball, I really do. Do I have concerns, sure. Everybody has concerns that you don't -- whoever your players are that are going to be playing in that, you certainly don't want them to come back to you injured, and any time they go out and play, I mean, you have the same concern for winter ball, every time somebody participates in anything, there's a chance they can get injured.
I don't think that's going to happen, but it's something that causes concern, cause for worry. But I do believe this is a good thing for baseball. I think it's going to be exciting. I'm looking forward to watching it.
But is it going to be disruptive for Spring Training and getting your team ready for the season? You know, I don't know. I think we're in the same boat everybody else is in and we'll take it as it comes and try to adjust to it and to make it work, and I think it can be done.

Q. Is there any circumstance where you can see Ichiro not leading off?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think that Ichiro is such a unique hitter, a hitter with unique talent, and by that, I don't mean, you know, weird talent. He has the ability to be a lot of things in an offensive lineup. Before if I entertain any thought of moving Ichiro in the lineup, I would sit and talk with Ichiro first to get his views on it and his feelings on it.
I've long thought that he would make a tremendous 3-hole hitter. I think he's a tremendous lead-off hitter, too. Don't get me wrong that I think that I'm going to move him there. You sit and play with lineups all the time and see how they set up with people, particularly in different positions.
But before we did anything like that, I would sit and have a conversation with Ichiro and get his views on it.

Q. Since you're looking for a left-handed bat with authority in the middle of the lineup --
MIKE HARGROVE: Yeah.

Q. -- do you see a couple of younger players that could go in that hole, Betancourt maybe?
MIKE HARGROVE: I'm not going to get down to specific names, I know what you're asking and I understand that. In the winter, especially from this time forward, you really start playing with a lot of different lineups. People are trying to assess how it looks and the production of that lineup, who are you hitting 2, 7, Betancourt hitting 2, Betancourt hitting 9, Lopez, all of those guys. You want to give some protection to Ichiro, too. You want people to have to pitch to Ichiro, too. He has an uncanny ability to put balls play and I don't think a lot of people can, and put them in play hard. But if they had to pitch to him and had to throw him really good, solid pitches, just imagine how much more effective he can be than what he already is.
I've looked at probably four or five different guys in the 2 and will continue to do that. I don't have a name for you. And even if I did, I wouldn't say this early.

Q. When you play around with lineups, where do you see your new catcher, or do you need to see him?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, I've seen him everywhere from 2 to 7. I've got the -- everything I've read about this guy and heard about this guy and people have talked to me, that he really is a good player. But I haven't seen him. I've seen pictures of him. I haven't talked to him and I haven't seen him play, and until I do that, I can't give you a real honest assessment.

Q. Do you have any concerns about communication with your Japanese catcher?
MIKE HARGROVE: Do I have concerns about it? Well, I get in there and really see what it's going to entail. You have concerns, but I'm not worried that it can't be done. There are ways to facilitate things and I'm sure we'll use them, but I'm not worried about it. Anything that you're going into that's a little bit out of the norm is a cause for concern but not worry. I think it will be fine, I really do.

Q. Do you expect to see Ichiro in camp before Japan is done with the World Baseball Classic?
MIKE HARGROVE: You know, I don't know, you hear that Japan is going to be in Peoria. Until I get solid information about what club is going to be where, I think we'll see -- and I think we'll see Ichiro before it's all over with. But until we get some solid information, I don't know.

Q. Would you talk about Jeremy Reed and how he can develop as a player?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, I think Jeremy gave us a better defensive centerfield last year than we thought we were going to get. And that doesn't mean that we thought he was not a good outfielder, but defensively he was a better player in centerfield than we really thought that he had, which is good. And I'm not going to say we were surprised, because we were not surprised. He's a good athlete, he has good instincts and takes good routes to the ball, but he played an awfully good centerfield for us last year.
The one cause for, not concern, but disappointment, I guess, in Jeremy's season last year was his inconsistency at the plate. We thought offensively we would get more out of him. But I think that you have to step back from that and realize that it's his first full season in the big leagues. No matter how many times you've been called up or you've played -- if you've played a month or a week in the big leagues, when you get there and you're in the lineup every day, it's a different deal.
You know, he didn't have the offensive season -- I think he'll admit it -- that he thinks he should and could have and can have and certainly I'll tell you that he didn't have the offensive season that I think he can have. But it wasn't from lack of work. This kid probably worked too hard at it. I expect Jeremy to -- I expect us to see this year, that Jeremy's offensive game will be more what we think it can be. He's settling more into himself and belonging, he's working hard this off-season, he went and talked to Jeff the other day and they are trying to set something together to go into Peoria and meet there with Jeff sometime this off-season and talk about some things and work on some things. I think Jeremy is going to be okay.
Offensively, he had a disappointing season and --

Q. In regards to his age, how -- I hate to use the word coddle, but how will you look at his innings and his pitch arsenal, too early to know if you let him throw his slider much or will you carefully measure his innings?
MIKE HARGROVE: I don't think we'll take any pitches away from him or limit him to how many times he can throw his changeup or how many times he can throw his curveball. He's going to pitch the season, starts at 19, and as everybody knows, he's a very, very special talent. And while we're not going to coddle him or baby him, we are going to watch the number of innings that he throws. It's not because we're afraid he's going to get hurt, he's fragile. I think we're trying to be proactive and bring this kid along so he's pitching the way he's pitching when he's 30 years old also. I think a little caution early on in his career is called for and we're going to exercise that.
How we're going to limit his innings remains to be seen. We can drop him down in the rotation, we can give him -- when we have days off, we can skip his turn. There's a lot of things we can talk about. We haven't settled on any one strategy and I don't know that we'll settle on any one strategy during the season; maybe a combination of plans, but the one thing is that we don't want this kid going out there throwing 250 innings.

Q. It's important, also, that you try to limit the expectations that people think he's going to be Cy Young?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think it is, but I think that's probably next to impossible. If you see him pitch, you know, your expectations just go right through the roof, everybody's. I think you want to tone those down a little bit and certainly don't want to get the cart before the horse, but it's going to happen, anyway. The big key with Felix is letting him understand what our realistic expectations are for him this year and in the future and kind of keep him on an even keel.

Q. Was that one of the biggest things you were surprised about or impressed with him last year was how he handled it?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, everybody knows, he's got good stuff. I was very, very pleased with the way he handled himself on and off the field, for a 19-year-old kid, you know, he handled it -- I thought he handled it very well. Now, that doesn't mean that there were not times that we didn't have a guy direct him. Whether you're 19 or 39, you're still going to need that direction.
But this kid handled it as well as anybody could under those circumstances. He came in with a lot of fanfair and it never died down. I thought he handled it well.

Q. Is Joel (Pineiro) a key guy for you?
MIKE HARGROVE: Yeah, I think that -- yes, I think he is. Is he a key guy, the key guy? I wouldn't say that. But it is key that he have a better season than he had last year.
The biggest encouraging thing for me was as we got deeper into the season, Joel pitched his better baseball the last two months of the season than he did the previous four. The one thing, Joel has got good stuff and he's a battler, he's a gamer and I think that he's going to have a good season, I really do, just for the simple reason that we saw him come on as the season got deeper.

Q. Was it something mechanical that he figured out?
MIKE HARGROVE: I don't know that there's any one thing that you can pin it on. I just think it's one of those things that you know, he had Spring Training where he didn't pitch hardly at all because of straining his shoulder. And I think coming off the injury that he had the year before, I think it was just a matter of building his confidence as he went along.
You know, the first couple of outing, he had an outing here in Texas, he was throwing 84, 86 miles an hour; that's not Joel. From that point on, though, it progressively got better, his outings did.

Q. The bullpen being a relative strength last year, how do you balance the comfort level knowing that if you had to move one of the pitchers, you could address a starting pitching concern or a left-handed bat?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, we like our bullpen a lot and there's a lot of people at these meetings that like our bullpen and we feel like we've got some depth there.
So I don't -- are we going to move bullpen people? I don't know that. That's Bill's decision. You need to ask him that. But we feel good about our bullpen the way it is right now, and I certainly think that we've got people out there that can step up and do a number of jobs in our bullpen. So I'm glad we have it, and them.

Q. Did you see enough from Betancourt now to think that he could be an All-Star caliber player?
MIKE HARGROVE: Oh, yeah. I think a lot of us have a tendency to forget, myself included, that this kid, his last year -- the entire previous year he didn't play competitive baseball at all. And for him to be able to do what he did and move as quickly as he did through our Minor League system and come up to the big leagues and really hold his own defensively and show flashes offensively of what he can do, I think it was absolutely amazing. I think it's a real tribute to his talent.
I think that -- is he All-Star caliber? Not right now, but he sure has a chance to be. I think it will be interesting to see where his hitting goes. I'm looking forward to watching this kid.

Q. Do you think he has power potential?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think he's got some power. I don't think he's going to hit 30 home runs, but I certainly think that he's got some pop in his bat and that he should have a lot of doubles, triples and hit his home runs when he gets his pitch. He's a strong young man.

Q. How was Burnitz for you as a young player?
MIKE HARGROVE: Jeromy Burnitz, I always liked Jeromy. He's a guy that always plays hard, kind of a throw throwback. He plays the game hard and expects everyone around him to do the same thing. You never have to worry where you stand with Jeromy, he's pretty honest and pretty blunt. You know, Jeromy is refreshing when you're around him. He's a good player.

Q. Is that the type of attitude that you would like to have?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think any ballclub welcomes that kind of attitude, not just ours. We've got a good clubhouse. And do we need people to step up and take an active leadership role? Sure we do, and every club needs the same thing. There's nothing wrong with your club and nothing wrong with the clubhouse. We have guys that show up to play every day and play hard.
But any time that you can -- any time people can step up and take an active leadership role, you know, especially if it's done in the right way, then that's a positive thing for any ballclub, not just ours.

Q. Are you counting a lot on Soriano being there from the beginning and being a factor in the bullpen?
MIKE HARGROVE: Yes. He's pitching winter ball, he's going to pitch up through the middle of December and then he's going to shut down. Of course, we're getting that he's throwing the ball fine and he's healthy. So I think -- I'm anticipating that he's ready from day one in Spring Training.

Q. Did you see him as a prime setup guy?
MIKE HARGROVE: No, I think he's one of those guys that we can look at to fill a number of roles -- I say a number, but two or three different roles. Certainly the most obvious one is set up and then when Eddie is tired and can't go out, you have him. That's the obvious role.

Q. Do you at all think of him or even Julio as a potential starter?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think we look at all of our people as potential starters. We look at that. And a lot -- there's a lot of those guys being discussed. I don't know that there will be that many, but it never hurts to at least discuss those matters and explore those ideas and see whether there's any logic or reason behind it and try it.

Q. Is he starting in winter ball?
MIKE HARGROVE: Not that I know of.

Q. Is Foppert at the point where he's in the mix?
MIKE HARGROVE: He's coming to Spring Training. We will see. We'll see. I think that given the state of our starting rotation at the end of the year last year, going into Spring Training, everybody is in the mix.

Q. Health-wise, there have not been any setbacks?
MIKE HARGROVE: Not that I'm aware, no.

Q. Is there any concern at all that Rivera might be too young to be in the big leagues as a backup?
MIKE HARGROVE: No. He'll get enough playing time.

Q. What are your thoughts on the World Baseball Classic?
MIKE HARGROVE: I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing for baseball. I think that it's going to be a little bit different Spring Training, just trying to organize and schedule things, but I think it's well worth the uncertainty it's causing in that regard, but I think it's a good thing for baseball.

End of FastScripts...

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