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MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 7, 2005

Ken Macha

DALLAS, TEXAS

Q. How much have you thought about the pitching staff next year, knowing there could be significant changes? Is it too early to even toying with stuff like that?
KEN MACHA: One of the positive things I've thought about is right now we've got 11 quality Major League pitchers. You've written about seven starters that we have, and then you've got Calero and Witasick under contract. Going into the season last year, we were not sure at all what we had. We had some young and some good arms so now we've got 11 guys that have proven they can go out and pitch and pitch well. So that's my thought right now.
I think a lot has been made of having too many starters. I don't think that's a difficult problem. That's a nice problem to have. Joe Kennedy pitched very well out of the bullpen. I'm not saying that's where he's ticketed to go just yet.
Part of our turnaround in the second half, particularly right after the All-Star Break was due to what he had done, pitching in the bullpen. So when you've got 11 good pitchers, that's something positive to look at.

Q. Is there a need for a guy with big game, more of a veteran, experienced guy in that staff?
KEN MACHA: We don't have a guy that's a big name veteran guy?

Q. Big game, a guy that's had World Series, big-game experience.
KEN MACHA: Florida Marlins with Josh Beckett, he's done very well. There's got to be a first time for everything. I know Barry has pitched some very good games for us, the last game of the season, not the past year, the year before he gave us a lead going into the 8th inning against the Angels, next-to-last-game of the season. Won the playoff game in Yankee Stadium, forced it to Game 5; Game 4 a couple of years ago. So he's got some experience at doing that.
But we got a guy like Rich Harden, if we can keep him healthy, he can be a dominant guy and go out there and absolutely shut down teams completely. He went out and pitched from an All-Star from June 1st to September 1st, he was tremendous, so the possibility of having guys break through and do that, that's true. But we don't have anybody that has pitched a Game 7 or a World Series but we've got guys that I think over time can be able to do that.

Q. Do you feel this is an important year just in terms of showing that he can stay healthy for six months and make 30-plus starts and pitch 200-plus innings?
KEN MACHA: Well, I don't know if you would say it was important. I mean, he's under contract for how many more years. I think probably important for himself and his psyche to be able to go out there, 30-plus starts, give us 200 innings and win some ballgames for us. So I know that not having him in May and then again August and September has really hurt our club, not having him for the whole year would be important for me and important for the A's.

Q. With all of starting pitching that you have, that being said, would you be extremely surprised if there were a deal made for yet another starting pitcher?
KEN MACHA: Yeah, that would surprise me. But here again, I've been surprised before. What did we do last year? We traded one of our main starters and then two days later traded another one.
So the overall picture does not come until the season starts when you put guys out there. So if we get another starting pitcher, there may be some moves that came late.

Q. Would you be surprised if Barry is not back with you guys next year?
KEN MACHA: Let me put it this way: I want Barry back. I hope he's back. I think he made a nice jump in his overall game last year, and a nice jump in the leadership qualities that he has in a pitching staff. With all of those young guys behind him, he led by example, he was our lead guy, the No. 1 guy going out there. And when you're that guy, you're pitching against the other team's best people, too. So overall, I think 13, that's still a pretty good year. Who knows, there might be improvement from there.

Q. I don't know if you've heard, there's talk that David Wells could somehow end up there, how would a guy like that potentially fit in to the persona and your team, he's certainly a different character to say the very least.
KEN MACHA: I'd say that the overall atmosphere that we had this past year was tremendous, the attitudes of all the players were great. I don't know David personally. Who knows how he would fit in. You never know. We've got some guys that have different personalities. Barry is a completely different personality than Street or Mulder was. So the personality thing, we had a wide variety of personalities there in Oakland. Just the overall mix was a good one.
Would we hope that somebody that was focused on winning and taking the team to the next level would join in on the mix and not want to disrupt something that was a very much a positive with our club.

Q. Any help from your Minor League system that you feel will be a surprise in Spring Training?
KEN MACHA: Well, Andre Ethier had a great year in AA and was promoted to AAA. We saw him in Spring Training a little bit. For the most part, all of your young guys were there last year, so we're looking for, I don't know, if you look around at Ellis, relatively short amount of playing time, two years, I believe, Crosby two years now, Swisher in his second year and Dan Johnson, and then the pitching staff are real young there. So we've got a lot of young guys there. We're hoping they can continue their progress.

Q. Given the fact that three of your pitchers are still in the development stage of their big league careers and Barry, they have all given Barry a lot of credit for helping them through last year, how much is that a part of your desire to have Barry back?
KEN MACHA: I think the cohesiveness of the staff is very important. I know I'm sitting on the bench and when these guys are out pitching, I'm always counting making sure all the of the guys not pitching that day are on the bench. The togetherness of the team and the way those guys helped each other out was tremendous. I'm hoping very much that we can keep Barry.

Q. Do you think it will happen?
KEN MACHA: Do I think it will happen? We want to keep him. What are the odds? If it was up to me, 95 percent he's coming back it.
I just look at Dan Haren and I think we're going to try to encourage him to use his changeup a little more this year. He's got great stuff, the other pitches that he throws, he has a tendency to get his pitch counts up a little bit. The way Barry uses his changeup, just Dan watching the way Barry uses his changeup would be helpful for Dan.
If we can get him to get his pitch count down a little more and a little further into the game, I think some of the times as I can remember he had some games where 115, 120 pitches. And then the next game, it kind of took a toll. He's not going to admit that but he got nicked around a little bit in the next game. If we can get him to stay in a little bit over 100 to 110 and still get out of the game I think it would be helpful overall.
If we can get another right-handed bat that's a power threat in the lineup, that would be very good. Chavez, Dan Johnson, Swisher is a little better from the left-hand side, get those right-handed bats, spread everything out would be a big help.

Q. Are you still leaning towards Jason leading off?
KEN MACHA: Not necessarily. I think Ellis. I'm thinking Ellis has earned the right to go hit lead off. So where that puts everybody else in the lineup, we'll have to see.

Q. Chavez number 3?
KEN MACHA: For right now, I can't really lay out how everything would work out. Once the season started, I think he would be the 3 hitter and I think as the season went on, he was fine with being the 4 guy. I think Crosby did very well in the third position while we had him there. He was extremely hot when he first came back, there was a little bit of a dip. It was a shame, end of August, he lost a little bit.

Q. What are the chances of Nick getting more time at first base?
KEN MACHA: That will depend on what we do, if we're getting another bat. I think it's going to be important to have four bench players, four guys that are able to go in there and not sit like we did with Adam last year, he was sitting the whole season. If we can get people a little more involved, maybe we can get more production.
So see if we get a Frank Thomas, then you're looking at a number of positions where Payton, Kotsay, Swisher, Johnson, Frank Thomas, you've got five guys for six spots and you should be able to make sure everybody gets a whole lot of playing time. It's not like you have six players for three spots, and still give everybody some rest. Like Kotsay, he had gotten his rest, as compared to giving him a day off and maybe not losing him for four or five, seven days.

Q. With Eric's shoulder problems, he's talked about need to go scale back his throwing a little bit, does that -- are you going to be looking for somebody who can play a better third base, does that put a premium on a backup infielder?
KEN MACHA: I would like to have Eric's bat in the lineup as much as we can. What we're going to try to do in Spring Training is monitor him in Spring Training. He would take his groundballs every day and he would throw a certain number of days and a certain number of days he wouldn't throw at all, so we'll be relying on him to monitor that and hopefully he can handle that situation with the shoulder.

Q. When did he have surgery? Did he not have surgery?
KEN MACHA: You're asking the wrong guy. He said he didn't want to have it from what I understand. Can't make the guy have it. They think it's manageable. After all, he only missed -- what did he miss last year? Two, three, maybe three games. That's really a lot to ask out of a guy.

Q. Is he a guy who is really a better player with protection with a hot-hitting Crosby or a healthy Frank Thomas?
KEN MACHA: 2004, his discipline at the plate was terrific. He led the league in walks, I believe.
This year, got a little bit away from that. Be it protection or whatever, he's trying to do too much. He's trying to do too much, then you're having somebody behind him would probably help him out.
He said that he played 160 games, he went out there every game. One of the things I admire about Eric is just watching him from afar, he enjoyed going out there. He had fun when he went out there and played, his intensity level was always high, and he's got a great desire to win. So he's got a lot of positive things going for him. I mean, you can always look at certain parts of his game and pull it apart and be negative about it but you could probably do that with every player. For me, he had a good year.

Q. What if you guys didn't do anything from here until Spring Training, would you still like your club? Would it be a better club than last year?
KEN MACHA: Well, I think there are areas, yeah, that we'd be better. I mean, pitching, got quality going up there all the time, barring injuries. Two of those starters go to the bullpen and upgrades your bullpen, that would be solid out there. Two guys being starters, with the addition of Payton, we didn't have that in Spring Training last year coming out. Coming out of Spring Training, yeah, we're better than we were last year.

Q. What is it about Gerald Perry that made you go with him?
KEN MACHA: Well, working with Gerald, I enjoyed the year that Gerald was there with me. He has great rapport with the players, solid citizen, excellent teacher. He was with the Mariners when they won 116 games, so he knows what he's doing. He's worked with veteran guys.
One of the interesting things that I really liked about him is when he was a player with Atlanta, Willie Stargell was one of the coaches, and Willy would talk to him a lot about situations and how the pitcher is going to pitch him, what to look for and how situations differ. Hopefully Gerald will be able to bring that home.

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