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MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 5, 2007

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

ROB MATWICK: Good afternoon. The Detroit Tigers and Florida Marlins are announcing this afternoon an eight-player trade. With me here at the dais are Tigers president and CEO and general manager, David Dombrowski, and manager, Jim Leyland. From the Marlins, president of baseball operations, Larry Beinfest, and manager, Fredi Gonzalez.
This afternoon the Tigers acquired from the Marlins the contracts of left-handed pitcher, Dontrelle Willis, and third baseman, Miguel Cabrera, in exchange for the contracts of right-handed pitchers Burke Badenhop, Eulogio De La Cruz, Dallas Trahern, left-handed pitcher Andrew Miller, catcher Mike Rabelo, and outfielder Cameron Maybin.
We'll have comments from Dave and Larry followed by your questions, and I believe there are microphones in the audience for you to ask questions if you raise your hand, please.
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Very pleased to be able to make this acquisition. Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers, and we think they are, of course, quality players and people who we think will help us a great deal in the upcoming year.
We are also in the position where we traded a lot of young talent to the Marlins organization, some players that we really have a hard time parting with. But in this situation, it's one where we are; it made sense. But also the type of guys that will play very well that are not only quality players, but quality people.
Also want to thank the Marlins in how they handled this, very professional from a trading perspective and one that I think will benefit both clubs, ours in the short term and theirs in the long run. We are thrilled and pleased to have them on board.
LARRY BEINFEST: Thank you, Dave, and I appreciate the kind words. It was a pleasure working with Dave a few years ago, we traded for Mark Redman in one day and this was a very similar situation.
Dave is obviously a very skilled, experienced GM and this came together very quickly, a rather large deal for both clubs. And congratulations. Obviously we understand what Willis and Cabrera have done for our organization going back to 2003 when they were rookies and helped carry us to a world championship. I know that the Tigers received outstanding talent today.
The reason why two great players were moved from the Marlins; our ability to carry those two players through arbitration and into free agency, is prohibitive in our current revenue structure. The realization, really this winter, back in October, we let the marketplace know that we were going to move Miguel, and we worked diligently at that. If people thought we were kicking the tires, I think we kicked the tires today sufficiently.
The inclusion of Dontrelle was not something at the outset that we had considered. The only way we would move Dontrelle in this deal, recognizing that it was inevitable that he would be moved eventually from this organization; again, because of the revenue structure, was to get market value for him. And this thing came together very quick. We recognize the market value for both players. The Tigers stepped up and we have a deal today.
As far as our new players, they fit right in with our young group. Miller we expect to be in our rotation; and Maybin our center fielder very soon or the very near future; and then the stable of young arms including Badenhop, De La Cruz and Trahern, and also Mike the catcher, who will have an opportunity to catch every day for us and be in that mix.
But the deal worked. Obviously we've been out front, the Tigers were a handful of teams that we identified that might be able to meet what we were looking for in a Cabrera deal and possibly a deal that would include both players.
Again, I thank Dave. I think this is a great deal for both teams. It satisfied our needs and we are prepared to move on.

Q. Larry or Dave, can you give us a sense of the chronology of this deal, when you first had conversations and how quickly this happened? We were led to believe as late as Monday by the Tigers and I think they were being more than candid, that nothing was going to happen; and 12 hours later, things had really turned around. Can you give us a sense for your communications during that period?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Sure. I'll start from mine and Larry can add.
I think we touched base a little bit late Monday night with Cabrera and a little bit with the Maybin and Miller's names. And at one time we had basically talked about that we were really not eager to include both of them in a deal. I don't really remember specifically, Mike Hill and Al spoke quite a bit, and talked about the potential if Dontrelle was involved. I don't know if they mentioned it or we mentioned it.
Then the next morning after some of our people had visited, Larry called me yesterday morning and basically proposed these six names for Cabrera and Willis. So took some time to get back to him. We had a general managers meeting and we were tied up for a couple of hours, went back, talked about it amongst ourselves, called Larry at four or five o'clock and told him we had a deal and he would agree to and he needed to get back to me and do some checking on his end.
Of course, once we agreed upon it later on, we also had to exchange medical information, which becomes very difficult; Doctors traveling yesterday, trainers travelling and people having their files in different places.
So that was really the delay more so, and today making sure we exchanged that medical information.
LARRY BEINFEST: Same story. (Laughter.)

Q. Why did you guys get into it late? Why Monday and not a month ago or three weeks ago?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Well, that's a good question. Basically when we ended up making the moves, signing Todd Jones and Kenny Rogers and getting Jacque Jones in the trade and Edgar earlier, we had basically thought we were pretty well set, and we really had thought we were going to be finished with our moves.
I was watching closely what was taking place. We've always loved Miguel Cabrera, and Dontrelle, but we were watching closely the rumors that we were hearing about Miguel. Didn't look like it was happening.
I'll say last week, before Thanksgiving, Tuesday before I left, Mike Ilitch called me at home and he said, you know, I'm reading about Miguel Cabrera's name out there; any interest on our part. I said, well, yeah, we have some interest. You know, that's the type of guy that really, if there's something you can do, maybe we push our situation and see if we can make it work.
So I said, well, keep abreast of it, just try to figure some things out. And then when we came here, they were not able to consummate a deal with other clubs for whatever reason; and then we went into our meeting Monday morning when everybody was here, we basically put our heads together and basically said, "Let's be open-minded to get our club better if we felt we could." That's how it proceeded from our perspective to try to get everything done.
Not to say that we didn't have interest, but Mike Ilitch calling and saying, "Why don't you see if you can be open-minded to that, if there's something we can work out," kind of inched it along a little bit.

Q. What factor did your club's ability to potentially extend these guys beyond 2009 play into the decision to make a deal?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Well, it does. Marlins wouldn't let us speak to them; they were being tough. But I understood from their perspective. It was one of those -- and their perspective is you have them for two years, so it's up to you to able to do that.
We'll of course be open-minded to those potential for the future.
LARRY BEINFEST: Based on what I was reading, they were tough on a lot of people, comments on the asking price. A little comment on that, Miguel Cabrera is a unique player, 24 years old, over 100 home runs, 500 RBIs. I think you can ask for anything you want and legitimately ask for it. If teams didn't like that, fine, but to talk about it publically I think is unprofessional and unnecessary.
We do this every day for a living. We don't always see eye-to-eye on talent or value, and you move on as a business decision. But to talk about it publically I thought was a little bit off-base. And absolutely we were asking for a lot more Miguel Cabrera; I think Dave recognized that, the Tigers did, and we are here today because we felt we got value for him.
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Sometimes when you're in these situations, and in the back of your mind and until you get to one place and you get people together, you can never tell what happens. You're usually much better off keeping things quietly to yourself rather than throwing things out there, because sometimes you can get things done better along those lines.

Q. How difficult was it to trade away Maybin, and how many teams do you think you've rebuffed the last year or so, and was this a situation where you were only going to give him up if both Cabrera and Willis were in the deal?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Well, as a situation, we've had so many club ask about him over a time period, I could not even give you the number. Anybody can talk to you about any deal, they start with Maybin and Miller.
We have basically told everybody we are were not going to trade them. We asked about some other players during these meetings on Monday. Their names came up on a regular basis wherever we went. And the only reason that we determined that we would give them both up in this type of deal was because we were getting a hitter and a pitcher, and because we were getting young players that we think will hopefully be with us for an extended period.
So that's really what changed our mind. Short of that, we would not have traded both of them, and we didn't want to trade either one of them, really, is what it came down to.

Q. Since you brought it up, to get a little more specific, it was suggested that there's at least one team out there who thought they had a deal done and then had it change on them. What was your view of that?
LARRY BEINFEST: There were no deals. I think our track record has been that we deal straight up. We know what we want, and if there's a deal to be made, it will be consummated, there will be a letter agreement in writing and then you move ahead; obviously the same program that Dave and I did with the medicals and finalizing the deal with ownership approval.
I can't tell you exactly what other teams' final deals were. We knew what our bottom line was. We were prepared to go to Plan B if we were not getting our asking price for Miguel, and we'll leave it at that. Again, there's never a deal until there's a deal, and it took us almost 24 hours from the deal that actually happened to getting done, because there are some moving parts. But in that situation, there were no deals, and I've always taken the tack that there's not a deal until there's a deal on both sides.

Q. What was Plan B?
LARRY BEINFEST: Plan B is a secret. (Laughter.)

Q. Was this the hardest deal you've had to make because of the magnitude of the talent involved?
LARRY BEINFEST: You know, this is a business, and I'm a fan and I love the game, and you can become emotional at times.
I would say that you know Derek Lee, after the world championship was difficult. Obviously Juan Pierre, what he did for our organization; Josh Beckett speaks for himself, Mike Lowell. It is a function of our situation and it is a business and we have to do the best we can with what we have in our situation.
This one was a little bit tougher in that -- and usually I don't talk about myself, but Dontrelle Willis did a lot for my career. He was our first trade. To land a Dontrelle Willis in your very first trade as a GM in 2002; doesn't get any better than that. That's probably something that I hope to live up to, maybe Maybin and Miller will help with that. But very emotional.
Dontrelle is a very special young man, special to me, the ultimate competitor, a lot of fun to watch. I grew up in this game with the Seattle Mariners, and every time Davey Johnson pitched, there was that special excitement, and I always felt the same way when Dontrelle was on the mound.
This wasn't just about the quality of players, but this one digs a little deeper because of who they were. And we were there on June 20th, 2003 when he hit a walk-off home run in the first game he brought him up, and you just don't forget things like that.
Yes, it's a business and there's a lot of money involved, a lot at stake, but there is a special side to this one and this one is personal for me.

Q. What about Cabrera, what does he do for your lineup and where is he going to hit?
JIM LEYLAND: Well, I'm not really sure yet. I looked at a lot of lineups last night with a friend of mine, and, obviously it's not a tough lineup to find a place for him or anybody else. But I think that you just have to wait and see.
I have spoken with Miguel. We certainly haven't talked about anything like that but we had a pretty good lineup last year. We led the league in runs scored and we didn't win anything.
I think that I'll think about it. Obviously it's going to be three, four, five, but at this particular time, I'm not exactly sure. Although our scouts up in the room when the deal was made, we had a blackboard there, and I said: All you experts put your lineup now, because I know you're going to second guess me when I make up mine. So I've given all our guys the opportunity. I've seen one so far that looked pretty good. But he's obviously going to be in the three, four, five.

Q. Did you talk to Dontrelle and Miguel personally today?
LARRY BEINFEST: Yes.

Q. What were those conversations like?
LARRY BEINFEST: They were great. I threatened Miguel like I always do. I told him I was going to come to Detroit and get aggressive with him (chuckling). Just kidding. We have a very good relationship.
Dontrelle, I barely got in a word. Dontrelle got excited; and thank you for the opportunity and effervescent Dontrelle. And both Mike Hill and Fredi, also spoke with both of them, and I'm sure Jeffrey will get to them. But they are who they are. They are great young men, they are great players, and we will miss them and they will forever be in our history because of what they did, and hopefully they will make a lot of history in Detroit.

Q. You've mentioned a couple of times the situation, and understanding that you're not the owner and you're not responsible for a new ballpark, but after each of the new championships, the Marlins have stripped down and rebuilt successfully. With the money that the Marlins get from Major League Baseball, to what do you tell the fans who say, why can't we keep the players; and is this just a cycle, every five years you rebuilt?
LARRY BEINFEST: It's probably not a great question for me to take. Obviously I help run the personnel on the baseball side and work within the payroll and that's really where it begins and ends. We need to try to keep this team as competitive as possible. We need to cultivate and nurture young players. We need to be right on it with making trades. Our tolerance for error is very small.
As far as revenue sharing and stadiums and things like that, that's really out of my area of responsibility. I deal with what we know, which is what our owner obviously provides to us. He wants to win. He understands the situation. He's extremely supportive. This is very difficult for him today. But we do the best we can with the situation we're in.

Q. You both have experience in Florida where when you were there, the team was in a selling mode and you moved on to bigger successes, different successes in the new market, and now you're trading with Florida as they do it again, and now you're in a taking mode from the team. Do you have any thoughts of irony or any of those thoughts enter into this when this whole transaction came together?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: I did have some flashbacks to those time periods. I've been in Larry's spot and it's one where I give these guys credit, because they really do their homework and they ask for good players. And that's part of their success of when you have an organization like that, that doesn't have a big payroll. You have to have good player development and scouting. They have it, and I felt that we had it at the time and that's what kept us competitive.
Personally I'd rather be in our position at this time. But I've been in their spot, and I feel he can do the best job he possibly can. And that's what we are doing. I remember at the time after the '97 team when we broke it up, you feel sorry for yourself and all of those different emotions come in; for me those are my emotions: Feel sorry, was angry, upset, why me, all those things, woe is me. And all of the sudden you say, okay, you've got a couple choices. Either you leave, or you do the best job you can and build the organization for the future.
And it's apparent that's how these guys do it, and you tip your cap to them, and they go about it working their tail off and do a good job. And believe me, the type of talent they have, they will have a very good club in the future.
JIM LEYLAND: I think one of the biggest things that people tend to forget is that in the last ten years, the New York Yankee, the Boston Red Sox and the Florida Marlins are the only three teams that have multiple World Series Championships.

Q. You've obviously got two third basemen, at least on the surface; are there position options where you could retain both players?
JIM LEYLAND: Well, I think right now, this has popped up so fast and it's been so mind-boggling. I think as Larry said, you know, the last 24 hours -- this thing took 24 hours after we negotiated a trade, and it's almost like, you know, walking by the Christmas tree four days before Christmas with all the presents there but you can't unwrap them.
So it's been mind-boggling or everybody. We've been locked up in rooms, real afraid to go anywhere. Didn't want to comment on them and didn't want to say something that wouldn't be proper.
So I think we're trying to digest it and move on and try to digest all that stuff. Right now this has been so important. It came so fast and is such a dynamic deal really for both teams that I think when we leave this press conference, we'll probably go up to our room and continue to see which the is best way to go for the Detroit Tigers.

Q. What do you think, Dave?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: Same. (Laughter.)
What we're going to do, because even though we agreed to this deal yesterday, it's not a deal until you finally say, okay, and so you really, we haven't left our room basically. I got up early this morning because I just woke up early. And there were a things on my mind and went for a jog -- and I didn't see any of you guys, by the way at about 6:30 out there. But other than that, I haven't left my room.
And really as other clubs call us and they hear things about this and talk to us, we've basically been on hold because we haven't talk to anybody about anything until this is official. So we've just been sitting there waiting, and we'll regroup ourselves and see where it takes us.

Q. The last couple of years, Dontrelle's performance has been less consistent than previously. You mentioned medical records; did doctors actually examine him last night, and what assurances do you have that he's 100% sound?
DAVID DOMBROWSKI: We didn't examine him. He's in México so we didn't physically examine him. Our doctors looked at medical records, and we saw him pitch at the end of the season and we feel that he's healthy.
ROB MATWICK: Thank you, everyone.

End of FastScripts

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