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MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 9, 2009

John Russell

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

Q. How confident are you that someone can emerge to take the back-end spots in the rotation pretty quickly this year, or will be it a situation that you have to watch all year to see who takes the four and five?
JOHN RUSSELL: I think it's going to solidify itself rather quickly as far as the rotation goes.
Now, saying that, I don't know that somebody puts a strangle hold on it all year because it's nice to know we are in a position now. We have some guys coming with Lincoln. McCutchen is a candidate, you know, Hart.
We have pieces now to where I think it's going to solidify itself rather quickly early in the season. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to stay that way. You've got to go out and pitch and maintain, because we do have options now which we have not had as much in the past.
We feel good about those options, so we are looking to solidify our rotation soon, in spring training, hopefully early, and then move on from there.
But that being said, it's a position that we do have some depth in now.

Q. Would the first four positions in your rotation be set with Ohlendorf, Maholm, Duke, and Morton?
JOHN RUSSELL: Absolutely. Duke, obviously, and Paul. I think with what Ross did last year puts him in there. Charlie we are very excited about. So, yeah, I think you can say that pretty good ink on most of them, and some strong pencil on the other ones with Charlie and Ross.
But, again, we are not just going to give it to them. They still are going to have to come out and compete. And the reason we are saying that, just like we said last year is we do have some other options.

Q. At this point, how many other options? How many candidates are there for the rotation?
JOHN RUSSELL: Kevin Hart. We have Daniel McCutchen. Brad Lincoln we don't feel is very far away. Whether he's ready for spring training after spring training we'll see, but that gives us another option.
We have some guys in AAA that have come on last year that pitched pretty well and there's a group behind that that I don't think is going to be quite ready this year, but we are very excited about some of the young pitching we have got in the draft the last couple of years, and the trades.
But I would think McCutchen and Hart right now would be the leading candidates for the fifth spot.

Q. Do you see Jones as a 3-hitter?
JOHN RUSSELL: We'll see. He did pretty good last year. You know, the biggest thing about Garrett, what I think hurt him, is when Doumit was struggling and we didn't have anybody behind him per se, so he got pitched around a lot.
They started not really giving him a whole lot to hit, and I think that affected him a little bit and he made some adjustments.
This year we have got a little bit more luxury in our lineup. Garrett has the ability to hit third. Ideal world, I think he would be pretty good in the 5-, 6-hole. But that's yet to be seen. Pedro gets here at some point, Tabata gets here at some point. You have Clement in the lineup; you have Jones in the lineup; you have got McCutchen, it's starting to look pretty potent.
But the beauty with Garrett is not only you can be flexible where you put him, but you can be flexible with his speed.

Q. The Minor Leagues is that a big difference from last year to this year, with all of the trades and everything.
JOHN RUSSELL: I think it's grown in the last two years. You look at where we are now compared to when we started this whole process two years ago, our Minor League system has turned over tremendously. We were ranked somewhere like 28th or 29th in America as far as talent, and we moved up to 16th and now we are going to be anywhere from 6 to 12 or 13.
So right there we are adding depth and a lot of that depth is pitching. I think Greg Smith did a great job last year in the amateur draft, and we signed a lot of talented high school pitchers that no one expected to sign. We got some pitchers before through trades. A lot of talent and we are very excited.

Q. In finally getting the Pirates in the right direction, obviously player development and pitching most of all, is the first foundation block to getting things going the right way?
JOHN RUSSELL: Everybody needs pitching. You have to pitch. Pitching and defense has been one of our things we have emphasized a lot with our organization, not only in Pittsburgh, about but throughout. That we are going to be a fundamental team and play the game hard. I think we were starting to show signs of being a very good defensive club last year.
Our pitching is really starting to come along. Our emphasis now is to be offensive a little bit, and I think we are adding some good pieces.

Q. Is McCutchen still your lead-off guy?
JOHN RUSSELL: Yeah, we know options. I know Aki is an option to lead off. He's got speed and on-base percentage. McCutchen has some power traits that make him a little more attractive maybe moving him down, but he did a pretty good job in the lead-off spot.
Having both of those guys at the top of the order could create some excitement, but not ruling out that he could hit third at some point. This kid has only spent three months in the Big Leagues, a little more maybe. Okay, now, I think we might let him get his feet wet longer before we make some bold moves.

Q. He handled himself well...
JOHN RUSSELL: He did. We knew he was a dynamic player. I think everybody who saw him when he got drafted knew he was going to be a dynamic player, and I thought we could have probably kept him out of spring training. I think him going down and really polishing up some things we wanted him to, better routes in the outfield, using the whole field when you're hitting, I think it really focused him, and I think when he came up he really hit the ground running.
If he started the season there, he wouldn't have been the same guy. He's a special athlete. Not saying he couldn't do it, but when he came up he was really ready and in a position not to go with.

Q. With where your roster is, and it's going to keep changing, what kind of expectations do you have for wins and losses? Obviously nobody wants to lose 99 games.
JOHN RUSSELL: No.

Q. But do you see what I'm saying? It's a tough thing, necessarily, to peg a number on.
JOHN RUSSELL: It is. All I'm saying is we are not satisfied with last year. We are not satisfied with the year before. We need to win more games, and that's the emphasis we are going to put on our players, just like we did last year.
We need to win more games. The max exodus is over. We are not going to move a ton of people; the acquisition of talent, we feel like we have done a very good job of that. I wouldn't say it's completely over, because we are still going to obviously look for good baseball trades from now until as long as we are with Pittsburgh.
So for the most part, we feel like we have the group we are going to move forward with, and we expect these guys to win more games. That's going to be more of the emphasis we put on the players, that we need to step up not only as staff but as players and become a good team, not just individually.

Q. How do you balance winning more games and teaching young kids to play the game without putting too much expectation on them?
JOHN RUSSELL: I think they are going to have to handle it. You know, it's time. We are in the Major Leagues. So they is always going to be teaching going on from our staff. There's always going to be learning. But it's time. We are in the Major Leagues, and I think these guys got a taste of it.
Now is the time to start gelling that winning atmosphere as a team, and that's one of the things we are going to emphasize.

Q. Does Clement go into spring training having to play his way in or out of the job?
JOHN RUSSELL: We got reports he did a nice job in Indianapolis, so he is going to have to come in in good shape, just like we expect everybody, and see where we go. Having Garrett gives us options. But we would like for Jeff Clement to come in and put a stranglehold on that position at first to where at least he gives us an option every day, and he's got a chance to make that happen.
He has to come in and not necessarily hit .400 in spring training, but show us that he's ready to go.

Q. Of what you saw of Milledge and the work ethic he showed and the improvement he made, is he the kind of guy that could bust out this season?
JOHN RUSSELL: Yeah, I think you saw it the last month of the season. He started to do some things that people read about, people envisioned when he came out of draft and when he was in New York. I think we started to see some of that.
And he started to do some things that put him kind of on the radar map with some people. I do believe he's going to continue to get better. He's working really hard this winter and losing weight. He's getting more agile. I think we are going to see a very good player, and he's very committed to it.
I've talked to him a few times during the break, and he's very committed to the off-season and going into the season. I think we saw glimpses of it, especially lately, but I think we are going to see a lot more of him.

Q. Do you think the industry as a whole is valuing defense differently than it did a couple of years ago?
JOHN RUSSELL: I don't think so. I think you look at baseball for generations, pitching and defense has always been a key, that you're going to win a lot of games because of that.
Offensive clubs, yeah, you're going to win, but you have to be able to shut the other club down. 162-game schedule and going into the playoffs, teams that pitch are usually the teams that win. Teams that catch the ball are usually teams that win. You add some offense, the Yankees, for example, you have a pretty dominant club if you can do both.
It's been a pretty big emphasis of ours, and we are going to continue to make that one of our mainstays, is to pitch and play defense and continue to try to bolster our offense each year.

Q. You guys have kind of taken a special emphasis on infield before games, which had become in some ways not a fashion practice. Do you feel that it's possible to kind of close the competitive gap quickly through improved defense, or is it more about arms than it is about the gloves behind that?
JOHN RUSSELL: I think they work together. We had a lot of ground ball pitchers and we don't have a lot of strikeout pitchers, but we caught groundballs. It keeps our pitches in games.
Our pitchers hit the ball on the ground, we have to catch it and make the out. I think that was a big thing we did last year. It is. It's always going to be a big emphasis for us. We are going to make sure that our defense plays well and we do do a lot of work every day.
It's not the same guy every day, but we do a lot of work at home to make sure we maintain.

Q. How big in your defense are our outfield alignments?
JOHN RUSSELL: I don't think we reinvented the wheel. A lot of guys use charts. Gary has the basic blueprint, and he's very good about moving guys as the count goes. He talks with Joe and myself during that process of how we are pitching a guy, what we see, and it helps him make his determination.
But, yeah, I do think the way he positions some of our guys, he should be having a lot of credit for that. It really did help us especially in our ballpark, that was big for us.

Q. Outside of getting some bullpen help this off-season, are there any other priorities or areas of need that you see?
JOHN RUSSELL: Players, good players, I mean, just like our trades. There's priorities. I wouldn't say we have to prioritize. I think I said a few times that we need some help in the bullpen.
You know, we are pretty happy with a lot of the things that we have got. We got Andrew, Garrett Jones, Tabata and Alvarez are coming. LaRoche turned himself into a pretty good player. We feel like Cedeno has the tools to be a very good shortstop. Doumit, if he's healthy this year.
Our starting rotation, we've got three guys that are going to give us close to 200 innings, probably four. That's a pretty good list right there.
Now, we need to score more runs. We didn't score last year. Still going to look and see what's available. Right now, obviously bullpen, and some left-handed help in the bullpen would be nice.

Q. I want to ask you about one of the players that is in your system, by the name of Gift Ngoepe, the kid from South Africa. How long do you think it will take for that kid to get to the majors?
JOHN RUSSELL: I don't know, I read the story, unbelievable story, and it was great. I talked to Pat Haggerty our clubhouse and guy that runs our facility in Bradenton just loves him. Very touching story.
But from what I hear and what they told me, he has some talent and has some skills. You know, we'll see. You put a time frame on it, I couldn't tell you honestly what the time frame would be. He does have some skills and it's a great story.

Q. Do you think that story is motivating your scouts into thinking about maybe putting some kind of farm system that will give the guys more leverage when you get into Winter Meetings like the one that we are witnessing today?
JOHN RUSSELL: We are always looking. They built our new Dominican academy, which was opened this past summer. We are always trying to expand into the international market, so we are going to do whatever we can.
I think it's shown with the two Indian pitchers that we got and then him that we are trying to reach out and find players where most people don't look, but also in the players everybody looks.

Q. Do you let your mind wander to what it might be like in the second half of next year with Alvarez and Tejada being up there, or do you look at April?
JOHN RUSSELL: No, I've gotten to where it was fun to dream, because we couldn't do that before. Kind of what we had is what we had. In the last year and a half, now two years, we can kind of look and be excited about the future.
It's also nice to see what we have on paper now; that we are happy and excited about that. So I get to do it both ways now. Walk into spring training and say, This is pretty good. But I can also look at our depth chart and say, This is going to be pretty good when these guys are ready to go, because we know how talented we are.

Q. Your pitching staff, you'll have four starters that can throw 200 innings; is there one common thread that you would like to see that would measure progress for those guys?
JOHN RUSSELL: Consistency. Like Zach last year. Zach was very consistent start to start to start. Paul showed flashes of it, not as good as the year before; Charlie, to be more consistent probably like he was his last four to five starts.
So I think that's the biggest thing Joe and I have talked about is the consistency. I think we have got the mechanics. We have got Joe's new pitch plan incorporated now. The next step, let's go be consistent and win.

Q. What's the pitch plan?
JOHN RUSSELL: What they have done, just how to evaluate a scheme, how to pitch to a team, how to make adjustments, things they incorporated last year. So they have that. It will be easier for them this year to hit the ground running.

Q. Can Hanrahan close for you?
JOHN RUSSELL: Could he? Sure, why not.
Matt's our closer. People kept saying, We are not going to have Matt. But it's Matt's job to lose. Matt and I have talked; he understands the situation. He's got to go do his job. I think if anybody talked to him, he would be straight up and honest that he had a bad year and he expects to do better this year.
He also recognizes, and him and I again have talked about that we do have Hanrahan. Meek has great stuff. Depends what else we do. We have options.
But going into spring training and going into the beginning of the season, it's Matt's job to lose.

Q. Does Cedeno need to be pushed or nudged along? No secret you are looking at shortstops out there.
JOHN RUSSELL: Yeah, I think anybody needs to be pushed a little bit here and there. Ronny, great athlete, great tools. He showed people in Pittsburgh he can play short. He makes great plays. He can drive a ball and can do some very fun things. Then sometimes, you'll go, What was that?
I think even though he's played a while, I still don't think he's a veteran player. So I think he falls into that mental lapse, concentration lapse on the field, and we just need to get him more concentrated and focused.
It's a plus having Carlos. He'll be able to relate to Ronny very well. I think that will keep him hooked up a little bit. Because when he's focused, he's a pretty strong player.

Q. What do you know, even from afar, about Bobby Crosby?
JOHN RUSSELL: I have been following him since 2002. Worked hard, Rookie of the Year. What I remember, very good tools, strong, athletic; but I haven't really seen him up close in a while. That's what I remember of him.

Q. How exciting would it be, you talk about dreaming a little bit here, just to really turn the franchise around after 17 tough years? When you talk to fans, why and how should they believe you that this is going to be the time that it's going to go?
JOHN RUSSELL: I think the people that have watched us -- when we do things around Pittsburgh, they see it. You know, the diehard Pittsburgh fans -- and it's tough to be a diehard Pittsburgh fan sometimes. It's been a long time.
I think they see the direction we are headed and are very encouraged by it. They like to watch the team play, but not the wins and losses obviously. A lot of compliments on McCutchen, Garrett, Maholm, Duke, Morton. The way we battle and hustle, it's a different kind of game.
You hear those things. Now, the next step is to win. I think they have seen the talent level increase, and I think people see that winning will follow. When you start getting some talented players, you're going to win more games.
That's why we are excited about it because we have more talent, and more talent at the Major League level and more talent coming.

Q. Realizing that it's just one start, but what Morton did the last Friday of the season in Chicago, especially after what happened the last time he had pitched there, how much will that do for confidence going into the winter and spring?
JOHN RUSSELL: I think the last three or four or five starts for Charlie, it built to that last start. He started to throw the ball better and it all came together for him.
The thing about Charlie, a little inconsistent early. But you take away that one start in Chicago, he had a sub 40 ERA in 15 starts or whatever it was. You can't erase that start, because that was a pretty bad start giving up that many runs that quick. So you can't erase that.
But you look at the overall product or overall what he did, it wasn't -- for a guy to come up and work his way up through the organization, it was pretty good.
But I think those last few starts he had, especially the last one, it all kind of built to that spot. Good feeling to have going into the off-season. I saw him in Bradenton last week and he was very excited, good shape and he is ready to get going. Think he's going to be a big part of our team.

Q. Moss regretted that opportunity last year in right field; what does he have this year going in? Is he at this point fighting to stay in Pittsburgh, or is the opportunity still there?
JOHN RUSSELL: He has to play better, bottom line. He knows it. I talked to him and basically we are going to give him a lot of opportunity and you have to take advantage of it at some point. He realizes that.
How many opportunities is he going to get? I don't know. But he's here. As long as he's with the Pirates and he comes to spring training, he'll have a chance, of course. But now, it's what we tell all of the guys: There's guys knocking on the door. So if you don't perform, somebody is going to take your job pretty soon.
Again, that's a good position for us as an organization to be in. Brandon, unfortunately, he's got some guys pushing him right now. So we'll see where it goes, and hopefully Brandon takes advantage of it. It would really help us. But if it doesn't, there's not going to be too many opportunities left for him.

Q. Could the planets align in any way that Tabata could make the team out of spring training?
JOHN RUSSELL: What he did in the Fall League I think helped get him in a better position. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see.
You know, he makes the club, you got McCutchen, Jones. If he's the best player, we'll see. But he still has some things he needs to work on. I watched him in the fall; he was good. But there was still some things that we saw, or I saw.
It's not that he won't make any mistakes in the Major League level. It's just things that he did, a little more polish. He didn't spend that much time in AAA.
So we'll see. We'll see how he does in spring training. Could the planets align just right? Yeah. About once every 10,000 years it happens. No, seriously, he has a chance.

Q. He's still only about 22.
JOHN RUSSELL: Yeah, he's pretty good.

Q. What would convince you as manager, from what you saw of Garrett Jones at the plate, that he wasn't a fluke?
JOHN RUSSELL: The biggest thing is the power. Those are the things you always see. We saw in spring training. But as the league started to adjust to Garrett, he started to adjust to the League. He just didn't -- you know, I can't figure this out. They are doing this to me. He can't make adjustments.
He started to make adjustments back, just like Andrew did. Andrew was swinging the bat well, and next thing you know, every at-bat he saw six sliders, just one after the other. And Garrett, fastballs up underneath his hands and bouncing breaking balls. That's all he started to do. And both of them struggled for a little bit.
But Garrett, he started to make the adjustment as the league adjusted to him, and he'll continue to do that. To see a young hitter, even though Garrett is 28 years old, to see a guy at his first extended go in the Major Leagues to be able to adjust, that's a pretty good sign. Not too many guys can do that, that quickly.

Q. Kind of giving Andy a little time at second in spring training just to...
JOHN RUSSELL: Probably. We started him in the instructional league. I watched him down there. He can do it. He's going to have to work at it.
He gives us more options. Aki has played third. Not that we would switch, because Aki would probably be a better second baseman at this point.
But we will probably move him around. Not a ton. Introduce him to the position some more so he feels comfortable. If something happened where we had to do something during the game, there's an option for us. But primary emphasis this season, he will be third baseman. We will not distract him from third base.
There will be some work there to make sure we are not just throwing him to the wolves. If something unforeseen happened, we would move him again.

Q. Will Walker be moved around, being so versatile?
JOHN RUSSELL: He has a long way to go to make an impact at the Major League level right now. He's got to do some things. He went to winter ball, which was a good thing for him. He has a lot of things to still accomplish before we talk about the importance of -- he has to hit better at AAA, and he has to get stronger and he has to do some things to mature into a Major League player.

Q. (Indiscernible.)
JOHN RUSSELL: Heard very good things, but have not talked to him or seen him yet. Tampa Bay really liked him. Works hard and wants to be out there every day, so we are excited to have him very much.

Q. Could he play third base?
JOHN RUSSELL: He's our second baseman. He's going to play second. Now, we know he can play third, so if we had to put him there for a day or something, we will look into it. But we traded for him to be our second baseman, and we are very excited about it.

Q. Will you be giving Ryan a few more starts, other than catcher?
JOHN RUSSELL: We will look at it. We talked about it last year, and I think it's something that we will continue to look at. We will see. We will see.

Q. Off-topic a little bit, what's your pet peeve? What drives you crazy in the clubhouse?
JOHN RUSSELL: In the clubhouse?

Q. Or out of the clubhouse, either way.
JOHN RUSSELL: Sloppy. Just not paying attention. That's one of my biggest pet peeves. I've always been a stickler on doing it right, playing the game right. That's the way I was taught. Just not be ready to go on a daily basis. Not being prepared for the day. That's a pet peeve.
So if I see the player is not prepared, that's a big pet peeve of mine.

Q. Do you mean sloppy in terms of physical appearance not ready to go, or sloppy in terms of mental preparation?
JOHN RUSSELL: Everything. Because when it's sloppy, you see it all; they don't look good; they don't play good; they don't prepare good. So that's a pet peeve of mine.

Q. Look sharp, be sharp.
JOHN RUSSELL: I don't know.

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