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MLB WINTER MEETINGSDecember 9, 2009Cito GastonINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Q. How has your off-season been going? Has Alex kept you up to date on a lot of what's been going on? CITO GASTON: Yeah, Alex has kept me up to date on pretty much everything that's gone on and going on. I was out of the country for about ten days, which was probably a bad time to go, but I promised some people I'd do some things for them, so I went and did that. It's not like it was pleasure because it was a cruise, but it was about three days too long. Q. When you talk to Alex, does he ask for input, or he's just keeping you up to date on things? CITO GASTON: No, Alex keeps me up to date, but he asks some things, too, what do you think. Those are his words that he uses a lot, what do you think, and we go from there. No, he's been good. I know he sounds like he's battling a little bit of a cold right now. About three days ago I told him he'd better get some rest. He's the type of guy that will call you on Saturday. He's working all the time, so he's working hard trying to certainly get this club back to where we would like to see it be. Q. So what do you think? CITO GASTON: As far as him? Q. No, about how -- CITO GASTON: As far as Holliday, wow. As far as him leaving or staying? Q. The whole situation. CITO GASTON: Well, you know what, I don't know when he's going to leave, if he's going to leave. I think he's probably going to leave, but I'm just not sure when. Q. Would it be easier for you as a manager if he were traded before Spring Training? CITO GASTON: No. You know, I always like having Doc around. It's nice to have a guy around who can certainly stop a losing streak, if you have one, and I've known Doc for a long time. So you know, if he's around, good, and if he's not around, then I understand that, too. Q. If Doc is traded, is that a sign that this franchise is starting over? Assuming you'll get some good prospects, but it would hinder -- it would take a little longer, then, to get back to where you want to be, right? CITO GASTON: Well, yeah. I think that I wouldn't say starting over, but I think it just depends on who you get back for Doc. I think once we know that, you can find out what direction you might be going in. Right now it's kind of in limbo there that we don't really know possibilities, but a lot of things could happen. As far as starting over, this is my last year here as far as managing. I'll stick around another four years if they don't kick me out before then just to be an advisor. But it's going to take a while, so that's one reason I think that it's good for me to step down after next year, and maybe they can get somebody younger in there and get us back to where we used to be. Q. Is there any reservation on your part about how things are going to be? CITO GASTON: Well, I think it depends on who we get, who we get back. Is that what you're asking? Q. Well, I'm saying do you get the sense that there isn't the will to compete this year, that this is not about getting -- going out on top? CITO GASTON: No, I think we're going to go out there and do the best we can and try to compete and try to win every game that certainly we play. But you have what you have, and it depends on what we have and it depends on who stays healthy. If we can get Jesse back sometime during the season, he might step back for us and pitch, and I think that's the problem we have is our pitching staff. We're going to have a lot of young guys with Doc not being there, and I think that's a problem that we're going to have. Q. What would you like to see? I mean, you've got Romero, you've got (inaudible), a lot of young pitchers, Richmond. What would be a good -- aside from Holliday, whether he's there or not, what would be a good progression for your rotation next year? You're saying this is your final year. Where would you like to leave it? What would you a benchmark to say to say the staff has made some improvement? CITO GASTON: I think the young kids stepped up and pitched well. I think Romero pitched great last year. Of course he did not get past the season without being hurt himself. We had a lot of injuries last year. I think the other one is staying healthy. Rzepczynski, if he can come back and pitch like he did -- I mean, his record might not show how well he pitched, but if you go look at what guys hit off him, he had a great year for us as far as I'm concerned, and hopefully he's going to be part of our rotation coming up this year. And if Cecil continues to improve the way he's pitched the last part of the season that he was there with us, then that's what I'd like to see, these guys just get a little bit better, the younger guys. Q. Have you expressed to Alex at the end of the season you were talking about the corner outfield defense needing a boost, and now you don't have a catcher, and you had a change at shortstop. Has Alex indicated that he's going to be able to solve those problems before Spring Training? CITO GASTON: Well, I think so. Once again, I think it depends on what you get back. I sound like a broken record, but it's true. I think Alex is going to come here and see you guys right after I leave, but I think it just depends on who we get back and who we keep. Litsch is out; he's a free agent, too. But he did a good job down the stretch. Even as a lead off guy he did a pretty good job of getting on base and hitting some homeruns and things like that. Then we hope that Snyder comes back and plays well. So it just depends on who we get for Doc, if we get anything at all. Q. What's your impression of the change at shortstop? CITO GASTON: Well, you know what, I was talking to Dusty earlier today, and Dusty likes him a lot. He says he's a good player, plays hard, likes to play. So we can always fall back to Johnny Mac. Q. Last year at this time (Inaudible). Have you given any thought to how your lineup shakes down? CITO GASTON: I think that's going to be -- from the top, unless we get some guys back that can fill that role, then you're probably looking at Bautista there if you get back him. So once again, I mean, we really don't know which way we're going as far as players and things like that. I mean, if depends on a lot of what we get back. Scutaro is gone, did a great job for us. I got a call from him today, and he just called to thank me for everything that we did for him, but he want to thank him for everything he did for us. I wish him the best. I know you guys are asking me this questions, but I'm not sure how we're going to go as far as lead off guys. My thing I can tell you is I'd certainly like to get Hill into that third spot and perhaps get Lind in that fourth spot if we can and work on the majority of Spring Training games because I think you guys asked me a lot of times last year why didn't I move those guys, and to be honest I didn't want to mess with them that much. I wanted to get Lind comfortable hitting in the fourth spot. He has a thing about hitting in that spot. He's never had a lot of good luck in that spot, so we want to see if we can experiment with him in Spring Training and hope he can get comfortable. That's probably the only two spots I can tell you about in the lineup now. Q. Have you spoken to Vernon since the end of the season when he had minor wrist surgery affecting his performance? CITO GASTON: I don't know. I haven't spoke to him though, so I don't know. Q. Have you given Alex a wish list? CITO GASTON: A wish list? Well, I think -- wish list? Probably somebody that can give me some innings, maybe somebody back that can play the outfield or catch. But you know, you can wish for a list, but if you don't get it... Q. Given everything that happened at the end of the season, how do you approach this Spring Training? Do you talk to people? Were people upset with you, express dissatisfaction? How is that sitting? CITO GASTON: I still say in that clubhouse -- we addressed this before, but I'll do it again. I think if you take a survey you're not going to have everybody that's going to like you in that clubhouse, but I don't think there's 50 percent in that clubhouse that dislikes me. And if that is true then they'll be rid of me at the end of the season anyway. But I don't believe that. Q. In rebuilding this team and getting it back to where it can contend and win, is the first step getting the pitching in the farm system together? CITO GASTON: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it needs. I think the farm system, getting it back together, getting back to places like the Dominican and Venezuela and of course Puerto Rico, getting back into those places and getting some players out of there is going to help this organization again, too. But I think that -- it's like I said, it's going to take a little bit. Paul Beeston is back here. In the past he's been certainly able to do a great job with this club. As I said, we've got Alex here now, and Alex works hard. I go back and look at the years that we won here, it's because everybody worked hard here. Everybody was kind of a workaholic, and I think that's what I see in Alex. Q. Looking ahead to your role down the road as an advisory role, knowing you're going to be the manager and there are going to be some kids come back, how do you position yourself as a manager, especially say the back half the season, knowing what you're role is going to be ahead? CITO GASTON: Well, I think you never stop teaching, so that's part of it right now. I think my job this year is to sort of continue to teach along with manage, and certainly talk to guys about being a winner, wanting to win, and not accepting anything else but winning. I think that's part of my job as far as the season for me is to make sure these kids want to win, play hard, learn something, and continue to teach. Q. Given the way things were last July where all the trade talks kind of wore on Halladay, it kind of became a distraction, do you think it would benefit the club to have some sort of resolution before Spring Training one way or the other? CITO GASTON: You know, I know you guys have said this a lot, but I'm going to tell you, distraction talk last year, I think it affected him more than it affected anybody else, I really do. Doc is strong enough to handle it, but certainly he's doing things that he's not really used to doing every day, and that's talking to the media every day as opposed to every four days or every five days. But I don't think it put a strain on the club. Baseball is pretty much an individual game that you play as a team sport. Nobody really helps you do anything in baseball. You do it all yourself. So I don't feel like it was that distracting for our club. We just got a lot of guys hurt last year. We had some guys that didn't live up to their potential as far as playing. Q. For him then do you think it would benefit him to have it resolved -- CITO GASTON: Absolutely. Absolutely. Q. There was a shuffling of your coaching staff, and it seems to us that by the end of the season, communication with the pitching coach especially had slid. Is it important with Bruce Walton to be on that same page right from day one moving forward? CITO GASTON: Well, I think you have to be on the same page with your pitching coach and he has to be on the same page with you. I think Bruce has done a real good job. I think Ernie is going to go down to Houston and do a good job. I wish him all the best down there. But Bruce is -- they're two different kinds of people. I know Bruce is going to work hard. He knows all the guys as well as Ernie did. So just looking forward to seeing what he's going to put together as far as how he's going to get these guys to where we need to go. Q. Having Leyva as the bench coach now, how is that going to be different for you? CITO GASTON: Well, I've gotten calls when I wasn't working with coming to be the bench coach for this guy and that guy. I won't mention any names. To me I've always turned them down because I think the bench coach is someone that you've got to know and it's going to be somebody that you're close to and somebody that's your friend. So I don't think it's going to be -- I've been knowing him for a long time, he's been with me for a long time. Of course, we put Butterfield back at third base. He's a good third base coach. I felt like that was the best place for him, as opposed to having Nick on third base. He's done a great job for me in the past, too. I'd like to have him next to me. I think that's going to help. Q. With the hitting, you always said that there's three hitting coaches on your team last year, and since you took over, there's two now. CITO GASTON: Yeah. Q. Does that stream -- does that sort of make it easier to get the message through rather than three voices? CITO GASTON: I don't know. I thought we were all talking about the same thing. I hope we are. Otherwise we're going to be one and one, right? But no, I didn't see a problem with that last year. I just think that you go and look at the years that some of the guys had, like Lanny (phon.) had a great year, not that he's going to have because I think he's just going to get better, and then Aaron had a great year. The guys that didn't hit too well, you know who they are. But I don't think there's going to be a difference. Murph pretty much believes the same way as I do. I believe that's his job. You know, I will not interfere in what he wants to do, because I certainly -- when I was a hitting coach, I didn't like it coming from the manager. Q. There were some great individual seasons last year by some unexpected guys, but as a team, do you feel that the Jays under-achieved last year? CITO GASTON: Well, we started off great, and I think we did as far as scoring runs and driving in runs, even though we had a pretty good year. If you want to look at it, we still had a pretty good year. Even in that nine-game losing streak, you go back and look, I think some nights we had ten hits. When you get ten hits a ballgame, you're pretty much doing pretty good. It's just that we weren't getting hits at the right time. We'd get a hit with nobody on, bases loaded, three pop ups, ground ball, double play. We need somebody to step up and hit some clutch hits and hit in some clutch situations. Q. It seemed early in the season that with all the young starters that you had that as the innings mounted, later in the season you might end up in that situation. Will that change this year just because of that one season that they had of playing the extra month? CITO GASTON: Yeah, I think it will. I think if they stay healthy. Once again, we've got to stay healthy. Our pitching staff has not been healthy, so we need to stay healthy and those guys can give us more innings this year than they did last year. Rickie is going to probably throw a couple hundred this year if he stays healthy. A couple kids you can push them up to 175. It's just the fact of staying healthy, these kids not losing confidence, because there's going to be some times out there that they're going to get beat around still because they're still learning the league, learning how to pitch. But I can see the future from here a lot brighter for this club as far as pitching. Q. What's the rotation at this point? CITO GASTON: What's the rotation? Q. Outside of Halladay. CITO GASTON: Well, you could say a rookie. That's what you can say. That's about it. I guess because all the other guys we talk about, we don't know if they're going to be healthy. So right now if Doc leaves, if he leaves and when he leaves, we'll see. Q. Given good health, who's your setup and who is your closer? CITO GASTON: Well, I think there's something we're going to have to work out in Spring Training, I really do. I think it's still up in the air a little bit, because once again, who's healthy. Q. When you say this is your last season and it's time for a younger guy to take over, that doesn't mean, though, that you -- it's hard to give up managing. Are you looking forward to -- CITO GASTON: Well, I'll tell you it's hard to give up managing to go to coaching, but it's not hard to give it up to be an advisor. When you go back to coaching it's a little bit tougher. But as far as being an advisor, I really don't have to put on a uniform again. I might have to find somewhere to sit in Spring Training, but other than that, I've done it before. I went 11 years without managing. Plus -- Q. A number of managers going into the final year of their contract, they'll say how difficult it is to relate to the players or to motivate the players or something. How do you avoid that? I know you're here for four more years. CITO GASTON: Yeah. No, you're right. And I know that it depends on I think how you treat them. I know what you're saying. Well, he's not going to be here next year, so why do I have to listen to that stuff. But I think one thing you do is continue to teach. I know Bobby is going into his last year, and I'm pretty sure Bobby has always been a teacher, and he's going to continue to teach, and I'm going to continue to teach and hope that they get it. I've had guys leave here and come back and say, hey, Cito, I've got you. Q. Overall are you happy with your second chance as manager? Do you have any regrets that you didn't take any other jobs or try something different to get another second -- or does it do it for you as far as being a manager and feeling like you've done all that you can? CITO GASTON: Well, I think that if I could go back and do it all over again, I would probably wish that I got a job somewhere else before I came back here, or either I probably wouldn't have come back here, or I would have probably been somewhere else. I didn't have that many interviews, and just about thought I had a job down in Chicago, but they took Ozzie, and Ozzie has done a great job for them. I had an interview out in Anaheim, and I didn't go for that interview, and I think Scioscia got a ten-year contract. Maybe I missed the boat there. If I look back, maybe you might go to some of these things or take the interviews. Q. How important is it for you that you're going out on your own in terms of leaving? You're saying this is my last year, it's your decision when it stops? CITO GASTON: Well, you know what, I don't think I'd put it that way. I think going out on my own is good. In this job, it's hard to be fired anyway. It's going to be the third time, so I'm going to avoid that one, so it won't be strike three. But as far as me going out on my own, it's not that much different. I'm a pretty laid back guy, and I'm happy that I'm still going to be part of the organization. I could have said no to that. I don't really have to do that. But I still want to be part of this organization, part of the city of Toronto, which you know I love Toronto, and I'm happy being a part of this organization, so I want to stay that way. Q. Have you decided where Snyder is going to go, left field or right field? CITO GASTON: Well, Snyder to me, we can use him both, but I think I more like him in left field. Q. Are you counting the hitting coach? CITO GASTON: Yes. Q. How much progress do you think that the kid pitchers made last year, Rzepczynski and Cecil, Romero particularly? CITO GASTON: I think experience helped. Experience is always good, and it gets you -- I've said this a lot of times, I think guys play in the majors because they can deal with the pressure, and I think with those kids being out there, they went through some pressure last year, because they were fighting for a job or staying in the Big Leagues. So I think it's going to happen a lot. I think they'll come back a little bit more relaxed and hopefully even do a better job than what I did for us last year. They did do a good job in a pressure situation for us. Q. Do you like the idea of having a lefty-heavy rotation? CITO GASTON: Well, you know what, I go back and I look at Dennis Hornberg, who won his division up there in Albany. I think he had four or five starters when he won that. It's a little heavy sometimes, but who knows, make Sean Larkin will come back and help us in that role, as well. We didn't mention his name, but he's one of the guys we don't know if he's going to be healthy or not. He'd like maybe three and two, and right now it's pretty much all lefty. Q. Do you still envision Hill and Lind bumping them up to three and four? CITO GASTON: I'm going to try that in Spring Training and see if that works out for them. I don't think it's going to bother Hill too much, but I know Lind, even in high school and even in college, he's just never really hit well in the fourth spot. If that's in his head, that's it's not a good place to put him. We have to find somewhere else to put him. Q. Who is a candidate? CITO GASTON: I guess some of those guys we get back for Doc. Q. Do you see if Vernon gets back to being Vernon that he would be your five guy? CITO GASTON: Yeah, five or six, him and Overbay. Overbay is at the last year of his contract, so hopefully he comes back healthy. He had an operation last year in the off-season, but hopefully he's going to come back healthy and put up some good numbers for us. They might be four and five, I don't know, it just depends. We talked about two. Maybe I might have to put Aaron back two and put Lind back three, but we'll see. We'll experiment with it and see what we have in Spring Training, see if they're comfortable with it. Like I said, I don't think it's going to bother Aaron too much, but Lind, it's kind of in his head a little bit. That spot is not too good for him, so I don't want to leave him in that spot if he feels that way. Q. If Lind feels that way, would you think about Lind at three, Hill at four? CITO GASTON: Well, I've thought about that, too, and it would be something I would try. I just don't want to put that much heat on him either, you know, going from second all the way to fourth. He might feel like he's got to hit more homeruns than he hit last year, which would be nice if that happen. That's something to think about. Anything is possible. Q. With all the influence Doc has on the team and his work ethic, going back to Spring Training, with so many question marks, would it not be better for the team to have this done by Spring Training so people at least know what the landscape is going to be as far as you as the manager? CITO GASTON: I think it would be good for Doc and it would be good for the club. It just doesn't work that way. They got to get everything together. I know Alex wants to certainly make sure that we get something in return for Doc and make sure Doc goes where he wants to go, too. I don't hold anything against Doc. I'm a Doc fan, and I understand that he wants to go and get a ring probably as quick as A.J. did last year. I understand that, and I think he deserves to go somewhere and hopefully get that. Just not in our league. We don't want to face him. Q. If Doc does wind up gone, and you don't get a guy back that you can put into the rotation right away, does Rickie get opening day? CITO GASTON: Well, depends. I mean, it just depends. If you look and see, he's probably a candidate unless Shaun Marcum is already ready to go. If he was ready, you'd probably take him just to take some pressure off of Rickie. You've got a good point. He might be. End of FastScripts |
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