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MLB WORLD SERIES: RANGERS v GIANTS

November 1, 2010

Jon Daniels

ARLINGTON, TEXAS: Game Five

Q. In pre-series meetings, was there ever any discussion given to the thought of pitching Lee on three days' rest?
JON DANIELS: We talked about it, pros and cons. Really I think the first time was before the post-season began, really, and I think we decided if we could avoid it we'd like to. Because it's not just one start, it's the starts after that, other guys that may have to pitch on three days' rest, otherwise you may be taking a start away from a guy that you would to pitch. So we decided unless a certain circumstance came about we were probably going to try to avoid it.
I'm glad we did. I'm not sure how many runs he was going to score off of Bumgarner last night.

Q. Given the extraordinary level of play your club attained during the LCS in particular, are you surprised a bit by what's gone on here?
JON DANIELS: No, San Francisco is very good. They're talented, and they're executing at an extremely high level right now. They're playing very well, which isn't a surprise. It's the World Series. They ran through the National League. So no, I'm not surprised. We're facing some very, very tough pitching and a very hot club.

Q. Could you just discuss the decision on Nippert and why him versus some of the other candidates.
JON DANIELS: It really came down to for the last spot this round on the club we were debating between Lowe and Nippert, so it was kind of an easy decision from that standpoint. He was the next guy. He's pitched well for us all season. He's a guy the staff is comfortable going to.

Q. I know it's nice to have the World Series extending your season, but what impact is that having on your guys' off-season planning? And as you look into it, what do you consider your top priorities going into the off-season?
JON DANIELS: Well, obviously it's new for us, this schedule. I'd welcome having the challenge of a month shorter off-season any time. A lot of the meetings we would have had at this time in previous years we still have to have, so we'll squeeze it into a shorter time period. It's an additional challenge with the new timing of free agency. But we'll figure it out. I'm not too worried about that.
And I think as far as the club is concerned, obviously first things first, we'll address our own free agents as most clubs will, first priority being Wash, and I don't think that'll be an issue whatsoever. I would imagine once it's all said and done, we will sit down and resolve that pretty quickly, and there's no doubt in anybody's mind that he'll be the skipper here for some time to come.
And then obviously we've got a few notable free agents on our club - Cliff, Vlad, Bengie, Frankie, a few other guys, Matt and Cantu, so we've got to sit down and address those guys. I think in general the core of the club is going to be here for some time. I think we've accomplished certain goals, but there's definitely some areas we can do better. I mean, the way I look at it is the previous two years Anaheim won 197 games and we won the division this year with 90. I think we're going to have to be better to win the division next year, better than we were this year. So there's certainly a challenge there.
A lot of our upper-level better young players have either graduated to the Big Leagues, so I think that next wave coming behind them, there's a few guys at the upper levels, but that next wave is a little bit younger.
So I think some of the internal improvement will come from full years from guys like Ogando and Moreland and Hunter and some of these other guys that played a good role for us this year but weren't here the whole year. And then obviously we'll sit down and look at other opportunities to get better.

Q. Is Mark Lowe not quite what you thought he would be when you decided to put him on the World Series roster based on what you're seeing on the mound?
JON DANIELS: Lowe is another guy that we'll have a full healthy year of next year that we didn't have this year, so another internal improvement. To be honest, we didn't know what to expect 100 percent, and we sat down and we said, if he's 100 percent healthy and if he's locked in and ready to go, he could really give us a shot in the arm. I think he is 100 percent healthy. We knew the risk, that he hadn't pitched the majority of the season, and obviously he could be sharp, he might not be. In those two outings he probably wasn't as sharp as he is normally when he's locked in and ready to go. And that was the risk. We basically took him -- we looked at it as like the last week of Spring Training, and it was a little bit of a roll of the dice to try to get a guy who's got 40 career holds, and I think some people look at his closer-type stuff. He didn't pitch as well as he's capable of, but it didn't cost us a ballgame.

Q. Another off-season question: This may be a little premature, but what is your current thinking on Feliz with the starting rotation given how well he's pitched down the stretch in the playoffs? And will the status of Lee have any effect on it?
JON DANIELS: Well, I think we looked at Feliz when he was coming up as a guy who just had a special arm, a special talent, and did everything exceptionally easy. Probably the two questions were can he close and can he start. You knew that somewhere that arm is going to play. In some role it's going to play, but can he close and can he start were the two questions. I think we've definitively answered one of them. There's no doubt in anybody's mind he can close. We're don't know whether he can start and I don't know that we're going to find out. We've talked about it at some point that we might. We're not going to close that door, but we're also not going to speculate on it any more than is necessary.
He's our closer. I would expect he'll be our closer. Some guys at different points in their career go into the rotation, like C.J. did for us, like the Dempsters and Lowes of the world and Kenny Rogers. A million other guys have done it. So I would never close that door, but I'm expecting him to be our closer.

Q. Guerrero has had a rough post-season. Do you think that'll play into you guys' -- how much will that play into your decision that you have to make here at some point in the next week?
JON DANIELS: He's got a pretty big body of work that we can evaluate. For me he's clearly a first-ballot Hall of Famer, has had an outstanding career. There were some that doubted him coming off last year. I think he's proved some of those people wrong, had a very good year for us. And obviously we'll look at it all in context, but we're not going to evaluate him on the two weeks of games when he's had, whatever it is, a 10, 15-year career of excellent performance.

Q. Mitch Moreland has obviously done an excellent job down the stretch. Does he in your mind come to Spring Training as a starter? How do you look at his progress?
JON DANIELS: Well, his progress is outstanding. I mean, he's given us a huge shot in the arm, not just in the production, kind of filling a spot that we've been juggling really since we traded Tex, but just the quality of the at-bats, the way he goes about it. I think when you put that type of at-bat down at the bottom of the order, it just makes it much tougher; doesn't give the pitcher a chance to breathe. So he's been huge for us, no doubt about it.
As far as first baseman of the future, I'm concerned with first baseman of tonight. He's definitely the guy. If we had to make out our Opening Day lineup for 2011, yeah, he'd probably be the guy. But we don't, so we've got some time to answer that.

Q. You spoke about making internal improvements. The last few years you haven't had any money to spend or the money you've had to spend you didn't spend. Are you expecting more money this off-season? And have any parameters been laid out by the new ownership?
JON DANIELS: We don't have a formal budget number yet, but I've got a general idea of what it's going to be, and it'll definitely be north of where we've been the last couple years. I can't tell you exactly how much north it will be at this point, but yeah, I would expect we'll have the ability to be more active than we have been the last few years.

Q. Will the off-season program for pitchers just be a matter of pushing everything back a month, or will you give them extra time because of the extra innings they've added?
JON DANIELS: We've talked about it conceptually, just what you said. I know some other clubs have done that. I know Tampa Bay did that a couple years back where they gave them a little later start into Spring Training, pushed back the off-season program a little bit. We'll definitely do something along those lines. It's still in pencil. We haven't -- Mike and everybody I don't think have had a chance to really sit down and map it out, but I would expect that given all these guys have all pitched a lot more, both in terms of innings and duration of the season than they ever have before for the most part with a few exceptions, we'll look to push it back and give them a little breather heading into the season.

Q. When you think about Cliff Lee and the difference he can make in the post-season, how important is he, is a kind of pitcher like in that keeping long-term? I know there will be major financial issues, but just having a guy like that on the staff.
JON DANIELS: Well, he's been great for us here. I don't know how you can really say exactly what that value is, but it's been pretty significant for us. But so has C.J., so has Colby. We've had a lot of guys that have stepped up in the post-season.
I think when you look at it, obviously the goal is to get here, and he certainly helps you from that standpoint, and then once you're here you want to win, and he helps you from that standpoint, too. We'll look at all the factors when it comes to Cliff. I think we've made it pretty clear we'd love to have him back. We've tried to make it as little of a distraction as possible in talking about his free agent status, which has basically been our approach with everything, whether it's staff, contracts or player contracts or whatever, we're trying to push everything on the back burner and focus on tonight's game. But we've made it clear we'd like to have him back. I know we're not the only club that would like to have him. It's a competitive market, as it should be, and we'll see what happens.

End of FastScripts

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