Yesterday at Chase Field, GM Mike Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo spoke to the media. The usual end of year session was given a little extra excitement by the news earlier in the day that Lovullo had agreed to a contract extension running through the end of 2028. This was obviously one of the topics touched upon by the pair, which also discussed the successes and failures of the season just finished. It’s always interesting to have a record of these, so below is a full transcript (lightly edited
for coherence) of the sessions for both men. It’s a long read (over seven thousand words!), so go get a cup of coffee. And a sandwich.
Mike Hazen
Can you take us through the decision to bring Tory back?
I felt like, in consultation with Derek and Ken, that Tori and the coaches did a really good job of keeping this team through a fairly tumultuous season on a number of different fronts. The team together, playing hard; the most comeback wins in baseball; the characteristics of playing a brand of baseball that I appreciate and respect, and I think that leads to wins. It led to a decent amount of wins – it didn’t lead to enough wins. We are all disappointed by the way the season ended. We should have been in the playoffs. But that didn’t happen.
I tried to strip the very ending [from] all the things that happened for the six months prior. Looking through the lens of what I didn’t do, what the manager ultimately needs to be successful, and the ways that I didn’t help him be successful. Specific to early in the season, first base and DH; some of the things that happened around the trading deadline. Through all of that, playing rookie starting pitchers through the month of August, watching us continue to accelerate through the month of August. I think that takes a tremendous amount of leadership and stability, to not let that take your season off the rails. Nobody’s content with winning 86 games and finishing in third place and not making the playoffs. That is the goal. We failed at that goal.
But I wanted to take a slightly broader view of that, of all the good things that he does. The way he leads the coaching staff. The way he leads our organization with class and dignity, and runs a game and manages our clubhouse. The way he treats our players. The respect he has across the game. The way we interact as a front office, and with the people who work for me that interact with the coaches. He sets the example for that, too, and I think it’s critically important in today’s game, that in order for us to be as good as we can be, all those things have to be working well.
What did you learn from the Ketel situation?
I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t get to see what’s on the other side of the door. What I feel like is, Ketel is a superstar player and delivered for some large pockets of the season. What happened in Boston, we’ve talked about already. It’s already been put to bed. It was an unfortunate situation for us and Tori dealt with it as well as possible. I think you win with star players in this game. But I’m not blind to what the clubhouse dynamic is, and the interaction between all the players and the coaches, and how that comes into winning and losing games. I’m not sure we have 86 wins if we don’t have Ketel Marte. I’m just not, knowing what I had available to me and in terms of what a trade would have looked like.
But I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not going to just sit here and say that what would have happened. I don’t really know. There is a a world in which we don’t have 86 wins: we have 79 wins, and there’s completely different conversations being had right now about the way our season went. And I wouldn’t really want to be talking about that either. So we are going to look hard at this roster, and focus on making decisions to put us in the best position to make the playoffs next year. We have fallen short all three of the last three years, more so in 2024 and 2026. We got a little close in 2025, but we had sold, so I don’t count that as much – we made the decision at the deadline.
But in the two seasons that we bought, we fell short. There’s reasons we’re falling short. Some of that is personnel related. Some of that’s me. A lot of that could be contributed to me. What I did with the position player group in the first half of the season, what I did at the deadline, I clearly didn’t do enough. Left the team naked in places that it didn’t need to be left naked, and we fell short by a game or two. I could go back and look at a million different ways where one or two things lead to one or two more wins, but that’s one of them, too.
Do you envision Ketel being on the roster next season?
I haven’t started looking at the roster at all yet. We’ve spent all of our time focused on the manager and the coaches and ensuring that the leadership is back together again. I’m going to start looking at the roster here shortly.
When it comes to Torey, what would you say to fans that criticize two playoff appearance in 10 years?
I get it. I do get it. And “close” isn’t good enough, for any of us. The way I look at this season, I think it falls, quite frankly, on me more than anybody, as far as why we didn’t make it this year. And each one of those things is different. It’s hard for me to criticize 89 wins as a “failed season”, even though you don’t make the playoffs. It’s hard for me to have more wins than half the American League playoff teams, and say that we were a failure when we all play the same schedule. But there’s no excuse. We didn’t make it. It’s very competitive in our league. It’s very competitive in our division. I’ve always said that I like that. Yeah, we haven’t made the playoffs. It’s not good enough.
But there’s a choice that you make to throw away all the things that lead to you getting to certain positions and places, where one or two more wins counts, and not being seven games away, from being in a situation where one or two games count. There’s no perfect way to do that, and I don’t think the manager is ultimately responsible for a lot of those things. I think I’m more responsible for that than he is, in some ways. But the way this works in our clubhouse, in our walls – some things happen to our club, that I feel like we’ve come out on the other side of, in a very positive fashion. I just don’t want to throw that away.
It doesn’t mean it’s the only thing. It’s not the only criteria. It’s not that there’s not criticisms. I’m very critical of him every day. He’s critical of me. Part of the thing I value from a cultural standpoint is we have that opportunity to do those things. I think it’s going to help and continue to push us forward. But yeah, anything other than “We were failures for not making the playoffs,” is the only acceptable answer. I’m trying to give you a little more color into it. But if I boiled it down, that’s the answer. I don’t know what the decision should be because of that. But I’m in a position right now to make this decision, and this is the decision I made.
What’s the status of the coaching staff?
Tori’s gonna come up here, and that’s more his responsibility and decision. So, he’ll touch on that process.
You’ve talked in the past about not trying to fix last year’s problems, but being able to look forward. About how long does that process take to develop? And are you able to speak at all to what your offseason priorities might be?
The offseason priorities from an “add” standpoint are certainly going to be being a little more left-handed. We struggled versus right-handed pitching this year. So, that’s a clear and obvious one. I think DH, first base is a clear area. Timmy did an unbelievable job down the stretch of going down to AAA, making some adjustments coming back. Pavin was good when he came back for the last week to two weeks. And Vargie, you know, did a lot of really good things for us this year. I think that’s a clear area, no matter what, that we need to improve upon.
And I want to continue to improve our defense. I thought the improvement in our defense made a significant difference in our game play. I want to continue to push that. If there’s ways to do that, I think that’s probably more subtle. I think we’re going to need to continue to build out the pitching staff appropriately, as we need to. We obviously have a lot of young guys. The bullpen is very controllable. There are going to be some guys missed that we’re going to need to replace. We have another crop of young arms coming, that you saw some of this year – Stroud, Carrillo Burgos – that will continue to take steps forward going into next year. But I’m sure we’ll find ways to add pitching appropriately as well.
How much did the push to the finish, that six-game win streak, factor into conversations about Tori coming back?
I felt like from the second half on, that push existed. I thought we played really good baseball in August and September both. And again, coming off of what I delivered at the trading deadline in some cases – or didn’t in some areas of the team. Nootbaar did an incredible job for us. [Dennis] Santana was really good for us. So, there were some guys that came in and did some good things for us. But I felt like pitching with rookies in his rotation until Soroka and those guys came back – Burns and Gallen and [Ryne Nelson] and all those guys. Till they all came back for the month of August, with Bratt and Drake and Cabrera, along with how the the bullpen performed throughout the entirety of the year.
We were a good team for the majority of the season, through all of those things that took place. Injuries aren’t an excuse. We lost a lot of players to injury again this year, in aggregate: most of them were hold overs from last year, but they continued to be out for a lot longer than we had anticipated in some cases. We pushed right through those things and continue to compete night after night, even when things weren’t in a great spot for us. To me, that’s a reflection of something that we want to capture, and a characteristic and a mindset that we want. So when we are together, and it’s moving all in one direction, we can be that much stronger.
Has the threat of a lockout come up at all when you’re discussing any of these big decisions?
No.
There was some reporting that there are some other teams around baseball that were interested in Tory. What was your sense of that?
Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. It didn’t really impact the way we operated. We’ve been talking to him all week. We’ve been staying in contact and I wanted to try to give him a little bit of space. Whatever anyone in this room thought the outcome of the season was going to be, he made a comment to me about the seventh game of the World Series being on Halloween. So, what he thought this season was going to end up as. and to have it ripped away in the last two days. Obviously, the game we played on Saturday night wasn’t very good and that took our ability to have control of the situation away from us. Once we lost that, it becomes a very challenging scenario.
Having these conversations about the future, 24 hours after getting bounced out of a situation where you were planning on going to Atlanta, just took a little bit more time. So yeah: it’s usually the Monday after the season, that’s when a lot of changes get made, and they got made in other places. So immediately speculation could happen, where it couldn’t happen here. I think it’s just natural that was going to come out, but that didn’t impact us at all.
There’s a lot of history between you and Tori, and he’s been here for a decade. What can be said about his ability to maintain a positive culture in there and helping lead to what’s happening with him now?
The trust that we have with the way he runs a baseball game, and the time he puts in, and the adjustments he’s made to become a better manager over time, those are things that I value tremendously. In the end, we are evaluated on wins and losses and we didn’t get the job done again this year. No one really cares how close you got if you don’t get there. I have to take responsibility for those areas that I’m responsible for. But I do value the way he runs a clubhouse, and the way he treats our players, and the ability to have challenging conversations, and the honesty and the authenticity that he presents to our players. I think there’s a reason why our players play as hard as they do for him. year round. Those are valuable things to me.
It’s not saying that somebody else couldn’t bring those things, and he’s not here because we have a relationship. This is a – bottom-line – business. Nobody cares about who knows who and where everybody comes from. Yeah, it makes it interesting at certain points in time. There’s an appreciation of that, and how this goes and gets done on a daily basis. It’s not the driving factor of why he’s still the manager of this baseball team. He’s the manager of this baseball team because he’s a good baseball manager. Period. End of story. If we or I didn’t feel that way, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation in this way. So, that’s the driving, motivating factor. But I do think the ability that we have, to push the envelope in certain ways, when it’s uncomfortable because of our relationship, I think that’s an a value add to this process, quite frankly.
How did you feel about what you got from your anticipated top three hitters coming into the year?
I will stand up here, and take responsibility for the areas that I am responsible for, and I should – and I believe an outweighted portion of a lot of this. I think there are areas of the performance on the team that, yeah, we needed a little bit more in certain places. I thought defensively, on the whole, we did a good job. I think offensively, we had periods where things were kind of clicking for us. I thought that, we’ve gotten spoiled the last couple years, at the level of progression and performance that our star players have done. At points in times this year I thought that the gaps in some of the performances, in terms of slumps or down periods, lasted too long. They carried over into other areas.
Even the beginning of September, when we were winning some of those games in extra innings, we were going into the eighth and ninth innings of most of those games with zero. That’s a little odd for us, based on what we have done the last two years. I’m very confident that the bounce back for those guys is there, and going to happen. They work hard. It’s definitely not a work ethic thing. I think we need to dig in and figure out if there are ways that we can help them, not have those times last as long as they did. We have a responsibility in that as a coaching staff and as a front office. It wasn’t a work ethic thing. Those guys put the time in every single day from a leadership standpoint.
I thought the bullpen was great start to finish. Even with new guys coming in, stepping up and improving. I thought parts of the rotation needed to be better. On the whole, I thought we threw the ball okay, but there were some performances even in the rotation, that we should have done a better job. Early in games, first innings – we never really seem to make huge adjustments in that area. That continued to kind of haunt us. Part of the reason why we probably have as many comeback wins as we do – the bullpen and the fact that we were down in the first inning. Those are things that we need to improve upon, going into next year.
The timeline on your decision to bring back Tory: was that something where you felt towards the end of the season you could make that, or did it really need to come at the end of the season?
This is very consistent. Ken has asked, as we’ve had these conversations through the year, as we get to the end of the year, “I want to get to the end of the year. I want to wait for the season to be over, then we can sit down and have conversations.” We actually started to have conversations a little bit in front of that. We had made the decision a little bit in front of that. I didn’t bring that to him because we were in the throes of having to win eight games in a row to make the playoffs. I didn’t want to drop that into whatever we were brewing there, you know, and have that have any impact on anyone’s mindset.
I thought his focus and separation and what he was gunning for was right where it needed to be. Whether I had the conversation with him three days before the season ended, or at the end of the season, I felt like we were at the end of the season. So, I wasn’t going to change anything that way, in terms of, say, not doing it at the beginning of the season, right? So we were sort of committed to that point and that’s been our process through this. It’s not the first time this has happened. The last time we had solved this before Thursday and still done media on Tuesday, and said he was coming back [so] those questions didn’t come. I understand it took a little longer this time.
Could you sense a shift in the morale in the clubhouse when Ketel came back after his leave?
Those situations happen during a baseball season. We’re together for 183 straight days. There’s stuff that happens every day in our clubhouse, most of which you guys never hear about. That one became very public, like others have. Those become a little more challenging, because guys have to talk about it and deal with it. I thought those players demonstrated a level of welcomeness back. Forgiveness, understanding, and professionalism, that again, is something I think I’m pretty proud of from a character standpoint. We met with them. We talked to them through it. We understood the challenges of all of it. I thought we played very good baseball at the back half of the season. We went into situations with our back constantly against the wall, coming out fighting on the other side. To what degree any of that had any impact on where the final record was, I don’t know. But I was very proud of the guys, the way they handled all that.
How have you seen Torey evolve over the last decade as a manager?
I think he’s become more objective in his decision making. I think the way he follows that. I thought this was the best bullpen management year he’s ever had. Every one of our bullpen guys stayed healthy and dominated, and that went from young guys to free agents. That’s a credit to the manager, and how he’s pulling the strings, managing workloads, pushing guys. Up to and including in the last two weeks of the season just running those guys ragged, because he left gas in the tank for them. I think a lot of those things. Earlier in his career we had seasons where we were leading the league. We had four of the five top guys in appearances in baseball on June 1st of 2023, and those guys all died in the second half to some degree or another.
We spent a lot of time talking through those things and he has done a very good job of using the entirety of his book. I’m using one small example. There’s other ways here. Those are important to me and I think using information that he gets, to continue to objectivize decision making, not making it just instincts and gut and what am I feeling on a given day and flipping coins. He’s done a really good job with that, and it’s not all that. We don’t make the decisions. You know, the nerds don’t make the decisions. At some point, like the manager has to say, “I’ve been here before. This guy’s throwing the ball really well. This is the guy I trust. This is the guy I’m gonna put in that game.” And we respect that and we have to back off. But I want that coming from a basis of objectivity and not emotion and narrative.
I wanted to ask you about some of your younger guys. What did you make of their debuts?
I thought they kept us going in moments when we were sputtering a little bit. when Waldschmidt came up the first time, when Troy came up, Groover came up. I thought we got a burst in each one of those. They weren’t able to sustain it. Almost all of them, if not all of them, had to get sent back down again – totally normal. There’s only one guy we didn’t send back down. Nobody else is going to be like him is my guess. If we get another one like him, that’ll be amazing. I’m expecting each one of them to be that much better next year. They all contributed in a positive way. They worked their butts off. They improved. They went down to AAA and made improvements.
I was very proud of what Tim Tawa did when he went down to Triple-A. I was very proud of what Brandon Pfaadt did when he went down to Triple-A. I see that, from a character standpoint, as people that you want to buy and believe in, that take those opportunities to improve their game. I hope Waldy, and I thought Lawlar did, in this run-through became a different player in a lot of ways. And he went through all of this last year. I mean, there were periods of time where Lawlar was striking out in almost every at bat in the past, and you could take that, right? I think Waldy and Troy and Groover and Fernandez, among others, need to apply when they went down, all the things they learned this year and use that as a stepping stone for them next year.
The ones that do that, that apply the failure, right? Waldy’s strikeout rate was too high. He knows that. Him applying that, and all the good things he did when he was coming up, if he can learn from that and what he may need to do to adjust back to what they did to him. That’s going to be the difference maker, to who he is and what he’s going to be in his career. I’m going to bet on that kid, given his makeup, that he’s going to figure those things out. That’s what’s going to separate our ability, to take that collection of kids, and make them really good major league players. They don’t all have to be All-Stars, but really good major league players. Along with their work ethic and makeup, that’s going to be what will separate us as an organization: whether we become a winning franchise that goes to the playoffs and back to the World Series, or not.
Torey Lovullo
First of all, I want to thank Ken, Derek, Mike, Mike’s team, everybody that was involved in any part of this discussion or decision. To tell you the truth, I took I took Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday to just answer zero questions. I’ve had people in this room text me. I apologize for not texting you back. I just went radio silent. I told myself I had to emotionally unplug a little bit. I wanted to just take time for myself and my wife, and we watched Ted Lasso, first episode to the last episode, in two and a half days. So that’s where I was and when it came time to discuss it, I opened up the discussion with Mike. To me it was a situation um that I wanted to be back here. Both parties were interested in that, and I just felt like it was the right thing to do.
I had a lot of emotion leading up to that last game. I had a lot of thoughts leading up to that last game. You guys can probably only imagine what it had been like for for me personally. Even though it wasn’t a personal situation, I wanted to make sure I made it about the team. So, when it came time for me to think about it and be a part of my own personal space with my wife, I just went to slow it down. So, slowed down, then the discussions happened and landed me back here, and I’m really really thankful for that.
When you reflect on what the season was, what do you make of your performance and what happened at the end there?
My personal belief is I could have been better. I can always be better and I want to learn how to be better. I never want to sit still. I’ve shared with you guys my biggest fear is getting caught and stuck in last year. So I feel like I could have done more. I could have managed better, managed harder, and helped us win one or two more games and be in a situation where we wouldn’t be like this. Part of the reason why I took some time to decompress, is that I 100% felt that we were going to be in the playoffs and we weren’t. It was a little bit of an adjustment, but overall, I know that I could have been better.
I reflect on the most recent decisions I made that impacted the game. The most recent conversations that impacted players’ lives. But it happened all year long. So I go over all those things. We had a lot of good moments here and I keep telling myself that. But I think, innately, I’m just critical of myself and I want to be accountable. It’s a big word in our culture, so I’ve got to reflect on it the right way. I will, and I’m continuing to do that. At some point in the next several weeks. I’ll turn the page and get ready for a very healthy 2027.
You guys have become pretty good at building an 85ish win team. How do you get it to 95? What are the things that are missing these last few years?
That’s a really good question. Mike and I talk about that a lot. And not just Mike and I. Mike and the team around me and the team around him, they collide, we talk, we try to get to that to that level. I think championships are won in the mundane prep. Championships are won with the small details. Championships are won in the disciplines that take place when nobody’s watching. There’s no luck in this. You’ve got to dig in and get it done. That’s our mindset here every day. That’s part of our preparation. That’s part of our belief. And we got to find a way to win five, seven more games to get in the big dance. I don’t know what that secret sauce is.
I know that personally, continuing to grow and learn. His question got got me thinking about a lot of different things, a lot of different ways, and I want everybody to be that way around me. So, that’s going to be the challenge for all of us. What can I do, just a little bit better, to make us win or help us win five to seven more games? And I don’t know what that answer is, but we’re going to die trying. That’s our job. We’ve come close and we don’t get an award for coming close. We get a trophy for winning the world championship and that’s what I’m motivated by every single day. I want to do that here in the Valley. I don’t want to do it once, I want to do it more than that, and we’ve got to figure this out. What that answer is? I’m sure there’s a lot of different ways to answer that question. But we’ve got to be better, and everybody’s got to do their job a little bit better
Did you entertain any conversations with other clubs? And is this as close in the last decade as you’ve come to wondering if you would be back as manager?
The 2021 season was pretty dark, and I felt like at that point in time, I might be looking for other employment. This one, I felt like if I had been judged on a lot of the things that went right this year, that we’d level out and and come to a really good conclusion. The other team situation? I’m a human being. I have family, I have friends. I got texts from my relatives in Seattle. That Seattle thing never ever happened. It never ever took place. In fact, I had tried to send word up there to make it stop. I didn’t want it to go any further because I am under contract, was currently under contract with the um Arizona Diamondbacks, and I I didn’t feel right about that information getting spread out there. I don’t know what happened there.
No other teams had contacted me, nor was I in touch with any other teams. My main objective was to just hang loose, go radio silent, and then when it was time to come out of my hole, that I would talk to Mike. That’s what happened, starting yesterday. To be honest with you, you don’t know what this feels like. Nobody knows what I was feeling. It’s a hard thing to deal with. I pick up on vibes. I know that some people in this town want me out. I get it, but I have a job to do here, and I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. At the end of it, I kept thinking, yeah, what if – I was allowing myself to go there. But once again, I had a job to do for this team and this organization. So, I was very present. I wanted to make sure that I was very present. But in my alone time at night? Yeah, I would definitely be thinking about it.
When you were talking about “wanting to be wanted”, is that there are fans that maybe don’t want you to manage or were you referring more to people in the organization?
Yeah, I love the fans. I love the geniuses that are sitting out there. I appreciate them all. [Laughs] But as I’ve told Jack a few times, I don’t give two s-h-i-t’s about what some of those people are saying. I care mostly about impressing Ken, Derek, and Mike every single day. I want them to come here and be proud of what we do and what we accomplish. And I want to be the absolute best I could possibly be for the players. So, that’s what I was mostly talking about. I want the fans to want this. I want the fans to want us. I want the fans to understand that we’re a really good organization. We’ve done a lot of really good things here. We’re gonna get there. and we’re gonna jump in that pool together. I love them, but I have a job to do and to be appreciated and wanted was mostly directed internally for the group here.
Mike mentioned you becoming more objective in some of your decision making, especially when it comes to the bullpen, as being where he’s been most impressed in your area of growth as a manager. How do you evaluate the way that you’ve developed?
I feel like at different points in time, you could point to me leaning one in one direction or the other. It just depends on what argument you want to make, if you want to support me or not support me. But I think there’s objective material that’s real. I think there’s some objectiveness that is very cut and dry and black and white, and I have adopted that. I’ve learned how to accept that. I was an extreme subjective manager. I would go with my gut and my instincts and the direct head-to-heads and the left/right splits. Of course, I still do that, but I want to add in a little bit more to that glass of iced tea. I keep saying if I can add some lemon, some sugar, and some honey, I’m going to do it. I want to make the perfect glass of iced tea, and that’s what I do for these players.
Is your coaching staff all going to be back?
I don’t know that answer right now. I’m going to have some conversations. I need to think through some things very clearly. To be honest with you, I haven’t thought about it at all, and I want to be fair to that group. I told them on the last day in San Diego that I didn’t know what was happening with me. And once I figure that out, I will start to move downfield with the next group of decisions. So, I don’t know. I anticipate that I’ll probably have that conversation starting right after this press conference, but I don’t know what that answer is right now.
What were the emotions like when everything got settled and you know the deal was signed, and then how would you sum up your time here in the valley in these past 10 years?
I was with my wife dropping off some clothes to get altered there in North Scottdale, and I got the phone call that everything had been ironed out and sewn up and Mike called. At that point, I was relieved and grateful and excited. So it is emotional. I mean, I’ve been here a long time. I’ve been here for 10 years in this Valley and I got to believe that I’m doing something right. I don’t necessarily want to be validated by anything more than wins and losses. But the fact that I’ll be here for a couple more years feels good. And I like that feeling. I want to feel good. I beat myself up with certain things that take place and I wear things for this group. I always take the mindset that if it’s wrong, it’s my fault. If it’s right, it’s the players success. I live in that space. I’ll never ever take credit for anything that goes right. Quickly going over how I was feeling at that very moment, I felt really good and there was a little bit of validation that I was appreciated.
In the clubhouse on Monday, we got an overall sense that guys were pretty supportive of you in the coming days. Have any players reached out to you specifically? Was there a general mutual sense of respect and and support from you guys and the players?
I haven’t had a chance to look at my texts. I swear to you guys, so don’t take it personal. I just went dark. I have probably 250 text messages that are green and have not been returned. I get right on it. When I get a text, I do it immediately. Respond immediately. That’s just the way I like to do things. I have seen since this morning that more had been pouring in and a lot of past players and present players have been reaching out. So, I’m going to say most of them, probably I’m looking off top of my head, probably 15 to 20 current players, probably seven to 10 former players have said this is the best decision that the organization has ever made made.
I’m grateful for that. I think it endorses what I do and validates a little bit of what goes on here every single day. People have no idea. They have no idea. And sometimes I see some of these comments or hear some of those questions in here, that lead me to think that they really have no idea what it’s like inside of that clubhouse, and the connection and the real brotherhood and bond that we have. And I am so grateful for that. Some do, some are very engaged and some are here every single day and they know it. But those texts mean more to me than anything. My family and then these players, and I love these players, a lot.
This being like home now and the feeling you get to continue on with that and just keep building on the roots that you’ve already put down here…
Yeah, it feels great. I thought about what Kenny D said, when I think somebody was trying to poach him. I don’t know who it was, maybe Michigan. He said, “All I need to do is look at my family, my kids. They’re here. Like, this is my life. I don’t want to change.”
You’ve got two years now on your deal, which lines you up with with Mike. Does that feel appropriate to you as a length of term that that makes sense to you? Does it also feel appropriate in terms of how connected you guys are?
I think we’ve already been in that space. We’ve been coexisting for a long time. It makes sense to me, but maybe not to others. I’m grateful for that. I like that. And we’ve got work to do here. We got to go and win some baseball games. If we don’t do that, we’re going to continue to be judged in a certain way. Whether the contract overlapped the same year or not, Mike and I have been in the same boat, rowing together, every single day. He has been a great leader, a great mentor, challenges me. I wish you guys could hear how he screams at me. Like if you guys understood, yeah, we’re friends, but that’s out the window from 11:00 until 9:00 at night. So, I’m grateful for that. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m so excited to be back here. One of the main reasons why I want to come back here, is because of Mike. But don’t be misled. It’s not a lovey-dovey relationship. It’s a very challenging, hardcore, let’s get this effing done or else relationship. And I like that. So, we’re tied up, whatever – however everybody wants to cycle that, talk about it and say that this is part of the reason why he’s here. I think I’m here because he knows how bad I want to win. Whether it’s the same time and I’m not a year ahead of him, or he’s not a year ahead of me, I don’t even really care about that.
Was this year maybe even more challenging than 2021, with it being a contract year, having injuries, lots of young players, lots of roster movement throughout the year, and just trying to make it happen?
Probably. Yeah. But I think everybody loves a good challenge and I took that head on and and it’s all I know. That’s all I had done my whole career as a player and as a staff member. When it gets harder, I feel like I need to get better. Everybody has this different version of of injury or challenges, whether it be personally or professionally. And you got to come to work every single day the same person, the same way, and be present for these guys. So that’s all I cared about. That’s all I wanted to do every single day was to be available to my group. I had some dark days, but nobody knew it. I had some challenges that seemed like it was like Sisyphus, right? Climbing the mountain and that rock rolls right back down on you. I just worked harder and dug in a little bit more. That’s just my mindset and I embrace those challenges every single day.
How’s the relationship with Mike evolved over the last decade?
I look at pictures of us and we’re a lot more wrinkled and a lot more gray. He actually brought that up the other day to me. It’s hard to answer. Personally, I think we’re friends and we’ve always been friends and we’ll always remain friends. I value that and I compartmentalize that, put that aside like I’ve told you guys. But when I come back here, I think he’s emerged as somebody that is extremely accountable and front-facing and surging and moving in a very positive direction every single day. I’ve just taken a cue from that and he’s been a great example for me. I think we mentor one another, but he’s my boss. I think he mentors more than I do, but he’s also a great listener and a great communicator. So how’s it emerged? We probably don’t yell at each other as much as we used to. We’re tired of yelling at one another. So I think it’s more one way. He yells at me and I listen a little bit better. Yeah, it’s probably how it has emerged!
Do you guys have a wish list for what you want the roster moves to be this offseason?
I don’t know. Well, I think some of the things that Mike touched on all season long, and I’ve said it, too. You know, we’ve got to power up in certain places. No doubt about it. I think our bullpen was elite. Looks like we figured out how to build a really good bullpen. There were some offensive bats that were missing, maybe like a left-handed bat, a first baseman/DH type of thing. So, those are obvious, but I think what we’ll do is we’ll dig in and figure out, not necessarily how to overcorrect, and all of a sudden you got nine left-handed hitters. But to balance the portion of the roster that needs a little bit of help.
We had some youthful players have meaningful at bats this year, and I feel like they could be better role players or bench players next year, without hurting development. The emergence of some young players was really exciting for us. I think there’s still a lot of growth in that area, but I think the common areas are well documented. We’ve talked about it. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the starting rotation. I think we just need to power up in other positions as well, from an offensive standpoint.
