Gomez, Zimmerman, Bradley, and Tenace

HardballTimes.com – Interview with Carlos Gomez, who is a scout with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“Q: When was the last time you pitched? I don’t just mean professionally, but in any context. How often do you do that nowadays?

GOMEZ: I was giving pitching lessons last year and kept myself in decent pitching shape and I would practice throwing to a net (with a radar gun and a camera of course) once or twice a week. I’d say that the last time I did that was in February of ’07. I was routinely sitting 86-87 topping at 90 (very proud of that, by the way). A lot of it was so that I could relate to the things I was trying to teach and also because I was using myself as a guinea pig for some of my “out there” ideas. Students tend to believe you more when you can do some of the things that you try to teach them. It didn’t hurt to show students some velocity to show them what it looked like.”

MLB.com – Interview with Nationals 3B Ryan Zimmerman.

“Q: During the month of September, you did something that was something of a surprise. You decided to publicly speak out on some of the things that went wrong. You thought the gestures Elijah Dukes made at Shea Stadium were wrong and you hinted about the team needing to spend money. You are only 23 years old. What made you decide to speak up, which you had never done before?

Zimmerman: Obviously, I’m a younger guy, but I think a lot of pressure is put on me to be the face of the franchise and be the leader. You know me. I’m not an angry person or anything like that. I think what we have in D.C. could be really special — a brand new stadium, a city that loves sports. A lot of people would love to play there, but nobody is going to want to play there if we lose 80 to 100 games every year. That’s just the way it is in sports now. It gets to the point where you get your six years in and then you get to write your own ticket. You want to go to a place like L.A, Philly or New York, which spends money every year and have a chance to make the playoffs. Every free agent wants to go to those places.

I’m not upset with ownership or anything like that. I’m just trying to say, I think we have a good thing that could really be fun here. We have a good, young core group of guys. It’s not going to take that much for people to come here. Obviously, you have to pay money. It’s easy for me to say because I’m not writing the checks. But that’s the way baseball is. That’s the way any sport is. You have to bring people in. You can’t do everything from the bottom up, although I think your core group of your team should be from the bottom up. When you bring your free agents in, we can tell them how things go here and how it’s going to be. They can fit right in. But you have to have talent in this game. No question.

BaseballProspectus.com (Subscription)- David Laurila talks with former Major League Pitcher and current Pitching Coach of the Fort Wayne Wizards, Tom Bradley.

BaseballProspectus.com (Subscription)- David Laurila talks with Blue Jays Hitting Coach Gene Tenace.

Tatis, Fiske, Figueroa, Reyes, & Young

Big League Stew - Q&A with Comeback Player of the Year Fernando Tatis.

“Q: The reason you wanted to play again was to fund the building of a church where you live?

TATIS: That’s true. We wanted to do that for Santo Domingo/San Pedro de Macoris and finally that dream came true. I told my wife and sister in law that if we want to do this, I’m going to have to play baseball one more time. I did my part, I started to practice and went to the minor leagues and it took me a couple years to make it to the big leagues, to do what we wanted to do — to build the church in our home town — and now, our dream has come true. It’s a great feeling for us.

Q: Why was it so important? What was missing?

TATIS: It’s very important for me and my family because we are Christians; we believe in God. We felt that if we helped to build a bigger church in our hometown, it’s going to be a lot better for everyone. We wanted to invite more people into our church. The church that we had was kind of small and not many people could fit inside. It’s very important for me, because we want a lot of people to go there and believe in God and pray. We just want the whole town to go there and listen to the word of God. That’s our goal.”

FutureRedBirds.net – This time FRB talks with pitcher Justin Fiske, who finished the season in AA.

“Q: How would you describe your pitching style? Give us a little scouting report on yourself.

FISKE: I would definitely say I am a backwards pitcher. Most people pitch off there fastball where as I pitch off my change up. My change up is my best pitch so I’ll use it to get ahead in the count and even to strike guys out. My fastball does come in handy when hitters are looking for my change up. Running a fastball up and in will get them off my change up. Sometimes I’ll even get swing and misses on those pitches. Not many hitters go up to the plate looking forward to hitting an off speed pitch. So when they see a fastball they like to jump on it. Because I don’t throw very hard, my off speed pitches are my go to pitches. That allows me to use my fastball more effectively.”

MetsBlog.com – Interview with Nelson Figueroa discussing impact of blogs.

“Q: So, to what extent are you guys, as players, aware of blogging and aware of new media? I know that the newspapers are dominant, but are you aware of these other communication tools?

Nelson Figueroa: Absolutely. I think that it’s the kind of media that is so instant and current and there are so many inside tips that you read about. I was in Triple-A and I heard about things that were happening with the Mets organization through different blogs…They can voice their opinions and other things on blogs. So, it’s a new medium that people are taking advantage of and I think a lot of fans use well.”

Baseball Prospectus Unfiltered - Quick interview with Anthony Reyes of the Cleveland Indians.

“Q: What is the biggest difference between Cleveland and St. Louis?

REYES: The biggest thing is the fans, and how much the fans are in the game and understand the game. There’s a little more of that in St. Louis, because it’s such a baseball town. The stadium is full every time you go there, so it’s just a different atmosphere, although it’s still baseball here — they cheer when you do well, so it’s still nice.”

DallsNews.com - Quick interview with Rangers SS Michael Young.

“Q: You’ve said you expect this team to continue to improve. Why will next year be better than this year?

YOUNG: We have some continuity on our team, especially with our position players. We’ll have most of the same guys back. We can build and gain more trust in one another. We want to find a way to get better together and keep growing as a team. That’s a positive. I don’t see why our young pitchers can’t keep gaining experience and get better. I think we’ll be better than we were. I don’t put a number on it. We’ll see what happens as the winter progresses. (Young added, when asked about how to improve the club during the winter: “I don’t look at one way being the right way. You can do it through free agency and trades. Whatever makes the team better is all I care about.”)”

Couple Different Philly Interviews

The Sporting Blog - Interview with Rob McElhenney of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I really enjoyed this interview, as this is one of my favorite shows on tv.

“Q: Philly fans have are pretty notorious. Where do you fall in that group? Laid back, or are you the one that started the booing of Santa?

McElhenney: I definitely get frustrated, but I try to take a more positive attitude. I was definitely raised in that environment, but it’s tough because we haven’t won a major sports title — unless you count Arena football — since 1983, and I was 5 years old. It gets a little frustrating when you start following these teams and you start taking it out on them.”

BugsAndCranks.com – Interviews the creator of PhillySucks.com, which keeps tabs on the inability for Philadelphia sports teams to have success.

“Q: I saw on email.phillysucks.com that you have the emails that got the most comments — do you have other favorites?

PSux: I recently got this email:

dickbanger88@yahoo.com
Subject: get a life homo

you’re a fag, and the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and E-A-L-G-L-E-S Eagles rule

PSux: So simple, yet it just cracked me up. That particular emailer is a bit nuts. I have gotten about a thousand emails through the site, of which about I think about half have been posted in phillysucks.com or the newer email.phillysucks.com. Hard to have a favorite but I get a kick out of the horribly written emails the most. I can’t believe those people function in society writing so poorly.”

Front Office Interviews

DallasNews.com – Interview with Rangers GM Jon Daniels. Goes over some offseason issues and such.

“Q: What do you feel is the top developmental need area right now? RH power? Corner OF?

DANIELS: Pitching. Period. We got our farm system to where it is now by focusing on high-end pitching and we aren’t going to stop.”

MLB.com – Q&A with Brooks Boyer, who is the Innovative Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.

“Q: You tried the whole “White Sox Pride Blackout” plan with the fans during the American League Central tiebreaker against the Twins and then carried it over against the Rays during two home games in the American League Division Series. Were you satisfied with how it worked?

Boyer: The way that the season came together at the end, to have that game [against the Twins] that had so much meaning … the fact was that the Monday [makeup] game [against Detroit] ended, and as soon as that Monday game ended, we went on sale with tickets and sold them out in an hour. Therefore, it was all White Sox fans.

Lou Hernandez [White Sox director of public relations] and I talked about it on that Sunday, and we had T-shirts made up that said “Sox Pride Blackout” on them. They were going out to all the media as soon as we won and the [makeup] game was going to be played. So, we got the word out and our fans responded.

It was such a powerful thing that when we went down to [St. Petersburg], e-mails and phone calls came in telling us, “You have to continue this.” It was the postseason, where every game, every pitch matters. It seemed to work.

I don’t know if it now becomes a White Sox thing all season long. You certainly can’t do it, at least to me. There’s not a game in the regular season, as I look back on the schedule … whether it’s a Yankees game on the weekend or a Cubs game or a random Angels game on a Saturday in September, it just doesn’t have the same emotion.”

World Series Game 3 Postgame Q&A from MLB.com

Joe Maddon:

“Q: The five guys in the infield, what’s the inspiration for that? Have you done it before? I can’t remember seeing it many times in all the years I’ve covered baseball.

JOE MADDON: Of course everything in the minor leagues. You do everything in the minor leagues. We’ve done it earlier this year in Seattle with some success. We got out of an inning and eventually won a game. We were non successful against the White Sox. Ramirez hit a line drive to right field to beat us.

You have Grant in the game, who is not necessarily a ground ball pitcher. If that’s going to occur you’d rather have Chad Bradford available or J.P. in the game, more of a ground ball type. But nevertheless you still have to take your chances right there. We’ve talked about it. We’ve worked on it. Zobrist being in the game we had legitimate infielders there. We got the ground ball.
If it’s hit in a firm manner, we’re in pretty good shape right there. It’s just unfortunate the way it came out. We talked about it, we worked on it and we did it.”

Tom Hallion (1st Base Umpire):

“Q: If you can explain what you saw on the play, the play on first?

TOM HALLION: Sure. The ball down the first base line, and I came around, close, bang bang play, and I tried to get the best angle on it. And it wound up being a great play by Jamie and Howard. And again, I really didn’t get a sound to be able to judge. It winds up being a great play. And looking at a replay here, they just got him.

So kudos for them, because they made a great play.”

FRB talks with Ben Badler of Baseball America

FutureRedBirds.net – FRB interviews Ben Badler, who is a writer for Baseball America. FRB is one of the best sources for quality interviews on the web.

“Q: Speaking of international signings, it appears teams you normally would not expect to be major players in that market are doing so – Cincinnati, Oakland, San Diego, St. Louis – what gives?

BADLER: Each team has its own set of circumstances. The A’s have become more aggressive in all aspects of amateur talent procurement, be it in the draft, the international market or through trade. I don’t know whether we should be expecting the A’s to be power players in the international market every year, but they identified one of the best 16-year-olds that scouts have ever seen and made a committed effort to put another premium pitching prospect in their farm system. The Padres started getting more involved last year and kicked it up another gear this year, and the Reds didn’t have a second-round pick so they had a little extra money to play with, though I think they’ll continue to be major players in Latin America in the future as well.

I think a lot of teams are realizing that an extra $5 million invested in the free agent market can buy you one marginal win for the next season; $5 million invested in Latin America, on the other hand, can bring a substantial ROI for an organization interested in the long-term view. Because of the salary restrictions placed on players through their first six years of service time, the surplus value that Latin American amateurs can provide for a team can be substantial. I’m probably preaching to the choir here—and I’m obviously not saying eschew all major league free agent acquisitions—but I believe you get more bang for your buck in Latin America than you get in the major league free agent market.”

Bill Smith and Jim Colborn

Star Tribune - Great Q&A with Bill Smith, GM of the Twins. I advise everyone to check this out.

“Q: How do you get better?

Smith: We’ve got to bring some stability back in our bullpen. We hope that Pat Neshek [recovering from a torn elbow ligament] is going to be able to bounce back in 2009. Our infield, we have a couple issues. We have to figure out what we are going to do with some of our free agents. We got real good performances out of Brian Buscher and Nick Punto and Alexi Casilla this year. Our outfield, we are in pretty good shape. For the most part, we don’t have any drastic contract issues.”

BaseballProspectus.com (subscription required)- Dave Laurila talks with the Rangers Director of Pacific Rim Operations, Jim Colborn.

ALCS Game 5 Postgames from Projo Sox Blog

Terry Francona:

“Q: Have you given any thought yet to rearranging your pitching down the Florida, or is it still Beckett in six and Lester in seven?

FRANCONA: Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Joe Maddon:

“Q: Did you have any thought of bringing in Howell or Miller to pitch to Ortiz with the two guys on?

MADDON: No, we’ve been doing that all year. Grant has been very good in that situation, actually. He just got him tonight. If you had been watching us all season, that’s the situation where Grant has really done well. He’s been kind of like that middle closer guy, and I felt pretty good about it. Papi just got him.”

J.D. Drew:

“Q: Do you think the Red Sox now have an advantage? Do you think the Red Sox are still behind the 8-ball?

DREW: You know, I don’t think anybody thinks of it as an advantage or disadvantage. It’s just we’ve got to go out there and win ballgames. It takes a certain amount of ballgames to get past this level, to win, and then in the World Series, as well. We’ll take it a game at a time, try to rack up some wins and see how it goes.”

Omar Minaya, Lastings Milledge, and Amalie Benjamin

MetsBlog.com – Matthew Ceronne talked with Mets GM Omar Minaya and the transcript of this conversation can be seen here.

“Matthew Cerrone, from MetsBlog: Speaking of position players, I was sent a question from Ted in Brooklyn, and he asked, ‘When you have guys like Damion Easley and Argenis Reyes, who maybe weren’t hitting so well off the bench, why didn’t you turn to guys like John Rodriguez or Val Pascucci, who were hitting really well in Triple A?’ Why don’t guys like that get the call? Is it a roster situation? Or contracts? Why not turn to those guys? Because they were hitting really well in Triple-A.

Omar Minaya: They were hitting really well, but the reality is that Easley had a very good year. I mean, we’ve got a really good bench. And the fact that a lot of our guys were hurt, early those guys were hurt, we had injuries, and guys like Fernando Tatis – as a bench player – were outstanding, Easley as a bench player was outstanding. Castro as a bench player did a very good job. Those guys, though they may have numbers that look good in Triple A, still they have never been proven guys in the major leagues and you can’t take Triple-A numbers and correlate them to Major Leagues numbers.”

MLB.com – Interview with Nationals CF Lastings Milledge.

“MLB.com: What did you learn about yourself this season?

Milledge: I found out that I’m actually a better hitter than I thought. I thought I had a lot of weaknesses as a hitter.

MLB.com: Give me an example of a weakness you thought you had.

Milledge: [I didn't think I could go] the opposite way. I had a lot of success going the other way this year. I actually have more power than I thought I had to right field. [Hitting coach] Lenny Harris kept reminding me to go the other way. It really didn’t click in until I had good results.”

Extra Bases – Q&A with Globe writer Amalie Benjamin.

“Q: Hi Amalie. Tell me: Beckett can be trusted ? I’m a great of him, but i know that he is hurt. What do you think?

Amalie Benjamin: At this point, probably not. It’s extraordinarily unfair to Beckett, who I respect absolutely as a pitcher, and for his resolve to go out there. But given what we’ve seen from him these last two games, there’s no reason to expect him to turn it around for Game 6, or any possible World Series starts. It’s hard to say that, though.”

ALCS Postgame Interviews on Projo Sox Blog

Joe Maddon:

“Q: Do you think you’ll be inclined to mention to any of these guys the next two days that the team you’re playing was in the same kind of hole last year?

Maddon: No, it’s a whole different set of circumstances right now, and I don’t want to compare it to a past experience. I just want our guys to be themselves and play our game. I know a lot of times in these moments you’re always going to draw the parallels and comparisons, et cetera, but every situation is unique into itself. So for me I prefer us to continue playing our game and not worrying about what’s happened in the past.”

Carl Crawford and Andy Sonnanstine:

“Q: This is a question for both you guys. Carl, what was it like out there in left field watching Andy mow all those batters down? And Andy, what’s it like sitting on the bench watching these guys collect all these hits?

CARL CRAWFORD: For me it was nice to watch Andy do his thing. He’s been doing it all year long for us. For me in left field, he’s not working me a lot today, so it was nice to see him pitch a good game today.

ANDY SONNANSTINE: For me it was awesome. Before I even threw the first pitch of the game I was already off to a 3-0 lead. So I mean it’s exciting every time I’ve got to get up and go slap hands with the guys who just scored, and I did that quite a bit tonight, so I was real happy about that.”

Terry Francona:

“Q: With the bullpen you had to go to Masterson early. Was that to try to contain the damage right then and there, or was that a matter of Masterson being able to warm up quickly and you could get him in there rather swiftly?

FRANCONA: We warmed him up in the first. If we had gotten to Bartlett, we were going to go to him. Once that — we got through that, he was the guy that was hot, and he was the guy at that point we felt like could give us — when I say length, two-plus, get us to a manageable part of the game. Again, it’s not a very good situation, and he did a pretty good job. But again, we were in a difficult spot.”