[情報] Josh Byrnes Interview, Part 1
http://tinyurl.com/aognbw
I am delighted to present to you, part one of the AZ SnakePit interview with
Arizona Diamondbacks General Manager, Josh Byrnes. Since joining the
franchise in October 2005, he has been instrumental in shaping and building
the team, resulting in an appearance for us in the 2007 National League
Championship Series. After signing a contract extension that runs until 2015,
he looks set to be part of the front-office team for the foreseeable future,
and it was therefore very useful to get an insight into the man and his
approach to the game and the business. I think this may be the longest such
interview since his arrival with the team.
Some things to bear in mind with regard to the questions. Firstly, I
generally aimed to look forward, not back. If part of me did want to ask a
question which could be summarized as "CQ: WTF?", the truth is that's water
under the bridge and there's no point brooding over it. I trust it hasn't
been forgotten, bearing in mind George Santayana's famous comment, that those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But then, so are
those who live in the past, and I am more inclined to agree with George
Bernard Shaw: "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."
Second, I tried to avoid questions which have already been asked a million
times before. While I could have brought up Randy Johnson's departure, Josh
Byrnes would have been fully justified in opening his desk drawer and
whipping out this pic. Finally, I had no interest in asking questions I know
wouldn't be answered. Yes, we all want to know why negotiations with Webb
broke down and the club pulled its offer. However, better journalists than I
have [presumably] asked them, and been turned away. Life's just too short -
inevitably, so was this interview, though I was amazed to find how much
ground was covered in the alloted time. While I could certainly have gone
longer, it may be for the best we didn't, since it works out that every
minute of tape takes about ten to transcribe...
The interview took place last Thursday, before the announcement of Tom
Gordon's signing, and the transcript will be split into two parts, published
today and Wednesday. it will be presented without further comment from me -
analysis will be done in a follow-up piece, currently scheduled for Friday.
And without further ado:
AZ SnakePit: How much adaptation did you have to do on coming out here from
Boston - which obviously is a historic franchise, a rich franchise, with a
fanatical fanbase as well? Was there much 'culture shock' involved?
Josh Byrnes: I think every market is different, every franchise is different,
every set of challenges is different. In Boston, probably more than any other
place, you're constantly focussed on the Yankees. Though I imagine that's
changed to some degree, since another team from the AL East made it to the
World Series. It's different here: I think the challenge was change was
coming; the franchise needed to re-invent itself to some degree. We had a
good young talent base that was ready to mature, and all the issues related
to it, getting our payroll in order and making decisions to put the right
young players in positions where they could complete their development at the
major-league level.
AZ: What would you say was the overall philosophy of the Diamondbacks, now
you've been here for several years? Are you able to establish one for the
team going forward?
JB: I think so. From a personnel standpoint, we've built a roster primarily
through home-grown players and trades - this off-season has been our first
involvement in free-agency since two years ago. For a lot of reasons,
free-agency doesn't make a lot of sense for our franchise - we've used it
this year because it has made sense. But that's how we've constructed it:
it's been a young position-player based team, we've put a lot of our
resources into starting pitching. The combination of both has served us
pretty well, and I think it will continue to evolve. Our young position
players will hopefully continue to get better - and they'll get more
expensive also!
AZ: Is that approach a result of the team being a mid-market franchise?
JB: There are a lot of things that determine a payroll. I think ours is
consistent, relative to our revenue - and obviously we're also paying off
some debt, which is somewhat unique to us. Obviously, I think we have enough
to be competitive. We feel good: I think only one team in the past two years
has a better winning percentage with lower aggregate spending. It's a
challenge: we don't have the margin for error tsome teams do. Ten teams this
year will probably have payrolls of $100 million or greater and we're not in
that range, but I think we have enough to be very competitive.
AZ: One thing you mentioned there, was that free-agency made sense for you
this year. Is that perhaps an effect of the general recession? And how do you
think that's going to affect baseball and the Diamondbacks?
JB: I'll answer that two ways. Free agency in general, you're paying for
players who are a little bit older, and you're signing them for long deals. I
think the risk of a longer commitment paying for past performance is probably
a risk we need to avoid. This year, we've been able to sign two free agents
who are still in their twenties, to short deals, so it's been a different
outcome. But it's certainly based upon the economy. It was a confluence of a
lot of events. It's a pretty-good free-agent class, and I think as the dust
settles, thirty payrolls in 2009 will probably equal what they were in 2008 -
unlike most years where the industry payroll would inflate by a certain
percentage. This year, it's relatively flat and that's put quite a squeeze on
the free-agent market. and changed the cost structure.
AZ: And going forward for the Diamondbacks, what are the challenges of
attracting fans - perhaps tied to the Cardinals' success this year?
JB: Derrick and Tom Garfinkel probably have a better handle on the revenue
side. We have our own own unique set of circumstances. Our season-ticket
holders are incredibly loyal; our TV ratings are very good. It's really the
next segment of fans - the spontaneous buyers. I think all the variables are
important, but I think the most important is putting a good product on the
field. In that respect, the Diamondbacks have had seven winning seasons out
of ten, four playoff teams, the last two years we've spent more days in
first-place than any National League team. But it takes time. I think we've
got to earn credibility and earn customers.
AZ: There have been reports the Diamondbacks have a strict no-incentives
policy when negotiating. Is that the case, and if so what's the purpose
behind it? Do you feel this has hampered the team, especially negotiating
with high-risk/high-reward players?
JB: It's true. We probably have made, and willing to make, a small exception
to that where we would create a contract model where the variability is based
upon health rather than traditional things like innings pitched, games
started, plate appearances. The reason for doing it is to know what your team
costs, for one - it helps us budget and plan. Two, it can become a clubhouse
issue when you have too many players where their 'meters are running', so to
speak. It's only natural that they're aware of their next threshold of
earnings.
AZ: Are there ever occasions where you would want to have loosened it, so you
could go after particular players?
JB: I think the one demographic is the pitcher with some health question. In
that respect, I think we can satisfy the risk/reward of it through creating
provisions based on health rather than statistics.
AZ: Going back to your early days in Cleveland, you were one of the first to
use video for scouting purposes. What technology is likely to be most
significant for baseball front-offices going forward?
JB: The Internet's been a powerful tool - cellphones and email, not to be too
simplistic about it, but it has changed how the business operates. Video's
important, and it's come a long way since we moved into Jacobs Field in 1994
and we had a video room. Then going into digital, and co-ordinating it with
charting, so we could randomly access events and games and have video behind
it. The next challenge is the immediacy and portability of it.
As an example, for preparing a meeting with a post-season opponent, we have a
little bit more time to support a scouting report with video. When you have
the demands of every day, and travel, it's a hard thing to do over a 162-game
season. Can we make better use of our plane time? Can we have more effective
meetings in visiting clubhouses? We're probably able to get video more
quickly on amateur players; one of the better players in this draft, I've
already seen three at-bats from his first game. One of our scouts filmed it,
and sent it to us. The next day I can watch players we're scouting in the
Dominican and so on and so forth. That will continue to evolve; just how
portable and how quickly you can access video.
AZ: Some of the people on your Baseball Operations staff don't have
traditional baseball backgrounds. What does someone like that add, as opposed
to a "traditional" baseball background, either as a scout, coach or player?
JB: Actually, I think that's a misconception. Everyone who sits on this
hallway has at least played college baseball, or in the case of Helen Zelman,
college soccer. Three of the people played in the major leagues. To have
people who are in the front-office inner-circle and have played either at the
college level or above, across the board, is unusual. That's probably a
pretty good playing background for a front-office. As we've built the staff,
it is combining your academic background with your playing background, and
your skills and experience contribute to your decisions. We don't want to
reject the sort of insights you get from playing; we never have.
AZ: You yourself played baseball back in college. How does the competitive
rush compare from being out on the field to being in an office, and watching
it unfold from there?
JB: I guess there's a little less adrenaline, but I guess the competitiveness
is pretty similar. Certainly, talking to Jerry DiPoto and AJ Hinch, guys who
played a while in the major leagues, they view their jobs, as competitive as
their jobs playing. We would also say of our scouts, if you're scouting just
to fulfill the assignment, that's ok, but we'd rather have scouts who are
competing. The day they're at a park with ten other windbreakers out there,
but they're seeing more, picking up more information and relaying it, and
they realize that it's a competition to get the players right.
AZ: In what ways will the recent departure of Jeff Moorad change the
franchise?
JB: I think it will change it. We have a lot of great people here, both in
baseball ops and, obviously, Ken Kendrick, Derrick Hall, Tom Garfinkel - I
think more than in most organizations, our business and baseball people speak
the same language and interact well. Jeff is a very bright, strategic,
"thick-skinned" person whom on a daily basis invested a lot in his people and
wanted us to succeed and support as well. He'll be missed, but we have a lot
of good people here to pick up the slack.
AZ: At the end of the 2008 season, having fallen short by a couple of games,
what did you see as the areas most in need of addressing at that point?
JB: Our team in 2008, obviously our offense was very inconsistent. Generally,
it ended up in the middle-third on most metrics of relevance - but it didn't
feel like that, it was either really good or really bad, it wasn't a
consistent run-scoring approach. Our starting pitching was terrific; our
bullpen had high points and low points, and obviously people remember the low
points. I think even in May and June, when our season sort of got off-track,
something which should be more of a constant for us, our defense and
base-running, wasn't as good as I think it could be. That carried us largely
through '07 and the first part of 08, and I think we gave away some games
because of it.
I think there was the mind-set of it: for '07, people didn't expect us to be
able to do it. We got off to a great start in '08 and for the first time,
this group was expected, both locally and nationally, to win this division
and be a factor in October. The psychology of shifting expectations - maybe
we didn't handle it as well as we could have.
AZ: Do you think that was a result of it being a fairly young team,
particularly the position players?
JB: Maybe. You know, I'd probably be the last person to concede any issue, be
it good or bad, as being related to our age in the last couple of years, but
I think that might have been. Something I remember Orel Hershiser saying in
'95, when we were having a magical season in Cleveland was "Until you've gone
through it a few times, you don't realize how good this season is" - and
maybe appreciate and enjoy it but also take advantage of the opportunity.
The reality is that eight of 30 make the playoffs, it's not easy to get in,
and when you have a chance, you do everything you reasonably can to take
advantage of that opportunity. Seeing our guys, this time of year, getting
ready for spring training, my sense is they hopefully now have perspective,
that last year really was an opportunity we didn't cash in, so I think
there'll be quite a bit of intent as we take the field in '09.
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
◆ From: 140.112.5.3
Diamondbacks 近期熱門文章
PTT體育區 即時熱門文章