Winter Meetings interview with Kevin Cash

Q. We’ll start with what you can’t talk about, what about Wilson Ramos? KEVIN CASH: He’s an exciting player. Obviously nothing has been formally announced and we are going to stay pretty vague about that, it’s kind of our policy. As we’ve said throughout the entire off-season, we’ve kind of been in the market looking for catching, and he’s a guy among many that we’ve discussed and we like a lot of things that he’s capable of doing.Q. Along those hypothetical lines, what are some of the things that a guy like Wilson Ramos does that you might like? KEVIN CASH: Obviously the offensive profile; the fact that he’s gone out, understanding that he had an injury, but before, prior to that, he had gone out and caught over a hundred games, I think, a couple years, back-to-back. To find those guys that are capable, and then showing a track record of being able to do that, you put yourself in a special category, because this game is continuing to evolve and change, and you just don’t see that type of catcher, or that many of them, that can go out and contribute that much.Q. Just one more thing on him. If you were to get a guy like that, who is a veteran, who can also have a good read on your pitching staff, which is always really important? KEVIN CASH: Yeah, look, if we were able to get a guy like that, like you said, he’s a guy that comes with some history of catching some really good pitchers. We have some good pitchers. So I think we’d be confident that that would be a real positive balance for our club.Q. Home runs were up this year a lot, particularly throughout depth of lineups. Does that have any impact on how you manage a game? KEVIN CASH: No, I don’t think so. But I agree, there were home runs that were up. I think our pitchers probably caught the brunt of it more than what we would like. You know, I think for the most part, the Rays, we consider our ballpark to be a pitcher’s ballpark. I don’t know if it always played like that this past year. I mean, you look at Chris Archer’s season and you take away ten home runs and he basically had the exact season that he had the year before when we were talking about how special he was; he’s still very special. Where those ten home runs came from, I don’t think it’s all — nobody quite has to find — I’m sure a couple mislocated pitches, but it did trickle out throughout the American League that we saw quite a bit. There were a lot of what appeared to be fly balls getting out of the ballpark.Q. But nothing strategically, no impact on your staff? KEVIN CASH: No, I think if you’re managing to try to avoid the home run and you get caught doing that too many times, it’s going to eventually — it’s going to burn you. Look, lineups are built these days where I think most everybody in the lineup is capable of hitting a home run. It’s part of the game. You just kind of follow that along, knowing that it’s possible.Q. You’re trying to pick up some wins in the standings. You’ve talked about you can’t just hit the table and have the same players get the 25 wins you need. How much harder is it going to be after what Boston did yesterday? KEVIN CASH: Well, I mean, you know what, they acquired a really, really good pitcher. The nice thing about Boston is they have already got a bunch of really good pitchers. I love the way our guys kind of rose to those challenges throughout the course of the year. The other left-hander they have that we all know really well is pretty special, too. We had some really good games against him. Chris Sale is obviously as talented as anybody in the game, and he’s going to present challenges. But it’s something that I think our guys will be excited about. It will just add to — kind of add to the competition in the AL East. It is what it is. That’s how it works.Q. In an ideal world, what would be a good profile for this outfield bat, DH kind of guy you’re looking for? KEVIN CASH: Well, I think there’s a couple different options, because mainly, with the flexibility of Corey Dickerson and Souza, to an extent. We know KK is going to be in center field, and Souza and Corey, are going to be — primarily they are going to be out there. They are going to get some DH at-bats. Personally, I like the speed factor, and a guy that is capable of playing some center field. I mean, we all saw what took place when KK got hurt. He’s a special player. We’re not going to go find Kevin Kiermaier-type defense to fill in, if there’s an off-day here or there or on injury. But to have a guy to come in to kind of hold center field down would be great.Q. Rays have so many good pitchers and rumors one of them might go in a trade. Do you imagine that because they are probably going to sign Wilson Ramos, that means probably that they don’t have to wait too much in the future and you don’t have to trade a specialist? What do you think about that? KEVIN CASH: As a manager, you don’t want to trade any of them, because what we’ve seen the last two years, you can never have enough starting pitching, and we do have a talented group. You know, we’ve got a good group of guys that are going to come back and they’re going to be hungry to perform like they know they are capable of. That being said, I mean, that’s what we get calls about. Leading up to the Winter Meetings, during the Winter Meetings, everybody wants to talk about our starting pitching, because it’s so valuable and it’s so tough to find. It’s a luxury for us to be able to have that, but I don’t want to see any of them go.Q. Looking at your bullpen for next year, how important is it to be able to build from the top down, having Boxberger back healthy and Colome? KEVIN CASH: What Alex Colome did last year we talked about quite a bit. He put himself in a position; he was successful; he really established himself as having an elite season. We have every anticipation that he is going to come back in and repeat that.Brad Boxberger is a guy that somewhat had a lost of year, simply due to injuries. We look forward to kind of him regaining his All-Star season the year before, and even the 2014 season where he was as dominant as anybody. It will be nice to have Box come in there, be healthy, not managing injuries and rehabbing; that takes a toll on a player. Especially when he gets hurt in Spring Training, he rehabs, he comes back, he gets hurt day one when he gets reactivated. His whole season was basically rehabbing. That’s not a very good way to go about having success. So we’re looking for better health for him.Q. And when you’re putting your bullpen together this spring, obviously usually bring in a lot of the veteran guys with the Minor League deal invite, but are you looking more for strictly talent, or do you like to mix that in with different looks? KEVIN CASH: That’s something that we’re discussing right now. I mean, obviously the talent plays. We’ve predominately built our pitching staff, and, taking aside the starter, is kind of a lot of fly ball pitchers. We’ve seen …

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