Winter Meetings interview with Paul Molitor

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Updated: December 7, 2016

Q. This brief time you’ve had with kind of the new regime, Derek and Thad, how is it working? What are your thoughts? Big changes, obviously. PAUL MOLITOR: It’s a change, but it’s working. When you make major moves like that, it’s going to take time on both sides of the coin. I think everyone’s put forth our best effort in trying to expedite building the relationships. They have inviting personalities in terms of, you know, there is obviously a fairly easy connection. But going up the time with Derek leading up to the Indians and the end of their run and bringing Thad in, probably spent more time with Derek to this point. And just to get a feel for how they want to run this meeting down here. You got a guy like Terry who did it for so long, you know what that’s like. And it hasn’t been dramatically different, but they have a little different way they’re operating. But I like the energy and there is certainly a lot of high baseball IQ there. We’re just trying to continue to find ways to get on the same page, how we want to address short-term for ’17 and their main goal is long-term competitive, hopefully championship-type baseball. I’ve enjoyed it, looking forward to seeing where it goes.Q. How much have you been involved in the meetings here? PAUL MOLITOR: Some. They kind of have taken the lead of when my presence has been required or not. There’s a lot of club-to-club discussions, potential fits, free agent meetings with agents, and I haven’t been a part of a lot of those type of things. But up in the boardroom when we are sitting down and kind of hashing out our roster and other rosters and all the different categories of players that are out there, you know, I’ve been pretty heavily involved with my input in that regard. Probably get tired of hearing that but it’s just one of those things where you try and work on collaboration. I feel my opinion has been heard and listened to. Not a lot of action yet, but we’re working on things.Q. You were picking up on their lexicon now, huh? PAUL MOLITOR: I don’t have the extensive vocabulary that we’ve seen these guys display to this point, but I just watch O’Reilly and get my Word of the Day and try to put it in there.Q. Obviously one more coach to hire here, so what is the process there? PAUL MOLITOR: It’s been a good process. It’s obviously important to me to try to assemble that the best way we can in terms of the right personality, the right knowledge, making sure we have all the areas covered that we need to to run a staff thoroughly. Through the interview process and getting James on board was I thought a really good hire for us and we’re kind of getting down to where we’re finalizing it. And it’s kind of like your player rosters, you try to get good people but then you’ve got to make it fit as far as making sure everything you want to have covered is covered.Q. Is there a chance that it might not be a first base coach, you could shift someone else to first base? PAUL MOLITOR: I don’t know how much they’ve talked to you guys, Derek and Thad, but the trend of the quality control role and how we might use that and give us more flexibility in how we plug people in.Q. Thad said he wanted to get away from the quality control name because then you’ve lost control of the quality. PAUL MOLITOR: That’s a fair interpretation. I don’t know how someone came up with that term to describe that. The way I’ve looked at it and what I’ve tried to feel around from people in the game and certainly those two guys is that you add someone with very good crossover ability who can, you know, supply a variety of services to try to help. You have your infield guy, your base runner guy but if there is someone with skills to help formulate a game plan in terms of how you want to pitch people, maybe how we want to implement shifts on the defensive side, you know, communication between the majors and the Minor Leagues throughout the year, there is a lot of things that that could potentially include.Q. Among the current guys, the six that remain who could handle outfield and base running if asked to do that? PAUL MOLITOR: It’s a fair question, the outfield void still remains for the most part. Gene Glynn has done a lot of base running work in his past, and Joe being a field coordinator in my mind can coach just about anything. But we’re very conscientious of trying to shore that up and get somebody out there. Whoever it is I’m going to encourage them to use the resources of Cuddyer and Hunter in terms of how we want to set up a defensive plan for our Spring Training and the outfielders. And I think part of what we need to do, the accuracy of the reports we can get on defensive play positioning, first step, angles, routes, all those things that I think we’re ready to try to take more advantage of than we have in the past and someone with the knowledge of that will be very helpful.Q. Do you have any idea how much you will have Hunter and Cuddyer available for you? PAUL MOLITOR: I talked to Cuddy once and I’ve talked to Torii a few times and their attitude seems to be whatever you need which is not surprising. There is talk about them coming to Spring Training early and then again late and the possibility of them sticking around for three weeks in one large chunk. We’re going to try to see what makes the most sense and take advantage of those assets.Q. A couple of days ago, Brian Dozier said he wants to stay with the Twins, but he’s bracing himself for whatever may happen. From what you gather, do you feel like he’s going to be with you next year? PAUL MOLITOR: I certainly hope that. I mean, we all know what Brian has done, the way his career has trended, you know, kind of reaching an all-time high in a lot of ways last year. So he’s a huge part of what we do, right-handed bat with power who can play defense and added intelligence and leadership. It’s not surprising that you go through a 103-loss season and there are going to be people inquiring about how much are you going to try to change to either give your club a different look in the short-term or possibly improve your long-term chances. When you talk about valuable pieces that clubs would have interest in, it’s not surprising that his name has been brought up quite a bit. Him coming back would certainly be a good thing for me. Him and I have a really positive relationship in all regards. I’m kind of following it along and, you know, just kind of see where it goes. As Derek and Thad have said, we have to be open minded about just about anything that people would bring to us just to try to increase our chances of doing what we need to do both in the short-term as well as going forward.Q. How tough was it to lose Trevor Plouffe? PAUL MOLITOR: It was hard personally. When he came in 12 years ago roughly, it was just one of the those relationships that I have had a chance to be a part of in a lot of ways, as a young kid who was looking for a lot of guidance through all the things he endured to become a big league player to his maturation to a good player, good teammate. We all understand, without having to go too deep, why it came down the way it did given our personnel and how things fit together and where Trevor is at in terms of potential compensation through the arbitration system, all those things were factors, but I think he’s going to be fine. I think there is a lot of potential value for somebody who looks for a consistent right-handed bat who can do some things and versatile defensively as far as playing the corners. So, yeah, it’s hard to move on when you have relationships like that.Q. It obviously opened the doors up for (inaudible). Have you talked to him at all this offseason? PAUL MOLITOR: I haven’t talked to him directly. I’ve been monitoring more what he’s been up to through other people in our system, including our training staff. You know, we hear good reports about his focus and you guys heard what he had to say at the end of the year about coming back and things that he wants to do both in terms of being physically prepared as well as trying to undue some of …

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