Winter Meetings interview with Bryan Price

Q. Obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen here, but if you don’t trade either of your middle infielders, we’ve asked Dick how this might work out, but how do you figure out a way to get Peraza, maybe Herrera, opportunity when you have the same obstacles you had last year?BRYAN PRICE: Well, I think hard to have two. The one thing we were able to define last season is Jose Peraza is a Major Leaguer. He’s not a guy who is better served playing Triple-A, if I can get him in the lineup at least four times a week. And prefer not to have to sprinkle him around and take time away at short, second, maybe left and center field a game a week. But he’s got to play. He’s a guy that’s got to play. So it will be interesting to see where we are either between now and the first day of Spring Training or now and Opening Day. Things happen. The one thing that we have had as an issue in the last several years is the ability to survive Spring Training without injuries. So the depth portion of this is important. So as far as Dilson goes, that’s the other part. Are we still intact with our middle infield when we get to Opening Day? Get a chance to have a full spring with him and define if he needs a little bit more time in Triple-A to play or if he’s ready to come up and be a guy. But also not a guy that I would like to have them there as a bench player. I don’t think that’s going to help his progress at all. I think they’re between Dilson and Jose, they’re in a little bit different spot going into Spring Training.Q. How much are you looking forward to getting a look at Dilson this spring?BRYAN PRICE: Very much so because I know we were excited to get him. I think he’s a strong, offensive second baseman who defends well. He’s 22 years old. So to have a couple of young 22, 23 year olds over the course of the 2017 season that could potentially be playing with some regularity is exciting, because we’ve talked about the rebuild. And the rebuild is being able to feel like we can go out there and compete for postseason and championships moving forward. And in order to do that, you have to define who is going to be there during that stretch of time and who isn’t. I think that’s the reason that beyond the financial challenges obviously, but for guys like Frazier, Chapman, are they going to be there for the resurrection of our ballclub and can we afford to keep them for that period. And when it was defined that we couldn’t, we had to make significant moves.Q. Have you spoken with others about carving out time for Peraza next year and how that may all work out?BRYAN PRICE: Not to this point. I think that with Zach coming off his injury last year, it wasn’t difficult to get De Jesus in there periodically when Peraza came up. There was more opportunity the second time he came up or when he came up for good because Zach was banged up and we needed to get him out of there more often and then eventually we shut him down for the season. I think what we have to do is get to Spring Training and see where we are. There is no question this is a picture that’s painting itself. If we come fully intact, we’re going to be heavy on middle infielders and we’re going to have two real young guys and two veterans and defining who is going to be a part of 2018, 2019, ’20 and ’21, is going to in large part define who is playing in 2017. And that’s something that organizationally will be defined by the time we get to Opening Day.Q. There has been a lot of debate over how much the Indians’ bullpen usage during the postseason could be replicated throughout the season, but that’s probably been covered enough already. What about what they did that went under the radar, their extreme curveball usage in the Toronto and Cubs series? Can teams do that, attack more?BRYAN PRICE: I think a lot of that was based on their scouting reports and data, especially if you’re — I don’t know if you’re talking overall or talking primarily with the bullpen pieces, but either way — there is no wiggle room in the postseason. You go into a situation like that you can’t just sometimes sacrifice a game to save your bullpen. You gotta go out there and compete to win every game and that’s why we saw a much smaller group competing in the postseason and seeing pitches thrown at a higher rate, because there was really a feeling, I’m sure, of there is no room for error. I think what we’re seeing is way more data. We’re finding certain pitches that we can isolate, certain sides of the plate that can be utilized more, certain pitches that aren’t used typically on one side of the plate. You’re seeing front door slider, front door cutter, front door breaking ball, change-ups inside, right on right, left on left. So what’s happening is through the data we’re opening up a lot of different avenues to find out, defensive positioning, things of that nature. And now we’re going it see how the offense seems to respond. That’s the beauty of baseball is that back and forth.Q. The home runs were way up this year, but not just the boppers, it’s the rogue lineup, guys hitting home runs. Do you need to manage differently because of that?BRYAN PRICE: Well, I think it’s certainly — the response to that is why are we getting so many balls in the air and can we isolate more guys or teach more guys to work down in the zone or to be able to find that pitch that will create more ground ball contact. I think that’s the response. The defense to that and finding that combination of ground ball-strike out pitcher. In our ballpark, certain times of the year it’s very hard to keep a fly ball in the ballpark. And in order to win with any consistency, you’ve got to be able to do that with a higher rate, keep the ball on the ground or in the stadium or you have to have guys that can compete and outslug from time to time. I think when you start to earmark pitchers and start to look at them the ground ball rate and strikeout rates have brought on a higher importance with all the analysis that we’re seeing and it’s the way that we will compete against the home run.Q. How optimistic and realistic are you about what Mesoraco can do going into the season after two lost years?BRYAN PRICE: I’m optimistic that physically he will be back. The type of workload that we see on the front end of the season will be defined on how he responds to the workload. I think he will certainly be eased in as far as — I don’t think he’s going to have a Yadi Molina year where he’s able to catch in 140-plus games, but I do believe that he’s going to make it back behind the plate. If I wasn’t optimistic about that, I think we would have to look at other options as far as other ways to utilize Devin. Then probably in small ways we will. And now the question is after being out of the game for most of the last two seasons is getting his timing and swing down. But he’s still young, he’s still athletic, he still has power, that’s not going to go away. I think there has to be a certain amount of patience for him to find his way offensively and I’m not discouraged by it. I certainly would hope that he didn’t have these multiple surgeries in his history but we’ve gone through it. Our doctors have not told us to be frightened of this. We will be cognizant of it but equally as optimistic.Q. Having Tucker I guess as a good fallback, it’s a hybrid system of some sort? He could be a regular catcher?BRYAN PRICE: Absolutely, you’re absolutely right. You can’t discredit the fact that in the aftermath of Devin’s injuries along the way, Tucker has established himself as a Major League catcher and a regular. He’s not just a fallback option. He’s a good option on days where Devin shouldn’t be playing or needs a day off or can DH in a game. The other part of that and one thing we realized is thank goodness we had Ramon Cabrera last year because had we not, we would have been scouring the waiver wire for a capable Major League second catcher. And I thought Ramon did a fine job as a back-up to Tucker, but we have to have reasonable depth simply because of Devin’s injury.Q. What’s it been like to have first Winter Meetings for Dick as the GM? What’s been your input and is there much change to how it’s operated this year?BRYAN PRICE: There is definitely a certain amount of change in leadership and I really appreciate and admire the way he’s included Walt Jocketty. Even though Walt still holds a position in our front office, it could have been easy for Dick to roll past him and bring in different people. And we have a very connected and established group of people in the room, so when you go into that room from years …

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