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MLB EXPANSION DRAFT

November 18, 1997

Larry Rothschild

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

Q. Larry, how much input did you have in that No. 1 pick?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, I had input along the lines of describing the type of pitcher Tony was, what he did, where he was arm-wise, health-wise, where he came from, and we discussed it thoroughly, and so I guess I had a lot of input, because I was with him all year. We took him out of Double-A. He made the Major League team, pitched great for us the first half, had the knee injury and came back the second half and it took him a while to get going, but he finished up pretty well, and has a lot of experience for someone that has only one year under his belt in the Major Leagues.

Q. Do you think they would have picked him No. 1 if you hadn't been named manager?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: It's impossible for me to tell.

Q. I guess what I'm asking is, before you came on board, were they already seriously considering him to your knowledge?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Yes, absolutely. I think both teams probably were. I can't answer for them, but he's the type of guy that you would have expected to go early.

Q. Larry, talk a little bit about his makeup and his mechanics. He had said earlier he thought he was going to be protected today?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, he has a very good makeup. You wouldn't take a young pitcher out of Double-A and put them in the Major League unless he had good makeup. So his makeup is not a question mark at all. Mechanically he's very sound. He's had arm surgery three years ago, but has rebounded and pitched a lot and been very healthy since then. There's a lot of factors involved there, but he can flat out pitch and he pitched very well for us last year.

Q. He's the guy that wasn't drafted out of high school, yet starting a game in the World Series and now the first pick of all these guys available, how do you explain how he's come so far from where he started?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, I think a lot of young pitchers accelerate quickly. That's the beauty of the young pitchers, I think that's why people draft pitchers out of high school. And Tony happened to be somebody that did that. If he came out of college right now he'd probably be a very, very high pick. It doesn't matter to me that he wasn't picked or anything else. What matters is the progress he's made, which has been a lot. And what we're looking at for next year right now, he fit into the plans very well.

Q. How do you guys look at Cairo?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, we picked him to play second base, and obviously as a young player, he's going to need to be protected a little bit, which we will do. But this is someone that on turf is a very good defensive player, he can run, and he's going to come along as a hitter slowly. I haven't seen him play, but I've heard the reports, and he's a talented young player, he was one of the most talented players we had on the board as a young prospect that could also play in '98. He's going to be able to play for us.

Q. Larry, Tony said he was surprised he wasn't protected, were you surprised he wasn't protected when you first saw him on the list?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, I think the talk early on was to protect him, but as we all know, things change rapidly in Florida, and I wasn't involved in a lot of the decisions through the playoffs and World Series, because we had other things to do, so I knew that list would change. They protected Al Leiter and I think Tony was the person that fell off at that point. And I think their feeling was that, and I'm not sure, but they might be able to trade Al, and they had to make room, and Tony was probably the guy that came down.

Q. The decision to go with Difelice to handle your young pitching staff?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: He's a catcher that is a very good handler of pitchers. He handled the young pitching staff in St. Louis and did a very good job this year. He has a passion for catching. You can see on the field he cares what happens with pitchers and we look for him to be able to do a good job for us in whatever role is going to be there.

Q. Did you anticipate Abreu being available and what did you think about when you saw him last year?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: I didn't know he would be available. I didn't get to see him much, just a few at-bats. I know what he's done in the past, and he was there and we ended up picking him for whatever.

Q. Larry, would you expect Saunders to be in your starting rotation next year?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Absolutely.

Q. Would you discuss the other two outfielders and the reasons why you went with them?
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, I think when we went through the board, like we've said all along, we were going to take the best players available, whether they were pitchers, infielders, outfielders or whatever the position was. And as it came about those guys were available so we took them, we felt they were the best for what we needed and for what was available and we picked them.

Q. Talk about Tony's unusual success against the Braves this year.
LARRY ROTHSCHILD: Well, again I'll go back to the first half of the season instead of talking about the Braves. Tony had success against just about every team the first half of this year until the knee injury. And a lot has been made about the way he pitched against the Braves and obviously exacerbated about the way he pitched in the playoffs against the Braves. But he's capable of pitching against any team, and I think it's just a matter of settling in. I don't know why he pitched that much better against the Braves, I can't answer that. But I know that he pitched very well against some other teams also.

End of FastScripts

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