It's time to raise the roof for our latest offseason episode.

Welcome back everyone to this latest episode of the pod.

I'm your host, Alex Murphy.

Today we are going to be taking a look at Eric Neander, president of baseball operations for the Tampa Bay Rays.

His end of season press conference, which happened I believe on either.

I believe it was September 30th, so about a week before the new ownership press conference with Patrick Zalupski and Ken Babi and Bill Cosgrove, all of them.

This press conference from Eric Neander, which you can watch in its entirety on our YouTube channel that's Raise the Roof.

Be sure to subscribe and turn on post notifications to get new uploads because we're going to have plenty of stuff going on this offseason.

But the press conference itself was about 45 minutes.

Neander addressed a lot of things.

He did talk about the undership Group A little bit with the understanding that they would be given the floor and then things would kind of change after that point.

So it was a little bit of stuff, not really a lot, but it was just a lot of examination on the season, talking about what things went right, what things went wrong.

From what I garnered, it was very candid.

Eric Neander has been very transparent over his tenure with the Rays, which has been nearing 2 decades at this point, if not more.

He continues to be one of the brightest minds of baseball, but he also realizes the shortcomings of what happened this season.

And I think that that's really important moving forward.

I thought that the questions from reporters were good.

I thought that there was a lot of things that were talked about that are going to be important for this team to address in the offseason, Whether that be the bullpen, whether that be the catching situation, whether that be what the starting pitching look like, offense, the production from rookies, everything under the everything under the sun and more.

I think he did a really good job, but I also think that there's still plenty that needs to be addressed in the offseason and that will probably come from a plethora of different things.

I'm curious to see what kind of players the Rays choose to go after in the free agent market.

I'm curious what players they maybe trade for.

I'm curious if they decide to re up anyone, if they decide to extend any contracts, things like that.

I know that there are a bunch of players that are under arbitration that the Rays are going to have to deal with.

There's a lot, a lot of players, I think somewhere around 16 players that are are eligible coming into the offseason.

So there's a lot of things that need to be addressed, a lot of things that need to or that we'll see how things are addressed in due time.

But I think, again, Neander did a good job of assessing the situation at hand, understanding that this was far from the best season that the Rays could have had.

If things broke the right way, the Rays would have done better and probably would have been able to compete for a playoff spot.

That doesn't always happen.

So yeah, it was about a 45 minute press conference.

We have it in its entirety and audio.

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Well, thanks everyone for being here today.

Welcome to our end of the season press conference with our President of Baseball Operations, Eric Neander.

There will be two mics, one of each out of the room that will be going around.

Please state your name and your affiliation and he'll take your questions.

Eric, we'll start now with some remarks.

Yeah, thank you.

A few thank yous that I want to hit and a few remarks here at the beginning before getting into.

Thank you all of your questions.

Happy to take as many questions as as you all have.

And seems like a the type of year where there might be plenty about the last 20 years about the future and a few about why we're having this press conference in September instead of October one day, November.

So, but first, I want to give a thank you to our fans for hanging with us this year.

It was different, it was unique.

We did the best that that we could for all of you and providing great accommodations here.

Thanks to the Yankees one last time for this, but appreciate y'all being there for us.

Thank you to everyone in this room, the media for for covering us this year.

Gave you a lot to cover.

Wish more of it was was positive but appreciate y'all working as hard as you do to provide insight and perspective to our fans.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

I better not forget this one.

The last 12 months from when we were at the Trop, we had just experienced the first of two hurricanes that did a lot of damage and disrupted a lot of lives in in our community.

I want to put this in the right perspective because a lot of people are going through worse.

But a huge thank you to our players, to our staff, really do our entire organization for everything that that they've endured over the last 12 months.

Personally and again, in the right perspective, people are going through worse.

But professionally, you almost forgot about everything that we had to take on this year because of the professionalism, the dedication and the the resilience at which everybody handled everything about this year playing in this stadium.

It's no excuse for the record, but this was, this was a lot.

It was a long year.

And like I said, our coaches, definitely our players and the entirety of our staff, those of us that were over in this building, the many that were over in Saint Pete working out of a insurance companies building, it's it was a lot.

And everybody hung in there, did the absolute best that they could and couldn't be more grateful to work with such wonderful people, players and staff alike.

Next, a huge thank you to to Stu, in addition to Stu, Matt and Brian for everything over the last 20 years.

So I've had the privilege of being here for almost all of those 20 years.

I get in right when things started going good, my first full time year was 2008.

So that was that was nice.

But just under their leadership, their vision, their support, just an incredible place to work.

And I've been grateful for every single moment I've had to work for them.

And with an endless list of incredible people, some that are in this room and many, many that are not, I think back about the last 20 years, we've accomplished a lot.

We've come a really long way.

There's been a lot of reflection and you know, over the last several weeks about just how far we've come and really, really proud of the accomplishments we've made.

We've legitimized this franchise.

We've put into place where the expectations are high, where there's disappointment.

When you have a year like this or a year like last year, that says a lot about where we stand today.

But that being said, there's arguably our two biggest ticket items are in front of us.

There's a forever home that is not here.

It needs to be figured out and there's a championship to to be won.

And from a baseball standpoint, that's my and the baseball operations department's greatest priority.

And Stu, in his own words, said he was the right person to take this franchise, him and his partners from Vince Damoli 20 years ago.

Stu himself has said that Patrick Zaluski, Ken Babi, Bill Cosgrove over the right.

This is the right ownership group to take it from here and elevate it another step and to accomplish those big ticket items that that I just referenced.

So excited for, for everything ahead.

Stu has said his goodbyes.

I assume at some point the new people are going to say their hellos.

I'm here from this point forward to talk about the season, our baseball team and not to be the the spokesperson for the new ownership group, but I'll do my best to give you answers as as I can.

I suppose somewhere in here I should have briefed a little about the the season itself, but the disappointing year.

Not like I said, we want to be don't much care for having the end of season press conferences in September.

That's the wrong month for for all of us.

It's not why we do it.

Our expectations are, as I said earlier, they're they're higher in terms of looking ahead.

We we're going to stay at this.

We're going to try to continue to go into as many years as possible having competitive clubs that if things break right, give us the chance to elevate it, play postseason baseball and ideally one day win a championship.

That's still our belief.

That's still our goal.

When you look at what Junior Caminero did this year, on one corner, you look at Jonathan Ronda.

On the other corner, you look at two of the greatest players in our franchise's history, Yandi Diaz, Brandon Lowe, what they've done healthy, starting pitching once we got out of camp, unfortunately for Shane, but we're going to get them back.

Chandler Simpson, Jake Mangum, There's, there's a lot here.

There's a lot of ingredients that suggest with the right maneuverings from a roster standpoint, the right development from some players internally that next year we won't be having this press conference in September.

So that's how we're going to go about this offseason.

That's our expectation.

And with that, happy to open it up for as many questions as you all have.

Mark Topkin, Tampa Bay Times per Elvis's orders.

Meander Rush Chairman, with everything you said and and change in ownership, stadium question short term stadium question long term, you're focused on getting this team back to players.

What what do you think you guys do have to do?

What is it going to take?

How much?

I know you can't predict what moves you're going to make, but how much, as you said here today, do you think has to be done to get there?

Yeah, a decent amount.

I look at you could look at this team and the record itself wasn't good enough.

I think certainly the last few weeks leaned a little bit more into development and learning what we can about some players that if you're in the thick of it, you probably make some different decisions.

Yeah, you can sit there and point to the run differential being what it was and this and that.

But by run differential, I don't think we were a top six team in the league.

So there's some signs that we were a better team than our record.

Yeah, I think when you look at this group in its entirety this year, you look, this is not about looking ahead, is about looking back.

I think all in our position player group was somewhere in the middle to slightly above territory.

The starting pitching was middle to slightly above and our bullpen, we we gave up a lot of homers and a lot of runs when we absolutely least could afford to do it.

You look in it and it's something we struggle with all year.

You look at our bullpens numbers and where they finished up.

Better strikeout rate than any team in the postseason, second best in baseball, second best walk rate in baseball.

And somehow when they gave up runs, it happened at the absolute worst time, especially in July.

But if you told me the starters are going to stay healthy, once you broke camp and our position players, that group would be in that solid average territory, leave the league in steals, you know, and do that and a bullpen would be at the top of the list.

And strikeouts, walks, velocity.

I feel pretty good about where we'd end up.

And a lot like the team in the NL Central that won that division.

We didn't win the close games.

We didn't separate when we could have.

We didn't close down tight leads when we could have.

And but kind of when we look to what's ahead, that staying right there, few things break your way, a little more production out of the outfield, a little more development from the younger players.

It can turn quick.

Go back to 2022 when we left that season, wondered how in the heck we're going to score more runs.

And we signed Zac Eflin.

That didn't help us score more runs.

But that team figured out how to score more runs just by way of development, right and giving Josh low opportunity, Luke Raley and some others.

And you know, we're always going to be in position where we're going to be counting on the players.

We have to take that next step forward and try to put like write complimentary pieces around them.

And if we do that this offseason, then I'd like to believe that we'll have a different conversation next year.

We're not terribly far off.

adamberrymlb.com This may be a question for a future day, but just given the new ownership group, like you mentioned, how much do you anticipate operationally kind of changing this offseason, whether that's payroll, personnel, things like that?

Yeah, Look, I if when things are finalized, they'll have the rightful opportunity to communicate their plans, their vision for the for the organization, everything that's, that's ahead.

You know, the conversations I've had, like I said, there's, there's two big ticket items that that need to be accomplished here to really put a cherry on top of everything that the way this organization transformed the last 20 years for that to happen, I can't say with confidence they're, they're fully aligned in terms of wanting to, to make that happen with us.

So we'll see where that takes us.

But there's an expectation to win.

Our expectation is to win.

And we'll go about our business this offseason getting getting to learn one another, understanding what's most important to them.

But like I said, the desire to win what's most important to us appears to be most important to them.

And by all accounts, really, really good people to work for.

Tom Brew Roundtable Sports Eric, this franchise has been sort of built around starting pitching for a couple of decades now.

And you went 100 and something games more with the same five guys starting this year.

And of course, hoping for more from Shane.

Can you kind of look big pictures to where you're at with that group and what you got from this year and what you hope to see next year?

Yeah, it's it's one of those you had it to the list.

It's like from opening day forward.

We didn't have a starting pitcher injury.

You tell me that.

Tell me your bullpen striking guys out, not walking guys and Camby's hitting 45 and be like kind of shocked that our record is what it is in a sense.

But yeah, look, starting pitching is critical to our success and any team success for us, often times it comes through developing them, whether we've drafted them or whether we've acquired them through trade, but helping them elevate themselves.

This year's group, no different for Shane Baz, Ryan Pepio, Drew Rasmussen, of course, to take the ball every turn the way they did combine for 90 plus starts, that's huge for them to be able to get through that, it just puts them in a stronger position going into next year.

And Drew, you can't ask for much more when it comes to what he provided us.

You know, Pep was rock solid.

Shane Baz, that was a big deal for him.

And I think now you hope now we've got the quantity part kind of in a good place and now we need to take that next step from a quality standpoint.

But that's a strong position to be in.

Joe Boyle, we saw the flashes.

We've said from the moment we acquired him.

That's going to be a longer play.

Ian Seymour, you know, when you're when you're in the situations you're in where you're not as competitive as you like to be, you, you better find a way to make the most of and give people opportunity.

And Ian made an awful lot of his with his starting opportunities.

And it's another one we're excited about next year.

So we get to bring everybody.

Adrian Hauser is the only player in this entire roster that we don't have the opportunity to bring back.

You know, it gets back to Mark's question, yours that we're going to have a lot of starters, a lot of good starters that I think are primed to take another step forward getting Shane Mcclanahan back.

There's there's no replacing Shane.

And I think we've seen that from the end of, you know, August 23, Ford Rock, Riley, Tampa Free Press, WDAEI know it's just the beginning.

I'm sure you've had some conversation with the new ownership group.

Have they mentioned anything about spending more in payroll, being able to maybe sign a current player that says * or a future star, anything like that at all?

Eric surprised it took that many questions to to get that one.

Look, I, I've, I've said this a long time.

I'm here because I believe we can win here and we have enough to win here.

Continue to to believe that the people we have the talent we have.

My job is to, to do the absolute best with the revenues that we have and, and where we are when it comes to anything more than that.

I, like I said, I, I think it's appropriate for them to have their time to explain themselves.

I don't want to, to be the one presenting their vision, Certainly when it's not official.

I don't think so.

You know, we'll, we'll get there.

Like I said, the getting a forever home and winning a championship are the two things at the forefront of everybody's mind.

That goes for them, that goes for us.

And you know, we'll do, we'll do everything we can to make that happen.

And yeah, that's that's where we're at.

Tom Akins, NBC News This seems like my annual question, but can this team look when you look out to the possible available players?

Is there a way to upgrade the catching situation here?

We appear to have serviceable players.

Now the question is, is there someone out there who will become a regular number one catcher?

Your, your annual question is our annual question.

Also, we're going to keep looking.

You know, Danny Jansen, the signing last year, he was a rock.

And I know this season didn't go the way we wanted to, but was invaluable, not just offensively, he did a nice job, but just coming into this building, there's so much of that position that is not measurable, that is intangible.

He was incredible, but that was a one year deal and obviously our season didn't go in the direction to to retain him for the entire year.

Hunter Fiducia is someone that we continue to have more belief in.

Then certainly the offensive results they showed Nick Cortez making some adjustments, 2 guys that helped us more on the defensive side than than the offensive side where Danny was a little bit the other way.

Finding someone.

We talked about it, I think in the middle of this year, the beginning of this year, finding someone that is excels offensively, excels defensively, and excels in all of the intangibles that come with that position.

It is nearly impossible.

There's only a handful of them out there, but I can assure you we're going to continue doing everything that we can to to find the right configuration back there.

And this winter will will be no different over here.

I, Mark Brown, I cover the raise for baseballsitethroughthefencebaseball.com.

You talked about different players stepping up in various capacities, hitting, pitching, catching.

Is it important to form a team identity, for example, with the speed you have, the pressure defenses to play small ball, How important is that within the psychology of the game?

Yeah, I think it's hard to know.

I'll give you the best answer that we can.

And some years it's more credible than other years.

We had it totally figured out.

We would have won more games this year.

But look, it's I think an identity is helpful to when you're going through difficult times, there's always something you can fall back on.

And I candidly, I think this year's team was one where you go back to camp.

I thought, you know, kind of a middle of the pack offense with a lot of speed, strong run prevention and strong run prevention and tight games out of the bullpen was going to be our recipe and one that we've had a lot of success with this year.

We just, we just couldn't win the tight games, you know, as as often as as we needed to this year.

So I think had we had we held a few more leads and believe we had the talent to hold more leads, it just didn't happen this year That that that can happen.

I think you would have seen that identity as a team that's built on speed.

You've got enough power, you know, on the infield.

You got enough foot speed more through the outfield and a really good bullpen.

It just didn't didn't happen for us.

But yeah, look, I, you look at the playoffs, there's teams that are scoring a ton of runs.

There's a team in there that I think this year has the lowest batting average of a team that's ever made the postseason.

Everything in between.

It's do all those teams have identities?

I, I don't, I don't know.

But yeah, the typically the identity is having really good players that are hungry to win and you go from there.

But I think for us, it's often going to be athleticism.

It's going to be doing little things in tight games to to give yourself a chance to win.

We're not usually going to be built on blowing teams out.

It's a fun brand of baseball to watch, but need to do a better job one of those tight games to have that clear identity.

Sure, yeah.

Hitting, catching, yes.

Dom lost little time earlier this year.

Dom carry all the intangibles we just talked about.

Tom has him in spades strong, he's physical looks the ball over well has some impact and it's continuing to improve defensively.

I think you have it's an important offseason for him and getting to camp and and see where we are, you know, on him.

But he's a player we like.

He's a person that we believe in and we'll see.

We'll see where it goes.

Catchers, their development path is far from linear and we're excited to see what Dom does this offseason, where he comes in next year and then Johnny DeLuca.

Yeah, it really I think we felt that one quite a bit.

We struggled against left-handed pitching certainly early, but throughout the year our lineup just didn't have, you know, you go back to early last year, it's like we couldn't find a left-handed hitter to save our life.

This year is kind of going the other way.

We just we had a hard time finding guys that could produce against left-handed pitching.

Johnny was someone that and his limited opportunities, I think would have helped some in that regard and more so he was, you know, with all due respect to our players and the entirety, he was the best Senate defensive center fielder on our roster.

And you get into the identity of having somebody out there.

We've long lived it, be it Jose Ziri, Kevin Caremayer before him, Manny Margo kind of in between there some like having a lockdown defender in center field is probably as much as our identity that we've had as a team for as long as I've been here.

You know, a really a really close to it.

Johnny was our, you know, that was his greatest strength, you know, was to be that type of defender in center field and not having and we felt it and you kind of felt like you were chasing yourself a little bit with different defensive configurations over the course of the season.

Going into to next year, Johnny and every other player that lost time this year, expectation is they'll be full go for camp and we'll just have to see where he is.

I think as we construct next year's roster, anytime a player's season is that disrupted by injury and an assortment of injuries, you got to be careful what you're counting on, you know, for the year that that follows.

But a healthy Johnny DeLuca will will be a huge add to wherever we come out going into camp here.

Yeah.

Eric Ryan, Bass, Vandals Sports Network Junior Caminera, I know far exceeded maybe anybody's expectations this year.

And I'm sure the new ownership group will have a say in this.

But when do you start thinking of or having discussions about an extension for him to keep him here long term?

Yeah, Well, thank, thank.

I mean, thank goodness we've we got him for five more here, you know which which helps a lot.

So we could say it's a five year extension right now if we want to.

But no, those are look, junior exceeded every reasonable expectation we had for him and the reasonable expectations were high.

The numbers speak for themselves.

They're as good as you will find for someone that is aged 21 into 22 that early in their career.

Just a remarkable season.

I think what impressed me and us most about junior aptitude and he has some leadership qualities.

You know, he is someone that despite his age, people gravitated to him.

You know, watch the way veterans responded to him.

There's a really high care factor and he's charismatic.

He's he has a really good way about him.

He cares a lot.

For those of you that are up in Toronto, I think it was mentioned.

I was sitting up in a suite.

I didn't realize it was mentioned publicly, but I you know that they're celebrating and there's junior on the bench and there's Carson, there's Chandler.

And when you look ahead to see players like that, that care that much and are sitting there watching the other team do what they really want to do one day is is heartening.

And I know your question about Junior, but they're all kind of tied into that.

But those are the things that have the potential to really separate him and and put him on a a rare track that comes with the highest expectations and he embraces them.

So again, I look back to your question, just couldn't be more pleased with the season he had going to try to have to manage expectations for him next year.

And if he if he beats him again, that'd be that'd be wonderful.

Or we won't be here in September.

I promise you that.

But yeah, we'll, we'll see.

There's there's a lot of time for that.

Just right now.

Couldn't be more pleased with his his progress.

And like I said, we're we got another five years here to to figure out what's ahead.

A couple other things for you.

Could you be a little more specific about Shane?

Like is he going to pitch winter ball?

Is he going to be a question mark as you sit here today for next March?

I mean, Mcclenahan, not winter ball.

Yeah, I look, this is this has been a tough injury.

You know, you feel the most for for Shane, just about ready to take the ball opening day and then have an injury that there's virtually no precedent for it.

And then not knowing your timeline, you know, might be a few weeks, might be a few months.

It might high confidence it's going to heal, but the timeline kind of end up in the air.

That's that's really, really difficult to manage.

So our, our expectation when you know, right now is that he will be fully ready for camp and, and good to go as a, as a healthy pitcher, that, that the additional months of time should allow the nerve to have whatever time is required to heal and then some.

So that's, that's our expectation.

It's always with the caveat that this is new for, for all of us and we're doing the best that we can.

He is doing everything a human being could do and more to try to be ready.

This has been really difficult on him.

We're doing everything we can to support him, but our hope is that by the time we get to camp, this is fully resolved.

He's out of the appropriate throwing program going into camp and we go from there.

Obviously missing August 2023 through the end of 25.

That's a lot of his time.

So you get into kind of all right, what's best for him and how you build them up and how you do all that responsibly.

But our expectation from a health standpoint, this is at some point here we'll turn into a normal winner and a normal build up in the camp and we'll go from there and that's where we're at.

No additional procedures or anything planned.

OK no.

And then how do you view the shortstop position for next year?

You got Walls coming off an entry Williams getting more experience or even maybe some you weren't planning on or or 1/3 option of going to find somebody.

Yeah, I think that's something we're going to need to spend some time on here early in the winter.

Wall Z we we certainly appreciate them say as much as you know, any team, you know, the defenses impact Taylor Walls the kind of player that when he's playing, it's sometimes it can be hard to appreciate because of how much of his value is the base running kind of the little things within the game.

Once he it's once he leaves the batter's box is really where he separates and he's elite and he was making some progress in the box as well.

But the defense, you appreciate a player like that once when they're not available and, you know, no knock on the other players.

But when you have someone that is that elite playing shortstop defensively, you feel it when they're not there, Not unlike when Kevin Kiermeyer got hurt and you, you know, you go to someone else.

It's no knock on the next person out.

But when you have someone that's that special, usually you appreciate it the most.

Once they're not, once they're gone, once they're not there.

So Walsey should be good to go for camp.

Might have been good to go if we were continuing playing here at some point.

And he's an important player for us as we go forward.

Carson, again, you talked about eventually in Seymour, you're just trying to make the absolute most of disappointing circumstance with your record to give people opportunity.

Carson, wherever Carson goes from here, he will be better for having these experiences.

There is no substitute for development than Major League feedback.

And and he got a lot and with the right mentality to to make something of it.

We'll see where he's at going through the winter, see where he is in camp.

And you know, you keep an open mind for him to do that.

But we'll obviously do right by him and if it's not him, you know, we'll make sure was he's in a good spot, but we'll have an open mind to see if there's, you know, if it's worthwhile to to make other additions at the position as well.

Just curious, kind of given how you broke down this team at the start of this, do you see bullpen as maybe your primary need heading into the offseason, outfield production, How you kind of assess the roster from that?

Yeah, it's you know, it's a great question.

We're going to spend a lot of time on it because you know what has happened and what's likely to happen next off Sometimes they they go this way and yeah, like I said, I if you said our bullpen is going to be at the top of baseball and strikeouts top and walks.

You know, velocity is somewhere up there at the top of the great sign me up.

You know, we just we just gave up the runs and we could at least afford to.

It seemed like just far too many times.

That's a it's a tricky thing to figure out what's likely to continue, what's not.

That's that's going to be an important, you know, focus for us this offseason.

And and it has some similarities to the runners in scoring position from the year before.

You know, we were historically poor, if I'm not mistaken, the year prior kind of found a way back into the middle, you know, over history.

When you're that poor, usually you find your way back into the middle, you know, by some tinkering, by some added emphasis and just by kind of the noise of baseball, they would agree.

I think some of that probably happens with the bullpen, you know, multiple guys or close to it.

I think had 100 strikeout seasons.

There's a lot of talent there.

It just didn't happen at the moments where you most needed it year over year.

Usually that stuff cleans itself up to some degree, but we are where we are in part because we didn't get the job done and you don't want to just brush that away.

So we'll spend some time on it.

I think I think candidly for us, you know, there's two ways to help that.

There's one is to to lock down close games.

The other is when you have an opportunity to separate a game and you take an early lead, it's the insurance runs.

And we didn't separate some games when we had the opportunity to to do so quite as often as you'd like.

And going back into the trap from a hitter friendly environment back into a pitcher friendly environment.

That's something we got to think about also.

And you know, you look at our kind of outfield production in total, that's something that by championship caliber standards, we need to find a way to to create more certainly power, you know, and and and run production out of out of that group, you know as well.

So we'll see.

Bullpen, sometimes the best bullpens are the ones that were the worst of the year before.

As it is, you know, it goes that that's an old adage just on an individual player level.

And it's a group we really like and we struggled with kind of waiting for it to turn this year.

I just never never quite got there.

But yeah, like I said, trying to figure out what's what has happened, what's predictive and how those things intersect is one of the harder parts of our job.

And it's hard to see the future.

But we'll spend time on that and every other area.

Yeah, Yeah.

This team has sort of defied that stereo type.

Did you have to guard against overreacting to the one loss record and and saying this team is this close and just need to make these moves or a lot of bigger changes necessary?

When you say defy the stereotype, I just want to make sure I understand you when you said that meaning the idea that there's there's one thing we need to do.

Yeah, no, Yeah.

Great.

It's a great question.

I think.

So I talked about the bulk pedal like, yeah, they'll just be better next year because they're underlying indicators that are typically a better predictor of what's ahead than the performance in those tight games only is certainly there.

At the same time, you don't get to say all the all the great things that happened.

Oh, those are going to continue and all the bad things are just going to get better, right, Like Junior Caminero, Aranda Yandi, Brandon, those four had incredible years.

You can't just assume that's all going to stay right there.

You need to build a team that can protect, you know, them come back to little, you know, earth a little bit like that's that's part of baseball.

I think I do believe this is a team that, you know, we went in this year and I think it's similar place next year.

You need those guys to continue to develop a little like 22 like I 23 was a lot of fun.

I'm not foreshadowing that.

But I do think this team is in a place where the right ads and a little bit of development and we're our record is meaningfully better than it than it was last year.

You know, the run differential.

It doesn't matter for our record this year, but there are other things that will speak into the quality of the team when you look forward a little bit more than your record itself.

And I do believe from the healthy pitching, getting Mack back came around, like I said, those things like I don't want to say we're one piece away.

This is a really good division and it's not about to get any weaker.

This is probably going to be a division that has five really good teams in it next year and expect us to to be one through development of the players we have.

And ideally, you know, the an add or two to to best compliment it.

Eric and then over here.

Yeah.

Hey, how are you?

I, I know everything you said in your opening statement, obviously so appreciative of Steinbrenner Field, Yankees allowing you to have the season you had and the fans to be out here on the other side of the bridge.

Just when you look back at the season and you kind of mentioned moving to the Trop, just for the fans to understand what were the difficulties of building a team that wasn't necessarily made for Steinbrenner Field?

And what are going to be some of the things that you're looking forward to next year of where it's like, OK, some of this stuff is going to normalize next year.

Yeah.

It's hard to live on a friend's couch for six months even, you know, even if they're incredibly welcoming.

Look, it's no, no excuse for anything from a team building standpoint.

Yeah.

We had an assortment of arms that are pitched to the top of the zone, above the zone and early, you know, we went through a stretch where we couldn't seem to win here.

And it felt like the wind was blowing out to right when we were pitching and blowing in from right when we were hitting.

I just it was it was weird.

I, I don't, I don't think that was the reason we ended up with the the record we have.

But it's you know it.

Yeah.

You're, you know, Chandler Simpson, Jake Mangum, They this park isn't like they're they're built for bigger parks, right?

When you put the ball in play, when you have speed, those are players that playing in a place like this.

They're not that sensitive to it.

Pitchers that pitch with power and pitch up.

Yeah, you can.

You just run the risky and bid a little bit more.

We did give up a few more homers than we would have liked, but that wasn't all at home, you know, But it's as much just the familiarity, you know, you're visiting, you know, you're renting, you're just continuing to learn an environment all year.

And again, it's no excuse for our record, but the Trop is our home.

You know, that's, that's what we're used to.

That's, that's what we know and it's a place where day in, day out, you're very aware of what you're going to get right.

You can hold your routines, there is no disruption.

And that's something that over time, you know, we've, we've leaned into that and I think you've seen a demonstrated home field advantage in our record because of that.

And goes, you know, a lot more than the dimensions or the lack of third deck in the wind and the lighting and all these things.

It's just, it's, it's home.

And there's something to be said for playing at your at your true home.

That's I got you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember talking last year on option decisions and, you know, we we made a few trades at the deadline.

Those are two players that the three players with Taylor, they're still here, you know, and so in that sense, I think that's indicative of, you know, kind of kind of where we are.

But I that's you got to got to get into, you know, a greater understanding it kind of to John, to your point, I I think we expect to be a competitive team next year.

How do we improve ourselves when you know what kind of money is required, how you need to allocate it will will be a consideration as we get in the window and find the the right mix.

But you know, Pete and Brandon focusing on them because Taylor's still in the arbitration process depending, you know, regardless of the option decision there, you know, those are those are two players that have been a lot to our organization.

We appreciate them both greatly and going to go in this winter and just see how we can best configure this thing to win more baseball games next year.

But nothing, I mean, like I said, we didn't move them at the the deadline and usually that's a pretty good sign of how we feel about them.

The great philosopher.

First time for everything.

Yeah, better than me.

I mean, I'm ultimately responsible for we have a great working relationship and there's a lot of we here, but.

When you're making roster decisions, that's ultimately on me and I, you know, last 12 months or so, some of the decisions we made haven't worked out the way we wanted them to.

And you know, that's, that's on me.

So I, I definitely would beat myself up a heck of a lot more than than I would him.

He's, you know, this, this year was hard, but everyone has their hard, you know, and it's our job to build rosters.

I talked about the bullpen and that stuff.

It's there's noise everywhere.

You know, the Dodgers went through similar bullpen stuff they just constructed or I can't quite do it like they do, but they it's my job and the roster this the roster building group to put a team together that can overcome the ball not bouncing your way.

And in the past we've done that well.

We didn't do that well enough this year or last year for that matter.

And cash is great and gets the absolute most out of our groups, keeps them on tracks.

I didn't hear one player make an excuse about being here.

I didn't hear one player complain about being here.

You know, he set the right example when it comes to why we're here, to keeping the right perspective and making the most out of it.

And that starts with him.

And our players followed suit.

So can he do better?

Yeah.

Because he's someone that's always learning, growing, looking back, pointing the finger at himself.

It's part of what makes him great.

But he he's he's wonderful and I deserve a lot more of the blame for where we are right now.

Marilyn Parker News Channel 8 a minute ago you just talked about how you know the Trop is the home, Obviously.

And obviously finding a home is a big part of what's coming ahead for you guys.

So what can you specifically ask for?

What do you specifically need, desire, want from this new ownership group to get the franchise to where you believe it can be?

Oh man, we put a pin in that question till they no, we cannot.

They start talking.

You know, I look, I I said earlier we have I basically since I left college, this is the only place I've known the entirety of my professional life.

I've been lucky enough to be here and work with with and four amazing people.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as that is able to continue, we'll figure this out.

I genuinely believe that there's, you know, my job and the baseball operations department is to win baseball games.

And you know, for as long as I've been here, I've never talked the money and this and that.

We're a lower revenue team.

That is by definition a lower revenue team.

That is what we are.

But I don't ever speak to that because we can win and we could figure out a way to do it.

And it's because of the people.

And by all accounts, Patrick and the group coming in, they care about people and they recognize the people and the quality they're here.

Can we do better?

Yes.

You know, are $300 million.

Does it make your job a little easier?

Do you have a little more margin for?

Yeah.

But there's a team that's also not playing right now that had that.

So it's a lot more than that.

And as long as there's alignment, you know, and there's good people, we can we can figure this out.

And by all accounts, that's there.

And whatever path that takes, it'll be more than honored to take the ride with them.

And to figure out a way to win a championship.

Yeah, you mentioned outfield production and passing a couple of different times today.

Obviously, Jake and Chandler, we've got a lot of time, not a necessity, but they're very similar players.

two-part question for you.

When you need more power production from the outfield, how much does it help that you get so much power from the infield spots where you can, where that will help with your decision making?

And two, can you see going forward the two of them playing together as much as they did this year or not?

Yeah, look, I mean, it's fun.

There's time this year, June in particular, where those two seem to be hitting back-to-back a lot, and they're just putting the ball in play and they're combining the hit balls like a total of 50 feet.

And they're both on base.

And it's a lot of fun to watch them.

Is there room for both of them in the same lineup?

Yeah.

And see what you said it like, you can't.

You can't look at any part of a roster in isolation.

It's all about just kind of how it fits together, how different units complement one another.

We did get a lot of power from our infield DH configuration this year.

Seems likely that we'll continue that next year.

You know, I think the, the, the big thing is, and, and it's, it's both sides of the ball.

We, we got to figure out how to agree.

It might be that, you know, we go more in a direction of our outfield becomes a source of extreme contact at foot speed, that kind of disruption so that, you know, you're facing somebody that has a nose for strikeouts.

You know, those guys can kind of do the work that night, you know, and vice versa, really, they can work.

We need to make sure I cited the offense.

It's the offense and the defense that comes together.

You know, if we walk into next year with our infield configuration very similar in our outfield as Chandler and Jake, like that's fine.

We need to make sure the defensive side there is to support that type of offensive, those types of offensive contributions, you know, but just overall stepping back from all of it and keeping it simple.

I think in our outfield, probably in total run production, depending on your metric of choice, I think was probably in the bottom five to seven and more.

Just love those guys.

But from a just a pure production standpoint, ideally across three spots, you find a way to get them higher.

All the questions one here, I'm good.

Keep going.

You talk, you talked about regaining a home field advantage by going back to the Trop.

You've got at least half a dozen position players who don't know the Trop as a home field, maybe half your bullpen and plus players that you might acquire between now and then, ongoing repairs that will go right up to it and an opening, an opening season road trip.

How do you expect to be able to put all this together so that they get that feeling, the lighting, the the whole atmosphere of being at home with the Trump?

Yeah, for some of them, I might take some time, you know, in the way it does for a visitor coming in.

But I think that's where the like that the the makeup of the group, the competitive makeup of the group, that's where that stuff matters, right?

Like just people that'll anytime, any place, anywhere.

That's what we had this year.

We didn't, we didn't out talented enough, you know, to win, to win more games, so to speak.

But love the the competitive makeup of this group.

That's probably something going back into that situation and that setting.

You want to make sure you you get that right again.

But yeah, you do look as soon as that building is open, any part of it, if we can get in the clubhouse before the fields ready, we'll get in the clubhouse.

We'll get guys familiar if we can get on a strip of turf out there, as long as it's safe from above, like we'll find a way to do that.

You just just make the most of the opportunities are there before you know, we go on a three city trip to start before we come home.

I you know, I don't know, but we'll, we'll do everything we can to make the most of however much the building is available before we get going.

And you know, like I said, once once you're there, it's home for enough of them that will establish the right current with that and it'll take us where it takes us.

You took more of this on yourself for the roster construction, but do you anticipate any changes with the coaching staff or do you have those conversations with?

Yeah, no, I gave Cashy a couple days to just to decompress.

Yes, I had more people tell me I look tired in the last four days and I haven't some time and could shave and try to fresh it up a little to look better here.

But tired just it's an emotional year.

You know, it's a lot from the ownership change, all the uncertainty to playing here that even down the stretch, you know, you're not playing post season baseball and that stinks.

But the best thing that we typically can do with that time is give it to our players and make sure every moment goes into helping them make the most of these opportunities.

That's what we did.

So we'll catch up here in a few days and just talk through everything and, you know, what do we, what do we need to do better and so on and so forth and go from there.

But we haven't had those conversations yet.

Yeah, You talked about the outfield configuration.

Two guys that we haven't mentioned.

Yeah, Slow, Christopher Morrell, both obviously talented players, both obviously did not have the seasons they wanted to have.

How do you view that going into next year to move forward, to wait for them to realize their potential or Yeah, it's a it's a great question.

I mean, both of them, you know, to this point in their career, I think they're each had their signature season, so to speak, in 2023 and then 24 for different reasons, kind of got off the rails for each of them.

And then this year, perhaps again, for different or some reasons just couldn't find it, right, You know, to the not entirely, but really struggled to, to recapture that form we saw when they were, you know, 20 in that 2023 season.

So the two two people that care tremendously about the craft, their profession and badly want to to perform better for for their teammates and and their fans than than what they did this year.

You know that we need to to look at them and figure out if you know what type of there needs to be improvement.

They know that we know that within our outfield mix, we need to determine just how much it's reasonable to expect from each of them and how it all fits together so.

And we're back on this latest episode of Raised Roof and that is going to conclude things.

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