Steve, just in general, what have you made about this recent stretch post-deadline for the group?
Yeah, listen, it's fun to see. I mean, watching some of these younger players come up and they've worked hard in their career and they're starting to demonstrate they're pretty good at what they do too. So I think it's fun for the fans, right? Winning is better than losing, I mean generally. And so I think it's creating a little excitement and hopefully it'll carry through to the end of the year and give us good feelings into next year.
Has understanding that it is a small sample size, has it in any way shifted your perspective on how close or how far away you may be to where you wanna go next year?
Well listen, this year wasn't great, right? So yes, it is a small sample. But underneath, I think there's a lot of things to kind of be excited by. The development of our young players is significant. That creates a nice foundation for next year. It'd be great if we can get Soto and Lindor on the field the same time, right? That'd be kind of fun to see and have them play a full season together. That's obviously impactful. And having Francisco back, you can see the energy that comes back and you know what a great player he is and I think getting him on the field really matters. You know, a lot of players that we've had, new players, and they've adjusted to New York and you can imagine them feeling much more comfortable next year and so I think there's a lot to look forward to here. I see that the foundation of something that I think we can get to see how it goes.
Right? A more optimistic. I like what continues. Steve, what about David in the front office?
I'm committed to David. I can, and you know, going to move forward and I thought we had a great trade deadline. And, you know, listen, David is smart. He knows what he's doing. He's very adaptable. He learns from mistakes. And that's what I wanted to lead him.
What mistakes do you think you made this year?
You know, listen, I mean, I listen, I could argue we might have taken too much risk, you know, as far as when you think about all the changes that were made and whenever there are significant changes, sometimes it takes a while to integrate. And so, you know, those are the things I'm looking at and, you know, it's an example where we can do better.
Steve, as far as the David staying, what are the ways you can improve for next year? I mean, you've put a lot of money into your team so far, obviously. You need a new manager. Is there something you've identified that will make this team get back to where you want it to be?
Listen, I think it's a process. I mean, I don't think there are any magic bullets out there. But if you, I'm a process guy, and if you think the processes are good and repeatable processes that generally generate good results over time, I think that's all you can do. You can't manufacture players in your farm system overnight. Free agency as we see can be dicey. So all you can do is make the best decisions you can and then build from that.
What qualities have you identified as something that you wanna see in the future manager?
Yeah, I think I want a manager that can really relate to the players. I love the idea of a manager that motivates the players. As we know, playing baseball is not always up and down, right? People have great moments and go into slumps. And so how do you get the best out of your players? And I think that's pretty important.
What do you think of the job Andy Green has done? And would you consider bringing him back as manager?
Well, I'm gonna take him at face value. He's telling us that, you know, back to the front office to do a managerial search, he wants to throw his hat in the ring, which would be great. It's a prerequisite. This is a process, I'm gonna leave that to David a little bit. You know, I mean, what I really think, we'll see quality candidates and then we can figure out what to do next.
When you say David maybe took too much risk, are you talking about coaching staff, players?
When you had, you know, when you had new players, when you had a coaching staff, when, you know, there was a, you know, maybe adding players with an injury history. You know, when you add risk upon risk upon risk, you know, one risk alone, you know, but when you have enough risk, all of a sudden you can have a dispersion of results. Now, it doesn't mean that it had to turn out bad. It just means that you have dispersion of results in it and maybe the possibility of a, you know, undesirable result is more of a possibility because of the risk you're taking. I equate it to running a portfolio. The more risk you take in a portfolio, yeah, you're going to have a major upside, but also your downside could be bigger. And so you can have bigger variance in results. I think that's what happened here.
With this team, considering the money that you put into it. I was just gonna follow up. In terms of the coaching staff, do you think maybe he did too much too soon there?
I don't see it as a question of too much coaching staff. I look at it as in the whole. And when I look at it in a whole, I see decisions, individual decisions that make perfect sense. But when you add it all up, then you get into a different realm of, did we take too much risk? So it's kind of looking at it from a top-down perspective as opposed to an individual decision.
Does that make sense to you? I was just gonna say with the amount of money that you've put in, Steve, and the return you've got on the investment this year, has it changed how you think about how to build a team as far as spending, spending, spending? Like would you think of, maybe, hey listen, we have to look at other areas to make this team better as opposed to me just writing some big checks to get the best players.
What are the areas to make the team better? Farm system, trades, staff, and free agency. I mean, free agency is a negative expected value game. Okay, it just is. And so, if you gotta constantly dip into free agency and you do it enough, you know, that can come back to bite you. And so, I've always said the goal is to create a sustainable farm system that's producing players like we did this year. We produced multiple players that are gonna be around for a while here. And I think that that's how you build a team. I know the fans like it, right? So I think that would be my preference. But if you have to fill in holes, you have to fill in holes too. So you gotta be tactical, but every time you dip in the free agency, you just know that that's a tough place to be.
How much has the uncertainty labor-wise affected your ability to make this team better you think next year? Just not knowing the system you could be operating.
I don't think a lot's going to change next year. Okay, I mean, I don't know how these talks are going to go and but there's a window before December 1st to make decisions and move our team forward. And if we get the opportunity to do it, we're going to do it.
What did you like about the trade deadline that you mentioned, right? What are some of the best parts of it?
Well, I mean, I don't know the players, right? But I'm just looking at the results like you're looking at the results, right? I mean, they look pretty good, right? Now it's over a short period of time. But when you look and see the value we got back, lots of different types of players, which is kind of fun. And it's a great infusion of young talent in our system. I'm hoping that that works out.
Steve, having squared, like having that good process, but also coming up with results, how much more interest does that take?
