Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington handled a variety of topics in his final regular season press conference, mostly playoff related. Below is a sampling of his remarks.
Commentary of being in division with three best records: “Thank goodness the Astros aren’t in the division. The Cardinals are the model franchise for basically anybody in baseball and Cubs have been acquiring a vast amount of talent for the last four years. They’ve had the luxury to add payroll this year. The Cardinals have had the best next man up in baseball and the Cubs have been remarkable and will be hard to beat for years to come. This is a challenging division.”
On handling the such a competitive NL Central: “Hopefully there’s a little less taxing road in the future, but we’re going to have to continue to be good on all fronts. It’s highly unusual. The Cubs would be in first in any other division and so would we, but instead we’re going to finish this off with a one-game playoff. It’s three unbelievable organizations and teams, it will be an interesting postseason.”
On how if at all the playoff roster will change regardless of the Pirates are playing at home or on the road: “We’ve had second and third level conversations but we don’t have the finalize the roster until Wednesday. We’ll exhaust all scenarios but I don’t have the answer right now.”
Other contingencies: “A lot of it comes back not needing to announce things until we choose to announce things. What would have happen if we came out publicly and said that Cole was going to be our guy. Heaven forbid something would have happened and now you have to go to plan B and most of the questions will be about how good you feel about plan B. We feel good about Cole and he’s in a great position to go Wednesday and give us everything he’s got.”
Wild Card becoming best of three: “I see the arguments for both sides but the idea for the Wild Card is giving the division winner the advantage and I’m not sure sitting for five days to play your first playoff round is really an advantage. I’m also not a fan of a doubleheader to decide a three-game series. You’ve got travel and rain day implications and play-in implications to decide a division champion. There is a lot to it, we’d love to see the Wild Card game become a three-game series, but not in a position to put a lot of time, energy or effort into it to decided where my vote would be if it was offered.”
A further explanation on not playing a doubleheader in the playoffs “We talking about arguably the most important game in a team’s season and then to ask them to play 18 innings in the same day I don’t think is right. I like what we would to in a situation like that this year but that’s not how you cast a vote. I think it’s unfair to a team or two playoff teams to play 18 innings in one day.”
Re-seeding: “If it were a true balanced schedule, the re-seeding is a no brainer. An unbalanced schedule the re-seeding isn’t realistic. The Cardinals are the best team in baseball this year, and their prize is they get the second or third best team in baseball for their first round opponent.”
Whether Jung Ho Kang will attend Wednesday’s Wild Card game: “He’s wanted here it’s just a matter of it making sense. He’ll definitely be here in spirit with us but we’ll work to see if he can be here physically with us.”
Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo
