Colorado Rockies foes: Winter Meetings thoughts from the Giants

Let’s continue our look at the latest from each of the Colorado Rockies’ National League West foes. Today, we will look at some of the quotes from the recent Winter Meetings regarding the San Francisco Giants.

There has been a lot of change in San Francisco since the end of last season. Gabe Kapler has taken over as manager and it’s yet to be determined if Madison Bumgarner will be back on the hill. The Giants were also busy during Winter Meetings, signing pitcher Kevin Gausman and acquiring Zack Cozart from the Los Angeles Angels.

What thoughts does Kapler have on his new team and some of his new players? Here is what he had to say in San Diego to members of the media. We’ll start with the new two players mentioned above…

More from Rox Pile

What is it that you like about each of the two veterans that you’ve acquired, one who’s coming off a serious injury, the other who’s coming off a down year?

"Kapler: We’ll start with Kevin, and I think the work that he did in the Cincinnati bullpen was exciting to all of us. Specifically, he brought back his slider, but he really started to execute his fastball and attacked the strike zone and just had success that was — and the other thing that I thought stood out was how much good, positive feedback he got from other people in the industry when we did some work on him and learned about not just his talent, but his character and what he was going to bring to the club house. So that’s on Kevin.Then on Zack, really good defender, a guy who I had a conversation with him five minutes ago or so, or right before I did a previous interview, and I think every player wants to show that they’re healthy and they want to show that, when they are healthy, they can be productive and are capable of doing great things.I know he’s happy to be back in the National League. I think he appreciates that style of play. I think he’s just anxious to prove that he has a lot of good baseball left in him. What I shared with him is I’m anxious to see it."

What’s the most valuable thing you learned two years in Philly?

"Kapler: I think the thing that stands out to me is I — as you know, I’m excited about getting every possible strategic advantage as a manager and as part of a coaching staff. I think that one of the things that I learned is that sometimes those small strategic advantages come at the expense of some confidence from a player.So I think I did a better job in 2019 than I did in 2018 of blending those two things, blending the small strategic advantages with the confidence level of the players, and I think I’m going to do a better job having learned some of those lessons in ’18, in 2020, without overcorrecting. I think that’s an important part as well. Bringing it back to the middle is important too after an overcorrection is made.So specifically, it’s just striking the right balance between getting small strategic advantages and confidence levels of players."

When you look at Logan Webb and Tyler Beede, how do you anticipate moving forward with those two?

"Kapler: I think with Beede and with Webb, I’m just going to continue to share that — it’s hard for me because I really get excited about evaluating players based on what I’m reading and based on a small sample size of when we competed against those players. And we got some exposure to Beede.And at the same time, I know where we are on the calendar, and I really want to give these players, all of them, the benefit of the doubt to prove themselves and to show what they’re capable of. So that entails getting into Spring Training and getting in the bullpen and seeing them in spikes and seeing how healthy they are.So my impressions based on what I’ve read and some of the research I’ve done will pale in comparison to the exposure I’ll get when I’m seeing them every day go through their work and their bullpen sessions and their work on the dirt in the outfield and in the batter’s box."

Editor’s note: You can read our Winter Meetings quotes from the Los Angeles Dodgers here and from the San Diego Padres here.

Home/Colorado Rockies News