The final part of our interview with Bruce Walton.

Thanks so much to Bruce for doing this for us.

So the starting rotations is Romero, Cecil, Morrow, Alvarez and McGowan?

That's about what we have right now, I think we have other people in the mix, McGuire, Jenkins, Huchison, Lafferty. You have other guys there that are in the mix but I think that's the top 5. Pretty simple.

Drabek would have to have a good spring?

Yeah he'd have to have a good spring but Kyle if he, Kyle has a chance to make the team. I mean anyone that starts 10-12 games last year for the big league club has a chance to start this year. We need Kyle, Kyle is a big part of our organization. We need Kyle to get there. To find out who Kyle is and get there fast.

Sergio Santos, what do you think he'll do this year?

Oh he'll be great. He's familiar with our organization. He knows everyone here. He's a good kid. A big strong power, 95-96. The ability to miss bats. A wipeout breaking ball. The ability to strikeout 3 hitters in an inning. A tremendous addition to our bullpen. Hopefully he'll be there for a long time, so we don't have to worry about our closer for a while. We know who our closer is. It makes it a little bit easier to manage the bullpen once you have a set closer and he's our guy. He's got the weapons to close. He's got the mentally, he's got the stuff. I'm excited to have him and I know him. So we aren't going into this blind, we know the person, the person is great, the person is completive, he's going to fit in really nice. Can't wait to see him again.

Jon Rauch had trouble with home runs. Why?

He left balls up in the strike zone. (laughs). Rauch can pitch, he's a very good pitcher, he can locate. At times the ball got elevated and they got him. Rauch doesn't throw that hard. He's 88-90 and when the ball comes up in the strike zone it is very easy to hit, when the ball is down in the strike zone, coming from that big frame, it was very hard to hit. He was leaving balls up in the zone. Also playing in ball parks, you know the AL East isn't the easiest place to pitch. I know the other divisions are getting better, so I don't know if I can use that line much anymore. It's a tough league. The Boston line up is still one of the best in baseball, the New York line up is always tough, the Tampa Bay Rays are always tough, the Baltimore Orioles can always hit.

Rogers Centre isn't the best place to pitch. It's small and its comfortable. It isn't overly cold, or overly hot. If it is they close it. So it's comfortable for the hitters, the hitters get a great look at the baseball there, they love hitting there and the ball flies. Boston the ball flies. The wall intimidates you as a pitcher. Boston pretty good hitting ball park. New York pretty good hitting ballpark. Tampa Bay pretty good hitting ballpark. Baltimore is fair. I think Baltimore is the fairest one of them all. I think all those when you add them up it is a home run league.

Are you worried that we didn't add another starter this year?

No I'm not worried. I like my rotation, I liked my rotation at the end of last year. I thought we completed very well. I think with Ricky and Brandon and Brett, I think Brett is going to have a good year and Henderson was fabulous and McGowan showed signs of rebounding and coming back. I think that's a pretty good rotation. Adding to the bullpen with a closer and we know Darren Oliver, what he does. Jason Frasor and Casey Janssen, those are 4 big time guys going into the end of the game that know their roles going into spring training. I think they will be really good this year. As much as you want to add pieces, sometimes you can't, sometimes it's hard. I think we added the pieces where we needed to.

If you looked at our season last year, the most glaring thing was the 22 blown saves. 22. You can point fingers here and there but we did blow 22 saves. At times we didn't pitch deep enough into games as starters, regardless our middle guys held it and we had a chance to win those games and we failed. If we win half those games it's 10 games. Maybe that's 81 to 91. I'm really happy that the end of the game is going to be more consistent. That's nothing against Frankie or I thought Dotel pitched well for us before he was traded and I thought that Frankie had a heck of a second half.

(Francisco) never really got rolling till the second half till the second half. When he got rolling he was good, we needed that Frankie at the beginning of the season, we didn't have that at the beginning of the season and that hurt us. We missed Frankie at the beginning of the season. He just had some lingering stuff, tried to get it done and he couldn't get it done. It showed. And when he got healthy it showed.

I was hoping Casey would be the 8th inning guy this year.

(This was before the Cordero signing).Well Casey did most of the 8th inning stuff at the end of the year last year and I'm sure he'll get more 8th inning stuff. I think that between him and Jason and Darren, they are all the 8th inning guys. The only time when Casey didn't get the 8th is when he pitched a couple of days in a row. Casey had a heck of a year, Casey is coming into his own, he knows how to pitch, he'll keeping the ball down, he's doing everything that he needs to do to get his outs. And he's a legitimate 8th inning guys and if you have a legitimate 8th inning guy that's pitching the 7th that's a pretty good bullpen.

What do you think of the Jays having pitchers skip Vegas?

It isn't the funest place to pitch, you have to do different things to pitch there. It's not the ideal place to develop, just because the ball travels. You gotta pitch backwards, you gotta do a lot of things. You have to go against getting ready for the big leagues. I want them to pitch in, I want them to throw a lot of fastballs. I want them to get their fastball command. When you are in a league that hitters can only hit fastballs, most of them, that's why they are in Triple-A. And in a league that the ball flies, so they are throwing a lot of off-speed pitches and they are throwing the wrong way to put up numbers, which they need to do. What do you tell a kid, it's ok to do that, so you don't have a good ERA so people don't notice you. So what do you do. So it's not the ideal place to judge pitching, it's not the ideal place to teach pitching, it's not the ideal place to develop place to develop pitching.

I think you have to shave points off. If it is a 5 or 6 ERA, it's likely a 4 and a half. Then again you are guessing. What if? The what ifs get you in trouble. What if he was playing there, but he's not he's playing here, and this is what he is doing. It depends on who it is and what they need to do with that certain pitcher. I don't think it is that bad to come up from Double-A. Then again you like to see the guys come through the levels. Levels are there for a reason. Each level has its own challenges. And once they meet those challenges, and you see how they handle them, it gives you the most information you can possibly have to decide if this guy is ready to come up and handle our league.

So you like the levels, you'd like to see how they do at the levels and when someone comes up from Single-a or Double-a you are like ohhhhh. He might not have been bad yet. I need him to be bad. I want to see what happens to them when they are bad. Because you are going to be bad in the big leagues, it is a given, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you are Roy Halladay, I've seen hit bad. What are you going to do when you are bad.

We got 7 off (David) Price one day, then Price was good for 12 straight. So we know how he handles bad. He forgets about it, he lets it go. He gets it. And he's fine, he gets it.

That must be the hardest thing about pitching, to forget?

Short term memory. It's the hardest thing to give a pitcher. They wear it on their sleeves. Some of them because of the team . Some of them for selfish reasons, which are fine, contract and stuff like that. If I don't get somebody out I'm not going to get paid. How much more pressure do you need? This is the job I choose, I've thrown everything away in my life to do this occupation, knowing there is a reward at the end of the rainbow if I do well. If I don't do well, I gotta go back and start life over. Go back to school, get an education. So a lot of these players, including myself, threw everything out the window to chase this dream. The dream isn't only to pitcher here but to make a career out of it, support your family and it's almost like becoming an actor. There isn't much of a fallback baseball players, other than those that are scholar and player. That's not that common.

There is a lot of pressure on them, the mental part of the game is huge at the big leagues. At the big leagues they let you know how you are doing. There are 50,000 people telling you how you are doing, there's a social network now, there's newspapers still, there's blogs. Everybody is not afraid to tell you how you doing or how you're not doing. I try to keep them off the social networks, for the most part, other than if they do it the right way. Just because they read something and they take it to heart. That guy doesn't know you, he doesn't know what happened next week. I'm the only one that knows what happened. And they come to the field and think maybe they are right, maybe I suck. I'm like no you don't.

Throw these dates in your schedule and make sure you are there bright and early on gameday so you don't miss out!

Which one of these do you look forward to getting the most? Which other giveaways would you want to have seen? Have you been to another stadium somewhere where they had a great, unique giveaway?

• April 9: (vs. Red Sox) Rally Towels (first 45,000), Magnetic Schedule (all fans). Home opener, so expect a lot of towels to be thrown down--at least they don't go too far. I hope they give away the schedule magnets on the way out because those can be easily helicoptered down.
• April 10+11: (vs. Red Sox) Magnetic Schedule (first 10,000). You can get up to 3: one for your fridge, one for your office fridge, and another one for your car door.
• May 20: (vs. Mets) Brandon Morrow bobblehead (first 20,000). SWOON!
• June 3: (vs. Red Sox) Yunel Escobar bobblehead (first 20,000). Don't understand why they put major giveaways during Red Sox (or Yankees) games, a lot of them would end up with Red Sox/Yankees fans...
• June 13: (vs. Nationals) Blue Jays Team Cards (first 25,000). I think I have these from a couple of years, but it's lost somewhere in my office or house.
• June 17: (vs. Phillies) Blue Jays Batting Helmet (first 20,000). You can go to the game with your pops and get a batting helmet each for the Fathers' Day game. I remember getting a second generation Blue Jays logo helmet when I was a kid. There were warning notices that it wasn't a real protective helmet.
• August 12: (vs. Yankees) Blue Jays Cap Day (first 20,000). Headgear-themed giveaways continue after a giftless July. Again, would hate to think of what Yuckees fans would do to the souvenir cap.
• August 19: (vs. Rangers) Ricky Romero bobblehead (first 20,000). It would be awesome to see a Romero-Darvish duel in this game. Kinda awesome to see three bobblehead giveaways--will add to my collection. I think the only position I'll be missing is a catcher.
• September 29: (vs. Yankees) Junior Jays Fan Appreciation T-Shirt (first 14,000 14 and under). Blatant ageism there.
• September 30: (vs. Yankees) Fan Appreciation T-Shirt (first 20,000). Brought to you by Home Hardware. I have a bunch of these from the years, but I never really wear them ever again.

Not a bad set of giveaways this year, and they are giving more bobbleheads out this year than in seasons past (they used to only have 10,000 of them). I've already put these dates in my calendar as games I must attend.

*All giveaways and event dates are subject to change

Hi again, everyone. As a follow-up to last week's piece on the effects of pitcher arsenal diversity on pitcher luckiness or unluckiness, I decided to do two things which might reduce some of the error. The first was to limit the sample size to include pitchers with 200+ innings in 2011 and the second was to evaluate effects of arsenal diversity on BABIP, instead of the difference between an ERA estimator (such as xFIP or SIERA) and the pitcher's actual ERA. There are drawbacks to both of these changes, of course. A reduction in sample size of roughly 100 pitchers greatly reduces the power of any test and focussing on BABIP only means that we would not be able to evaluate any effects that diversity may have on sequencing.

As per the comments, I used pitch types from texasleaguers instead of fangraphs (quite a pain, actually, since it seems like you can't export all the texasleaguers data at once) and built each pitcher's mean fastball velocity into the model. Given how small the sample size is and how volatile BABIP can be, it should come as no surprise that neither the effects of diversity (p = 0.961) nor the effects of velocity (p = 0.899) come out looking significant.

I also ran a model to determine the effects of each pitch type on BABIP. Although most pitch types did not seem to have an effect, there did seem to be an effect of increasing frequencies of sliders (p = 0.0595) and may have been one when two-seamers and sinkers were pooled (p = 0.0276), both of which corresponded with increasing BABIP. I expected these effects to be due mainly to the effects that these pitches have on batted balls -- essentially, pitchers who throw a lot of sliders or a lot of two-seamers are likely to generate a lot of groundballs and, consequently, have a higher BABIP. Unsurprisingly, this was the case.

Thanks to Bright Eyes for today's post title. Sorry, but I can't give you back the last five minutes of your life.

The second last part of our talk with Bruce Walton.

If you missed any of it; part one is here, two here and three here.

I'm not sure how much it comes across in the text of this, but I really had a good time talking to Bruce. He was very nice to talk too. I like talking to folks from who I can learn about the game. Some of the best parts, of course, were before and after the recorder was turned on. Some of the fun was just how great it was to talk baseball, face-to-face with someone that knows the game so well. Bruce said, before we were recording, that Calgary isn't a baseball town. It is rare to have more than a simplistic talk about baseball with someone here.

Ricky Romero seems so intent on improving each year. What can he do to continue to get better?

Ricky's still growing, he's still young. He grew last year by taking the number one spot and running with it. We are still working on fastball command, a little bit. We are still working on pitching to both sides of the plate. We are still working on if we don't have our stuff what do we do. We accomplished a lot last year. We are still working on how to pitch in Boston and New York consistently. I think we found a little something there last year that started to work. As good a year as Ricky had there's still room for improvement every year. He wants to be the best, he wants to make the All-Star team, he wants to win the World Series. He wants to be the best pitcher in baseball. And with that attitude and that drive, he has so much stuff he needs to work on every year. He s a tremendous athlete that has tremendous holes and he wants to get better every year, so there is always something that we can improve on.

We have to change our game a little bit, Ricky can't stay with his normal game all the time. We have to make adjustments. It's a game of adjustments. For Ricky to be better it is adjusting with the game.

What does Brandon Morrow have to do to be more consistent?

Brandon, it's my second year with Brandon. His first year we went through some walk issues, base on balls, command issues. We pretty much ironed it out. We got to the point where now we left a lot of balls in the middle of the plate. So we went from one extreme to the other extreme and we gave up a lot of home runs last year. He's a fly ball pitcher at times, he doesn't get a whole lot of ground balls, so when the ball sits in the middle of the plate belt high and they get a piece of it, it goes. So now it is just staying down in the zone consistently. I think for Brandon to be consistent, his pitches have to be down consistent. We have to plan the effort level to pitch at consistently. Consistency is what we have to work on in every aspect. Keeping the ball down, keeping our emotions in check. Keeping our work effort at a certain level, consistently. All those will come. This is the year for that to come. There's steps to becoming a major league starting pitcher. The first step was that we needed to throw strikes. We accomplished that. It took us a year and a half. Our next step is to manage the game a little bit better and manage our emotions a little bit better and manage our season a little bit better and become more consistent. That's where we are at.

Henderson Alvarez came from A ball to the Majors. How was he so successful?

He repeats his delivery very well. He sinks the ball very well. And he throws a changeup off his sinker that looks exactly the same. So he pitches at 93 to 95, with a sinking fastball and he has a changeup that looks exactly the same at 82 to 83. And when you can do that you can pitch where ever you want. We are in the works of getting his slider going a little bit. His slider gets a little sloppy, we need to get it more consistent, a little tighter. He has a great career ahead of him. He puts the ball on the ground. He gets 14 ground ball outs a game. And when a guy can do that and throw mid-90's and sink the ball, major league hitters don't like it. Minor league hitters don't know what he's doing. Major league hitters know what he's doing, they don't like it. They don't like the ball sinking at 95 at the knees and a changeup coming off of that at 82. They don't like it, they can't cover that. They want to hit off straight fastballs not sinking fastballs. So he has, not only does it have a good fastball, it's a sinking fastball and a great changeup, he's got great command. He's got a great feel for pitching. He's got a long way to go. He's still young. He's still going to have some games that get away from him. Mentally we have got to work on some things. But he's a great prospect and he had a great showing for us last time.

I was surprised that the troubles Kyle Drabek had at the start of the year. Can he overcome that?

Oh yeah, Kyle's going to be fine. It's odd that you come up and you don't have problems and you don't struggle. It's odd if you don't struggle. Kyles biggest struggle was that he didn't throw enough strikes. He found out that the strike zone is a little smaller. He found out what it was like to be a rookie in the major leagues. He needs to overcome that mentally a little bit. He needs to understand that contact is ok. He'll be fine. So throw more strikes, understanding that getting outs with contact is fine. If you have a bad game you have to leave it at home. Those are all experiences that every pitcher that comes up and struggles has. Everyone that comes up and struggles has those same experiences. Bad games, don't throw enough strikes, base on balls and mentally they get a little whacked out about it, at the time. Kyle's fine, he has a great head on his shoulders, he struggled a little bit, throw strikes and that's an easy fix. It comes with age. He's young.

Jesse Litsch moved from the starting rotation, why was the decision made?

We always liked Jesse Litsch. He did a nice job as a starter then he went through some arm surgeries. He came back and he started and he did ok. I think when we looked at him going to the bullpen it was to make our team better, rather than if Jesse could start or reliever, he could do both. But with Jesse's numbers against right-handed hitters and his left-handed splits aren't bad either. Jesse can throw the ball every day. He really can. He's got a rubber arm who could come in and throw breaking ball first pitch strike, throw changeup first pitch strike. He can do a lot of things, so he is very effective in the bullpen role, that at the time, I think we needed. So I think he filled the void and at the same time did a very good job getting his 12-14 outs a week over 5 days rather getting his 12 or 14 outs in one day.

That's not to say he's not ever going to start again. I think he did a fabulous job in the bullpen. I think that you saw him out there a lot, it's not easy to find guys that can pitch back-to-back days like Jesse did. I think with Henderson coming and Dustin coming make it easier for us to do that. Without Dustin coming back or Henderson doing what he did we wouldn't have been able to see what Jesse was like down there.

Is the team going to limit Dustin McGowan's innings this year?

We haven't discussed that yet. Dusty's done it before. It is a unique situation for us. I think we have to sit down and discuss it. At this time I really have no idea. Hopefully Dusty can pitch 200 innings, that's what I'm hoping. Whether it is this year or next year, I don't know. Dustin did a great job coming back from a couple of really painful years for him, mentally and physically and it is just nice to see him out there pitching.

So Dustin, what he is going to do? How is he going to be used? We haven't talked about it. I don't think we are worrying about it. I don't think we are there yet. We are just making sure Dusty is fine and that he comes into Spring Training and he fights for that number 5 hole. That's what I want for Dusty and whatever happens happens after that.

2011 was a long season for Brett Cecil. Right from the start of spring training, things weren't going well. Brett talked about a drop in velocity right from the word go. I still think that he let himself get too worried about it at the cost of focusing on what was really important. Bruce Walton made the point that the drop in velocity wasn't the main problem, the main problem, in his mind, was that there wasn't much difference in the speed of his fastball and his changeup.

We took a close look at his 2011 season back here. Here is a quick look at his numbers as a Jay:

On to the third part of our interview with Bruce Walton.

There was some conversation before the recorder was turned on. Bruce was wrong in guessing Prince Fielder would sign with the Rangers. He figured Prince would enjoy hitting in Arlington and would put up big numbers there. He'd have better numbers there than he will in Detroit. Bruce didn't like the idea of signing him to a long contract saying that 'other than in the 90's' players haven't tended to continue to do well into their late 30's.

What do you think of radar guns? I'm thinking of Brett Cecil coming into spring training last year and it seemed like the first thing he talked about was how hard he was throwing. Maybe it put the focus on the wrong thing?

Yeah you know the radar gun it is a double edged sword. It is a great tool, but it is also a very distracting tool. It's part of the game. It's up in every ballpark now. Its entertainment. The fans want to see how hard you throw. The scouts want to see how hard you throw. And, at times, the hitters want to see how hard you throw. Pitching coaches and managers really don't care as long as you can command the ball and get outs.

But the distraction that Brett went through was rough on him. He did, he lost some velocity coming out of spring training, into the season. Sometimes the arm takes some wear and tear and doesn't come back as strong the next year. You have good years, bad years. Last year for Cecil his arm didn't respond as well as it did the previous years. It didn't have to do with the top of his velocity, it had a lot to do with the radar gun when his fastball and changeup got closer together. So the deception wasn't there. Regardless if he was throwing 88 or 94, he still had the ability to pitch well, it's just that his speeds all kind of came together. It made it harder for him. It was a hard year for him. But still, when you look at his numbers, it wasn't horrible. I mean, he didn't have the win and loss, everyone looks at the win and loss, but if you look at his numbers in general, they are not that much different.

He ended the season well, he just had some parts of the season where they didn't go as well as he wanted them too. You know, the radar gun had a little bit of an effect on him mentally, i think. He went through a mental problem more than he went through an arm problem.

Brett had just an ok year, things didn't go his way, he didn't have a lot of luck. But at the end of the day, go back and look at his numbers they aren't that much different, other than his won/loss.

Which aren't really all his doing anyway.

No, you go out and pitch the best you can, whichever way the game ends up it ends up. The radar gun, you know, I like it at times, but most of the time I don't. I'm not a big radar gun fan. I could careless how are you are throwing. If you get outs, you get outs. Understanding the art of pitching has nothing to do with the radars. Understanding the concept of pitching. Understanding how to pitch in the major leagues. How to move the ball around. How to stay down in the zone. Playing the chess game with the hitter has nothing to do with the radar gun.

How important is the relationship between pitcher and catcher?

It's very important, the most important thing is trust. So the relationship is built on trust and that's it. If you trust what that catcher is putting down and trust that that catcher is putting down the best pitch scenarios for you to get hitters out,then you click. If you are indecisive and you think he isn't putting down the right fingers then that works against you. You start searching for stuff you to throw, that you don't want to throw. JP came in last year, as a rookie catcher, and did a great job of getting to know the pitchers and their strengths and weaknesses and putting a game plan together for them. By the mid-season and the end of season he had a tremendous idea of what to do. It takes a while, even when a new catcher comes in, like a John Buck, the previous year. Here is a veteran catcher who knows every hitter but still doesn't know the pitcher he's catching, on the team he's on right now. So he's got to get to know this person. He's got to know how to yell at him and how to talk to him softly, how to support him and how to kick him in the butt at times. And then he also has to learn what his best pitches are and when to call them and when not to call them. So it is a pretty big part of the game.

Do you work with the catchers on framing pitchers?

No I don't. Anything fundamentally is Wauk, our bench coach, he's a catching guy and he does all that. The only thing I do is scouting reports with them and I help them with our pitchers and I help them with their relationship with our pitchers. I'm kind of like the father figure between the catchers and the pitchers. And me and, last year, it would be me, Molina and JP we'd all be sitting in there and we'd be deciding the game plan. My catchers are a big part of the game plan. They are calling it. They are playing the game. I'm watching it. I'm giving suggestions and I'm monitoring how it is going and if they get off their plan I tell them. If the plan's not working I tell them. They are a big part of my game. I spend as much time with the 2 catchers as I do with the 12 pitchers, as far as talking and planning.

Do pitchers ever still doctor the ball or has that disappeared from baseball?

I think that's disappeared. I know when I played, everyone was accusing people of doctoring the ball, cutting it, making the ball sink more, cut more, scuff it, sandpaper all that. That's disappeared. I think it is a lost art maybe. You know, they throw the balls out after every pitch now, if they get a scuff on them and it is hard to doctor the ball.

HD cameras pointing at you from every direction.

Cameras everywhere. It's not easy to doctor the ball now if you wanted to. I haven't seen it in a long time.

A lot of Blue Jay pitchers seem to throw great changeups. Is that an organizational thing?

It is definitely an organizational thing. Me and Dane Johnson, our minor league pitching coordinator, he understands how good the changeup is in the game of baseball. I mean it helps out every pitcher. He is one of the best I have ever seen to really go overboard with the changeup in the minor leagues. No matter who you are, whether you are Dustin McGowan or Shawn Camp, you throw changeups. I'm big on it. So I love having Dane be as enthusiastic as he is on it. I think it is the only pitch in base you can't sit on. It is the only pitch in baseball that even if you make a mistake with it you can still get outs, I think. I hanging Changeup has better results, I believe, than a hanging breaking ball. So damage control. Hitters hate it. It's not the easiest pitch to throw. It takes a lot of practice, that's why Dane is so adamant, having guys, at 18-19 years old, just constantly throw changeups. So by the time they get to the big leagues, he knows how important it is to me, that we have a guy with a changeup.

Dustin McGowan, is a prime example of a guy, here is a guy that throws 96 MPH, a great slider, a great curveball. We made him throw changeups. Dane made him throw changeups. Dane gave him a changeup and now his second best pitch is the changeup. Brett Cecil's second best pitch is a changeup. Rickey Romero's second best pitch changeup. This is all coming off fastballs. Ricky Romero could have one of the best changeups in baseball. And Brett Cecil, when he is on, could have almost the best changeup in baseball.

It works, it just works. Hitters cannot time 94 or 84 and when 2 pitches look exactly the same coming in, 10 MPH difference in speed, they don't like it. (laughs).

Here is the second part of my chat with Bruce Walton. It was very nice of him to do this.

I didn't mention, with the first part, that I solicited questions from, well, everybody. All the folks listed at the bottom of the page here offered suggestions for questions as well as some other SB Nation folks. Thanks to everyone for their help.

The worst part of these interviews is the transcribing, I'm trying to get better at it, but I'm slow. So any thing that doesn't read well, assume the problem is with my transcribing, not Bruce's answers.

It looked, last year, like all the coaches had a great time with each other.

I've been with Butter for my whole career here, since 2001, so we know each other quite well. I knew Torey from playing with him. John, I didn't really know him before we started, but we all really kind of jelled together and Luis Rivera and Pat Hentgen and Dwayne Murphy and all of us just kind of jelled. We don't step on each other's toes because we don't have an toes to step on. That's what is fun about it, you aren't out of line. You can say anything you want behind closed doors as far as 'I don't like how that guys is playing over there' or 'I don't like how this guy is pitching this guy'. We all get together and we all try to figure it out. It's hard to find a group like that, at times. Someone is always going to get his feelings hurt at times. We don't. We don't get our feelings hurt, we all have thick skin. We understand that if someone says something that we don't like that they are just trying to help and they are not trying to embarrass us or put our theory down. They just have a better one. And we accept that. Our meetings go great. Our communication with our players go great. And we all get along and hang out.

It doesn't only look good, it is good. What you see is what we are every day. Obviously we argue about certain things at times. It's all productive.

Do you have a say in defensive positioning?

You know, me and Butter get together before each series and I give my idea what I'm going to do, what my attack is, to the opposing hitters and he takes that and he puts that into his report. So we just speak and every once in a while we be on the bench and we have a couple of conversations about 'what you going to do here, what you going to do here' and I'll let him know what I think we are going to do and he'll plan accordingly. So we do talk a lot about that, there's no surprises, I know where he is playing us. And he knows where I'm pitching them for the most part. That helps us put together the game plan.

Do you have input on the off-season workout programs the pitchers use?

As far as strength and conditioning, it is pretty much individual. A lot of them have personal trainers in the off-season that are in coordination with our team. So I don't really get too much involved in that end. The throwing program I am directly involved in. We don't really start picking up a baseball until after Christmas. Some might start a little earlier than others. Some might start December 10. Some might start December 1. Some might start January 1. We have an off-season throwing schedule that builds them up for the start of spring training. Starters will probably have up to 5 or 6 bullpen sessions before I even see them. Relievers will have 2-3 bullpen sessions before I even see them.

I'll go down to spring training on the 15th and find out where everyone's at a week a week before (spring training starts). Soon as spring training starts, that have to be ready to jump into a pretty good program. You have 10 days to get ready for a game. So their throwing program, in the off-season, is very important to me. So I know more about that than I know about the strength and conditioning. I know Casey Janssen has a personal trainer, I know a lot of guys have personal trainers. I think they do a lot of that as soon as the season is over. The season isn't no over for them, the season's over they start lifting weights and running and doing all that. But my program doesn't start until December, I give them a couple of months off.

Do you suggest they work on a new pitch during the off-season?

No, every once in a while we discuss some stuff going into the off-season, 'we come to spring training, we might try this or we might try that'. I never really recommended that they try something. That's not to say it's never happened. I know guys that in the off-season they play catch with their buddies that are major league pitchers too and they create a pitch. They said I found this, I start holding the ball like this and it just happens. Sometimes they do find a pitch in the off-season. But there's not a whole bunch of times that I recommend it. I like to start at spring training and get the arm in shape. I'm not really big on trying to find a new pitch until the arm's in shape.

What do you think of pitch counts?

I think pitch counts are good. I think it is a guideline to keeping guys healthy, to keeping younger kids healthy and prolong some careers. And it gives you an idea of what their pitch count is and when to get them out of the game. I don't think you can have a straight across pitch count. I think that the pitchers make their own pitch count for you at times. One guy might be a 95 guy, another guy might be a 105 guy. You might have another guy that is a 110-120 guy. So they kind set their own pitch counts, over the course of you getting to know them. But pitch counts are good, you know, it is a long season, there are a lot of bullets coming out of their arm. I think it needs to be monitored.

Sometimes you hear guys like Nolan Ryan sometimes say 'I threw 140 pitches and I was fine.....

You got a lot invested in pitchers these days. Yeah there are some, the top 5%, yeah there are some guys that can go 115-120 a lot, but that's not very many of them. Most of them are within the 100-105 pitch range, to keep them healthy and strong and good though out the course of the season. A lot of times, we'll run a guy, he's having a great game, he might run 125-130, he's having a good game and you let it go, you know, but the next couple of games aren't very good. You give and you take, but if you can train the arm to go 105-110 to 115 that's the perfect range to me. You keep that consistent, I think the arm stays healthy and it prolongs their career and it keeps your investments in tack.

Your bullpen is down there for a reason, you know, if there is 5 outs left or 6 outs left, those guys need to get the job done down there and your starter doesn't have to take it to 130 to get the job done. You have fresh bullets in the bullpen why not use them.

Do you like it if the pitchers know their pitch count during the game or not?

They know, they know what's where they're at. I like it that they know. It is an easy conversation, they know if they are at 105 and it is the 6th inning, their probably not going back out. If they are at 105 in the 8th, they are probably going back out. Unless they are just dying out there and you can tell things aren't going real well. Even if they are having a great game, it is starting to come up a little bit, it is time to come out, but they know where they are at. They know the pitch counts, they know where me and John are at with them. They try to go longer, they never want to come out. They are always trying to talk me into letting them go back out or talk to John. And I'm like no, you are good for today, we gotta strap it back on in 5 games. There are 4 outs left and the bullpen needs to get that done. I don't mind them knowing where they are at.