Chris Woodward on Starting Pitching Depth

Transcript

00:00 >> Yeah, started your opportunity.

00:02 >> Obviously as soon as we made the trade for Kluber, I reached out to all those

00:06 guys and just explained to them how important it is that they come in ready.

00:12 Because you never know what's gonna happen in spring training.

00:14 Somebody could go down, heaven forbid, two guys could go down.

00:17 If these guys think I don't have a shot at making the team,

00:20 all of a sudden they're plugged into that role.

00:22 The beautiful thing is when you have depth,

00:24 it creates a lot of good competition below that.

00:28 So whoever the sixth guy is, it's gonna be a pretty heavy competition.

00:31 He might actually start on our team.

00:33 Somebody may not be ready for spring training.

00:35 Or like I said, somebody may go down.

00:37 We're gonna need nine to ten starting pitchers.

00:40 It's just a fact.

00:41 If we don't, we're one of the few teams in the history of baseball that's ever

00:46 gone through an entire season without a sixth guy to pitch.

00:49 So all those guys, it's a big year for all those guys.

00:52 They got something to prove if they start in triple A.

00:55 Whoever's pitching the best, obviously who we trust the most, I guess,

00:59 at the time is gonna get the call.

01:00 And there's room for everybody.

01:03 That's one thing I've stressed to them, to be ready to make sure that

01:06 they're gonna expect to make an impact on our big league team.

01:09 Whether that's in April or whether that's in June or July,

01:11 I think a lot of that has to do with circumstance, but make sure that they're