Ed Wade had a chat with JJO today.
On all ten candidates:
“We’re excited about the entire group of candidates. All 10 candidates have a great deal of experience and are held in high regard throughout major league baseball. Clarkie and Al are great internal candidates and are very well-respected both inside and outside the Astros family.”
On Brad Mills:
“I think Millsey is a very strong candidate. I talked to Tito about him, and he speaks very highly of him. Millsey’s serves as Tito’s right-hand man in Philly and Boston. He’s very bright, very detailed and he’s done a great job for Tito.”
That's three "Tito"'s in four sentences, for an abbreviation percentage of .750.
On having the necessary major league experience:
"As we stated earlier we’re putting a lot of emphasis on experience, either extensive minor league or managerial experience. That’s not to say that we don’t consider all the candidates to be strong, but certainly the major league experience will weigh heavily in the process."
On Dave Clark:
“I’ve been tremendously pleased with what they’ve brought to the organizations since I’ve been here. I thought Clarkie handled our Triple-A club extremely well in 2008. I thought he did a great job as our third-base coach this year, and I was very much impressed with what he did in the short time he took over on an interim basis. He’s a very strong individual. He’s got great convictions. And I think he’d make an outstanding manager.”
Clark and Al Pedrique will interview on Wednesday.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
