Talking With: Logan White, Part II

When I started, I started with the Orioles, and the General Manager was Roland Hemond.  He was very scout oriented.  He liked scouts, and would always challenge you to learn more and think outside the box.  So Roland was very influential.  But my first supervisor was a guy named John Cox, and John had been a scouting director and was great to work with.  He was very understanding and patient.  A guy I want to mention is Gordon Goldsberry, who was the scouting director with the Cubs for a long time, back when Dallas Green was there and they actually went to the playoffs.  He was tremendous.  There are so many people, and I probably would leave somebody out.  I had a scout named Joe Henderson.  Before I got a full time job, I was bird-dogging when I was working on my Masters (in Education Administration, in 1988), and Joe Henderson- his son Kenny played in the big leagues- he got me started.  Over the years, there are so many names and so many people.  I could probably inundate you with names if I kept going. 

It was important to be around a veteran staff of people.  When I was with the Orioles, when I first started, you had Ed Sprague (his son was a relatively recent big leaguer of the same name), who signed Mike Mussina.  You had a guy like Leo Lebossiere who scouted for a long time.  Jerry Zimmerman, he caught in the big leagues for a long time, and he taught me a lot about catching.  One guy that I've got to throw out is Reggie Waller, who challenged me and got me watching video and got me thinking about mechanics, and making sure I understood what good hitting and pitching mechanics looked like.  And I always would talk to pitching and hitting coaches to try and learn more about what they looked like, too. 

BK: Last year was such a good year for young players in the organization.  About as good as a year can be. People are now familiar with Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, Matt Kemp, and James Loney.  Most fans know of Andy LaRoche, Clayton Kershaw, and Scott Elbert.  Who else is coming through the pipe that people may not be as familiar with?

LW: I think Jon Maloan, who we drafted in '05 out of the University of Arizona, has a chance to contribute at the major league level.  He's a pitcher.  You guys know all about Elbert.  Ivan DeJesus is a shortstop coming up through the ranks.  He's hitting well in Puerto Rico winter ball, and you guys remember his father, I'm sure.  I think you're going to hear about him, and think he's going to keep getting better and better.  Josh Bell is a kid with a lot of tools, he's a third baseman.  He's got a lot of power.  He was ranked number two in the Pioneer League as a prospect.  We took him in the fourth round of '04. 

Andrew Kamenetzky: Between the attention that Billingsley, Martin, and Ethier got, plus the praise being directed at LaRoche, Elbert, Kershaw and those guys, is it in any way overwhelming for you to find yourself and your job in the spotlight as much as it's been?

LW: To me, I'm happy and proud for the scouting staff, and the organization.  They've worked real hard.  The thing to me that is sometimes overwhelming or humbling for me is that I get the credit sometimes.  Sure I get to direct it, and I'd like to think I've done a good job, but really, you're only as good as the people around you.  The people that help you.  I have a guy named Gib Bodet.  He's been a Dodger for a long time- I won't give you his age, but he's a grey-headed guy- I run everything by him.  He's a big help to me.  I think, overwhelming from the standpoint that there are a lot of people that deserve credit in the scouting system. But I'm happy for the club and the organization.  People are seeing that it wasn't just crying wolf situation.  Because I understand from a fan's standpoint, if you say this guy and this guy and this guy are going to be good players, and if it doesn't happen, after a while fans say, "Yeah, we've heard that before."  So I'm happy from that aspect, as well.

AK: The maturity and leadership Russell Martin showed is something that struck me throughout the year and that I frequently wrote about, especially considering his age.  Is that something you saw coming?  Did you expect to see it so soon? 

LW:  At the risk of sounding real bold on that one, that's one that honestly I did know all along, and I think Ned would tell you that as well as anyone that heard me talk about Russ.  Because I was fortunate to get a chance to see the kind of person he is.  He's from Canada, and as you know, the winters are cold.  He came down one winter and stayed at our house and worked out in Arizona.  So I got to know him real well back in '04 in the winter, so I had a feeling of what kind of makeup Russ had from being around him a lot.  He does have that good winning attitude and maturity about him, and like I said, I was fortunate enough to be around it.  So it didn't surprise me, no.

AK: It really caught my attention, because I've been around a lot of athletes, and you rarely see that kind of maturity at such a young age, and with a player with so little experience.

LW:  You're right.  And Russ deserves the bulk of the credit, because Russ is the one who's done it, but I will say this- There's been a lot of people from guys on coaching staffs to scouts, and we try to help that process along.  I know the coaches have talked to him a lot and spent a lot of time with him in converting him (to catcher from third base), and I also know that we've spent a lot of time- he and I- talking about what he was going to do when he got there, and how he was going to do it.  So I think it's a process of that development that we talked about earlier.  We stay in touch with guys, and can't say enough about our development staff.  They really prepared Russ well, and I think that showed this year.  But again, I really want to emphasize that Russ is the type of guy who would have made it regardless.  He's just that kind of guy.

AK: How familiar were you with Andre Ethier before he was brought over in the trade (with Oakland for Milton Bradley)?

LW: I was very familiar with him.  I know when we were at the winter meetings, he was someone I told Ned we needed to get from Oakland.  I live in Phoenix, and the Arizona Fall League is over here.  And that year, you had Loney at first, you had Ethier in the outfield, (Matt) Kemp in the outfield, (Tony) Abreu at second, (Andy) LaRoche at third.  It was a lot of our guys, so I was seeing him play an awful lot.  And he was a lot better player than I thought he was when I saw him at Arizona State.  I will tell you that, and I told Andre that.  "I missed you the first time, but I wasn't going to miss you the second time around."

AK: I was just curious, because it could go down as one of your bigger steals, in terms of trades, so I wondered how much of that you saw coming. 

LW: Me living out here, in the Fall League I had seen him play 20, 25 times.  So I had pretty fresh info on him, but we had other scouts who had seen him and liked him.  (Dodgers scout) Al Lamacchia had seen him play in AA and liked him.  And this is where you look at his background, and see he's hit his whole life.  He's always hit.  He hit everywhere, so that helps you, too.  And another thing that helped me was that he played with our guys.  Our guys would tell me he's a great guy.  I got to know his makeup because I could call James Loney or LaRoche or whoever and ask those guys about him.

BK: I reference this mostly to Kemp, but it can apply more generally as well- How much time does it generally take for a player, in terms of minor league seasoning and exposure, for a player to be able to stick in the bigs once they get there?  Obviously it varies by player, but is there a sort of minimum?

LW: I think it depends on the type of swing they have, and the type of player they are.  If it's a person with a shorter, more compact swing like Russell Martin, he's going to handle Major League pitching maybe a little better than Matt Kemp.  Kemp's a bigger, taller guy, and his swing's going to be longer.  A lot like Derrek Lee.  I was with the Padres when we drafted Derrek Lee out of high school.  And he got to the Major Leagues, I want to say at about 23 years old.  And if you look, he had seasons where he struck out 170 times.  So those kinds of swings, those kinds of guys who have power swings, sometimes take a little longer.  With Matt, obviously he got there at 21, which is pretty fast.  And then he did see guys throwing him a lot of sliders away and things like that, and it was hard.  It's going to take him a little bit more time to adjust than Russell Martin or Andre Ethier, but when they do, the ceiling's very high.  Just like Derrek Lee.  He's now hit over 40 homers in a season.

BK: Is it, in that way, sometimes a good thing and do you get excited when a player at the big league level is put in front of a Kemp or a LaRoche, just to make sure they're not rushed?

LW: I think that's what Ned's trying to do, and has done a good job with.  I know that's certainly the thought process, that you don't want to ever hurt the kid. Because it's tough having 50,000 people getting upset with you, and you don't want to hurt a player's psyche, especially in their development years.  So I know for a fact that's something we look and weigh heavily, and that Ned's done a good job with that.

AK: So in the case of someone like Kemp, having acquired Juan Pierre takes some of the pressure off, and gives him more time to get some seasoning?

LW: Yeah, exactly.  And he doesn't have to feel like he has to carry the load.  He doesn't have to have that pressure to be "the guy," yet.  There will come a day when he'll have that pressure, but it may not have to be right now. 

BK: When you look at the team in four or five years, what would be the ideal vision, given all the players you have in the system?  Do you have an idea of what you'd like the team to look like a few seasons down the road?

LW: You always have that vision, and one of those things I think you need to have in life is short range vision and long range vision.  Imagine driving a car if you could only see five feet in front of you.  It's not a good feeling.  Or imagine where you couldn't see five feet in front of you but you could see way down the road.  So you have to have the two perspectives.  The long range vision for me is certainly a team that's going to win the World Series.  And certainly, with my own personal biases and sentiments, I would love to see players that we signed, drafted and developed be a part of that, but the number one vision for me is that we're competitive year in and year out, and win a World Series.  That we're able to use every avenue and aspect of the organization to achieve that.