Larry Rothschild Quotations

We're just now building up his strength and stamina. I don't use timetables. It's impossible.

Woody knows what I'm going to say to him before I do. It's been repeated enough and he's attentive enough.

When he gets to hitters, we can probably accelerate it pretty well. Until we get to that point, I don't want to accelerate it too much.

We'll see where he is in a few days.

The only plan is to keep his arm in shape, because he's gone a long way to get it to where it is and we don't want to go backwards. In the middle of a rehab, it's important to keep throwing and keep the looseness in there.

Since he's come back, he's been pretty good and it's progressed to the point where he doesn't feel it at all.

Obviously, I think at some point an organization has to look at the importance of stability. I don't think Cubs have ever really spent time doing that. There's always been a big turnover in personalities.

I have a lot of respect for Jim. He's a great manager. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was very successful there to team up with Dave again.

If a guy hits it hard, he's probably going to throw the next one harder. He's a competitor. I've got to make sure he's ready to do that.

I don't want him to go out there without having completely built up the arm strength to where he should be. I want him in an environment where we can build him up without any kind of risk. We've gotten a lot further along with that in a short period of time. I think he's on schedule to do everything we need him to do and not have any problems. That's the way I'm assuming it's going to go, and we'll keep progressing.

I don't want him following somebody in relief at this point in his career. He gets a lot out of stuff early.

I don't think it's going to affect his timetable for June 1. He just fatigued pretty quickly.

From the time he started throwing the ball all the way through the mound, you could see there was more quickness to his arm and he looked more comfortable throwing the ball.

He went through his throwing and we'll see him after he gets the procedure done and go from there.

He's become a good catcher for us. He takes a lot of pride in it, and he's improved in every phase.

He's a young guy. It's like Billy Martin said -- if you tell him 10 times, tell him 11. Hopefully, that's the one that catches. He's gotten better and better at a lot of things. Obviously, there's room for improvement in concentration and not getting distracted by things. That's something we'll keep striving for. A lot of pitchers face that. Hopefully, we'll get through that.

He has done well, other than a little bit when he goes over his head. That's pretty normal.

Greg has had a strong spring. His command is obvious. When he's got his command, he's tough. He's more consistent with it than most.

He helped so much with the young guys. He was just easy to talk to and would give you a straight answer and follow up on everything you would ever ask of him. It was a great situation with him here.

He is going to be built up as a starter. With the rehab, he needs to be built up that way. You can't retard the progress by putting him in the bullpen and limiting the innings and pitches. He is going to need to get the work as a starter.

He finished up pretty strong. Everything's where we thought it would be. We'll pick it up the next time and keep building on it.

He looked OK for where we are. We'll pick it up next time and keep building on it. Today was just to get him on the mound and get him going.

He looked OK, for where we are. He finished up pretty strong. We'll pick it up there the next time.

He looked good. As we do more throwing, it takes a little longer to get loose just because we have been trying to tire his arm out a little bit to build it up without having any problems. That may be a routine he has to keep for a while.

He never came to us. He hasn't said anything. I told him what the plans were. His take on everything is you play every game to win it. I think you're trying to win when he's pitching. Those two goals are in unity with each other.

He'll get off the mound here shortly. We're building it up and hopefully it's not too long before he's real comfortable off the mound.

He'll bump it up some and two days after that bump it up a little more. Then we will re-evaluate it.

When his arm speed comes back, his slider is going to be close to what it used to be, and we saw that (Monday). If he comes in (today) and feels good, we are probably looking at a three-inning game in the rookie league in Arizona on Thursday. After that, we'd like to get him up to four or five innings and think about where we've got to go with him.

With mechanics, you have to remember, he's done this his whole life. To try to get him ready mechanically different for a Major League season is not an easy thing. They're kind of creatures of habits, and when the gun sounds, they're going to do what they do best. You try to strengthen the areas that could be affected by that.

He's gotten better. He's more aware of it and the impact it has, especially being under the microscope at this level. I don't want him to lose the energy, just channel it enough that the concentration stays on getting hitters out and winning games and that's the end of it.

His velocity and location are so good, ... he's one of those guys where you can know what's coming and you still won't hit it.

He's doing what he should be doing. He's throwing with maximum effort that his arm will allow him to right now.

He was overthrowing a little bit. He was trying to do a lot of things that he does during the season, but it's the second time out and the conditions are a lot different. As long as he comes out of it healthy, that's the primary thing.

He didn't talk me into it. We'll go at least one more time with what we're doing.

He deserves it. It's significant in a lot of ways. He's already established a record that's never been done before. Greg has a lot of pride in what he does, and it's significant to him, so I think it's important.

He knows that he does sides in between and the days he does them. I'll talk to him in the next day or two but the scheduling, as far as pitching, is not in our hands.

I talked to a few of them. They didn't want to get involved and try to sway my decision. What they've said is they wanted me to do what was best for me and not to worry about anything else.

I think we're going to a pretty extensive throwing program Friday and see how he reacts on Saturday, and go from there. There's a good chance he'll get on the mound Sunday, but if he feels real good, we might venture that on Friday. But we'll see.

I think what was fast was the amount he threw off flat ground and how much better he felt.

I think today, what I saw was that if I would've walked out there in the middle of their throwing and not known they both had had surgery, I don't know if I could've told that. That's a good sign. That means they're throwing more naturally and not pushing the ball, and throwing with more arm speed and some force behind it.

I went back and forth in my mind a lot,

I think once he's off the mound a few times and faces some hitters and doesn't have setbacks, we'll have a better timetable. In my mind, I figured we weren't going to start the season with him. I've thought that all winter.

I think he's gotten better and better. I think he's aware of it. He is under a microscope at this level. He's worked at it. I hope the energy is still there ? I don't want him to lose the energy. He needs to channel it enough that the concentration stays in getting hitters out during games.

That will be determined as we go. We'll see. He's where he should be in rehab. There have been no setbacks. As long as we can keep progressing, that's what we're after.

That's been part of it, ... but he's still pitched very well. You look at what he's done and what he's been through and I think there have been some pretty good positives there. Getting through this year healthy would be a huge benefit.

When I took the job four years ago, it was with winning in mind, and we haven't accomplished that. So I felt an obligation to ... the organization. I like Chicago. I'm from there, and our kids love being there, and there's no place like Wrigley Field.

We'd probably look at it, ... but I'm not thinking along those lines right now.

We'll watch him the next few days and do a side and make sure he's OK. He may be back up in a few days.

We'll know more when he's not just throwing batting practice the next time out.

You'd like to see him get three or four starts down here. You have to remember after he hardly pitched last spring he only missed one start until hit by the line drive. Maybe he's just not a spring-training guy. It'll ease everybody's mind once he gets into action.

We are right on schedule as long as we can keep pushing forward and have no setbacks.

We won't let him go days without throwing. It's important for him not to lose ground. I don't like guys in the middle of an arm rehab not be able to throw if they're healthy, because I think it can set him back. We'll make sure to exercise the arm while he strengthens the knee. If it all goes well, he should be long tossing and continuing the program fairly quickly.

We've been working on some of the things mechanically and, obviously, I'll pay attention to what the doctors say and try to build arm strength the best we can without getting him hurt. It's kind of a freak injury for a pitcher. You never know where it comes from. We've been trying to stress mechanics even back to when he started his throwing program before this came up. We'll keep stressing it.

Until I see him face hitters, I don't want to go that far.

You can tell he wants to get back as soon as he can. He has worked hard to do it.

With Greg, I think you saw in the second half of the year there's a lot of upside for him,

What was faster was the amount of throws he made on flat ground and how much better he felt.

We just got him up on the hill to get his balance right. He didn't air it out at all. He is going to take what his arm allows on given days. Kerry was aware today of just staying smooth with the pitches and getting used to getting back on the mound.

Arm-wise, he's making real good progress. We need to see what he can do and how quickly he can bounce back from the knee and then we'll figure the rest out.

It would be nice to have them here because the first couple weeks of games we spend a lot of time going over how we approach things. We have meetings every day, and they won't be here for them. But we'll manage and adjust. We have no choice.

The second round is important for us to get him ready and that he keeps progressing. I have nothing to say about it, but I would like him to get a start. Some consideration has to be given to that. If not, then we have to reconsider what's going on. After the first round I need to find out what's going on with him.

That was a big part of it. With Jim Hendry, he's always been very fair with me. He's a great person to work for. He's going to get it done.

A little more trying to keep his hand away from his head when he loads the ball up on his delivery to the plate. When you look at Mark the first couple years here, you look at the way he released the ball at the end of his delivery and it was pretty easy. You didn't see a lot of effort.

There was contact, obviously. It was tough to turn down, honestly. But I felt an obligation to finish what we started.

They're both doing fine. They just want to get going and get back in games. They know what they're here for and what they need to do.

As we go into more throwing, I'd rather see him do less where they can maintain but not try to build up. I think that's where you run into some problems. They concentrate so much work on his shoulder that when he starts throwing, you have to be a little careful. Throwing is what counts, not how many reps you can do with weights.

I took the job four years ago with winning in mind, and we haven't accomplished that.

It wasn't getting loose so we weren't going to try it.

It was a very tough decision. Probably for about five or six days I went back and forth a lot, talking to people. With Dave Dombrowski and Jim, we won a World Series and I had a relationship with both of them. That made it tough, but in the end my obligation was more important.

It's a little slower process there because you've got to get that inflammation out of there. There's still a little discomfort there. It's considerably better, which is basically what we expected.

It may be one time around the rotation that he's set back, but hopefully that's the way it works out.

It's an outpatient procedure. You've got to believe it's not all that drastic. Hopefully, it's quick and not much and he bounces back quickly.

The next time, we'll bump his up quite a bit. He may be ready to face some hitters and start the program that Woody started a couple weeks ago.

Then we'll see if we can get him into some sort of games. It's time for him to progress a little bit.

That'll be determined by how he comes in each day and the strength of which he can throw, and we'll keep moving toward it.

It's been impressive to where they are up to now. They're throwing the ball with pretty good force behind it. It's not so much what they can do today, but can they feel like they can do it again tomorrow? That's the basis we pretty much use to go forward.

It's been good to see where he is. Even with the 13 days off, he didn't lose a whole lot, and he might have actually gained some. ... The ball is coming out with some force. We can progress him as his daily work allows.

It'll amount to three innings facing hitters. It's going to be more than a batting-practice session.

It was a pretty good pitch. Dunn just went with it and hit it out, and that's going to happen sometimes.

The two months that I'm in Spring Training is tough. The family obligation weighed heavily. We spent a lot of time talking about that. The truth of the matter is during spring, I'm at the ballpark the majority of days for 12, 15 hours. I wouldn't get a whole lot of time with them.

They won't throw quite as heavy next time, because both of them had a pretty heavy workout today.

Any time you have gone through surgery, once you get back on the mound the first time, it's a little different feeling. Yeah, it was a pretty step.

A pitcher like him, you would expect him to get it together and go on a pretty good run.

I'm going to wait and see what we're dealing with first and try to figure out what we have to do and go from there. Everybody knows what he means to the team. We'll have to wait and see.

I'll pretty much go through what the doctors say and try to get him through the first three or four times throwing and then decide where he is, how much of a setback two (missed) weeks has been as far as arm strength, stamina and things like that. Try to build him up without taxing him too much.

In my mind I figured we weren't going to start the season. I thought that all winter. Shoulders are a little different and you'd better be careful with it. Because setbacks can be long term and cost you long chunks of times. That's what we are trying to avoid.

He started throwing some breaking balls. We'll probably go at least one more time with what we're doing.

He stood up and threw without putting a lot of pressure on the knee. Just basically tossing 90 balls to keep the motion and looseness through the shoulder.

He's throwing fine. It's just building up strength and stamina and his pitches and tiring him out without going overboard with it, and we'll keep progressing from what we did today.

I don't put schedules on rehab. That will be determined as we go. He's where he should be in a rehab from the surgery. No setbacks or anything. As long as we can keep progressing, that's what we are after.

He's where he should be in a rehab. He's throwing at the maximum effort that his arm will allow him. If we can keep him on the rehab schedule, whenever he's able to come back, he'll be back the way he should be -- instead of rushing it and putting timetables on it, which obviously you don't do.

He threw some breaking balls today -- we're really concentrating more on building arm strength. We'll spin the ball some, but I don't really worry about the breaking ball as much as some other pitches until the arm strength gets built up. Those things will come back.

He threw off the mound toward the end, really just to get him up on the hill and get used to the slope again and get his balance and things like that right.

He threw all his pitches, and it was as close to a normal routine as I have seen.

He threw about 12 pitches off the mound and a bunch off flat ground. It's pretty amazing to watch.

If he pulls something, even though it's not the spot where we're concentrating on, it could set him back too far. We probably did the right thing.

He's not at the height of his career but there's still a lot of good games for him to pitch. We talked at the end of the year about certain things he could do to return to what he's done in the past.

He shows us the ability to throw strikes any time in the count. He has a high level of concentration on every pitch, and that's something we like. Because of his experience, he has an excellent chance to be in the rotation. The ball is really in his court.

You could see there was more quickness to his arm. He just looked more comfortable throwing the ball.