You acquired pitcher Kai-Wei Teng in a trade with the Giants last week. What do you guys like about him?
Brown: Major gut feel of mine. We started working through the process at the Winter Meetings. I was locked in on getting some pitching. We watched a lot of video and talked to a lot of people, talked to some people in our front office, and we finally got the deal done. But this is a big, strong dude who can run it up to 96 [mph] with some really good spin weapons and he can strike guys out. We feel like any time we can get pitching in this organization because of our reputation with pitching, I think there’s another step up, so there’s some upside with Teng.
Where do you stand in terms of your infield surplus and the opportunity to make another trade there?
Brown: I think if we could trade a guy to get a left-handed bat or something like that, we’ll consider it. I think right now we have a really good infield. We do have the depth, but we have a long season of 162 [games]. We have some veterans we’d like to get some breaks during the course of this season, and to have this depth is good. Last year, we ran into some injuries, so we feel like if something goes wrong in the injury department, we have the depth.
It seems the two players who would have playing time affected the most by having an extra infielder are third baseman Isaac Paredes and first baseman Christian Walker. Have either of them reached out to you or [manager] Joe [Espada] this winter to get an idea of where they stand?
Brown: They haven’t reached out to me, but I will say this: I feel like there’s enough playing time with the DH slot and the ability to move some guys around, whether it’s giving [Jose] Altuve a few games in left or DH'ing Paredes some and allowing Walker to be at first, which could open up second base for Paredes. You’re going to have to rest [Carlos] Correa at times and could play Paredes at third. [Jeremy] Peña is going to need rest and you could play Correa at short and put Paredes at third. We have some moving parts, but I think the depth is going to create some flexibility for the manager.
