Currently doing an interview with Mo on 1530AM. Some of these are paraphrased, but you get the idea. Just thought I'd share.
Walt Jocketty on Shin-Soo Choo
"Joey Votto sent me a text after the trade last night and he was very excited."
"We've tried a couple of different deals for CF types that fell through. We talked to Cleveland about Choo last year at deadline, but this one came together kind of fast over the past couple of days. We put this together Sat, Sun, and Mon. Finalized late last night, about 9PM. It was a deal we felt was very important to us. Hurt to give up Didi. SS is "locked up" with Cozart for 5-6 years."
"With the way the money has gone, we don't know what to expect going into the future. If we sign him, great, if not, we know we have BH to take over."
"We'll let the year play out (2013) before visiting trying to sign Choo to extension."
"One of the deals we had in place required trading a few of our top young pitchers. Just not something we wanted to do."
"This is probably the best lineup we've had here...at least in my time."
"We think Choo will be at least average in CF. He came up in SEA as a CF then moved him to RF because they had, I think, Adam Jones there as well. We think he should be able to cover CF here at GABP, which isn't really a very big CF."
"Dusty and I have discussed moving Bruce to CF. I thnk we're going to go into ST with an open mind but we'd prefer to keep Jay in RF."
"If Hannahan gets done, he'll be a LHH that'll play several INF positions."
"Hannahan/Donald will not proclude us from bringing back Scott."
"If Rolen does come back, he's thought about how he'll adapt to a lesser role than what he's used to."
"We want to go into ST with flexibility in the rotation. Chapman could start, or could start in the bullpen and then start later in the year. I think our pitching staff and roster is pretty well set. I like competition but we'll still look for ways to add depth to the organization in AAA and AA."
"Well, I'm going, I have a home in Phoenix, so we're going to go there for Christmas."