Mike Hazen

You can't just build two full different rosters and then with major league deals and significant resources and then just move on from those deals in May.

That's just – no trades get made really in April and May.

So it was a little more complex in terms of what we needed to do to make sure this team is in a position in the middle of the year to build and grow when those guys come back, but also not be able to just sell out to April and May in terms of what resources, trades, free agency, whatever –

And so that was a little complicated for us to put together.

These are really good players that are going to be coming back, and we're very confident in their return.

It's not like how they perform when they come back.

Sure, there will be some ramp-up time, but we know they're coming back, and we need to bake that in a little bit.

So in that way, it was a little bit more challenging in terms of understanding.

We had to rebuild our pitching staff because we lost six free agents,

Big free agents, most of which I sold when I sold at the deadline.

But we knew those guys were all becoming free agents.

So we had to rebuild the pitching staff in a large – in a significant manner.

But then still with Suarez and Naylor and Gritchick and those guys like off that were on the team last year, we also had to kind of fill in there too.

I don't think it's actually been incredibly different, honestly.

There's always things that get dragged into February every year.

You say those same things about how it gets longer and longer and longer.

I don't really think that's what actually ends up happening.

There's a couple guys almost every year that I've done this that migrate into February, sometimes into March.

I don't think it's that atypical.

It is what it is.