He's been invaluable in our discussions and our planning going forward, and the working relationship has been outstanding. |
He's confirmed he's the top hombre for the job. |
He's doing well. I think the most difficult thing he faced was preparing to play games on March 7 and trying to rehab at the same time. I think the rest has helped a lot. |
I don't see [trading Baez] as a concession on this year. Our objective all along is to develop and sustain. |
I think this is consistent with what we've stated our objectives are in developing and sustaining an exciting team. |
I think those two are very good pitching prospects who don't get the recognition they deserve. Both have a tremendous feel for pitching. |
I thought it went well. I thought it was important to keep the lines of communications open. |
If you look at the strikeout leaders, pretty much each year they're the more prominent power hitters. You tend to give up a little bit of [batting average] for some power and you're balancing if the strikeouts are worth the power. That's a trade we're willing to make. |
In an ideal world, we'd have more time to get these players acclimated to the new staff. But we've worked overtime to get these players ready to play and comfortable with the 2006 approach. |
It adds to the flexibility of the lineup. He played it in high school, so there's some familiarity with the position. |
It doesn't make sense for us to make a trade unless we get a piece or two back to add to our collection of young talent. If we don't get that piece or two, it behooves us to keep the momentum we built in the second half with our young players and build off that. |
It's better to go with one closer. But you can't force the situation one way or the other. It all depends on your personnel. Looking at our bullpen, it appears that we have a deeper, more diversified bullpen this year. |
It's definitely frustrating. He was someone we were looking to give us a different look out of the bullpen. |
It's definitely frustrating. He was someone we were looking to to give us a different look out of the bullpen. Pitchers experience injuries all the time. It's a part of our business that we have to weigh in signing any pitcher. I'm confident he's going to work hard and rehab hard to get back good and healthy. So I think we'll see him pitch in a Devil Ray uniform. |
It's definitely in the experimental stage. It's early in the process. He figures in our future no matter where he's playing, but he's more valuable to us and he's more valuable to himself as a third baseman. |