We don't know what to expect from countries that are not as developed in amateur programs, but this gives us a chance to see players that are underexposed on the international stage perform. We already have a base of knowledge on a lot of the players, and this will enable us to supplement. |
We feel that Bobby is the best manager in the game and his leadership has helped the Braves to set a very high standard of excellence -- not just in major league baseball, but in all of professional sports. |
We felt it was important to strengthen our bullpen with some talented, more established arms. And we were able do that with Cruz and Reitsma. |
We had to do it up against a very strict salary/payroll guideline, and that meant we had to go young in order to afford the replacements on our roster. And if we have to go young, we always prefer to go young with our own guys because we know we've done our due diligence drafting people, checking character of people, learning about their personalities and watching them grow and mature. |
We had to reconstruct the team midway, and in order to do that we had to rely on young guys because our of budget, ... I don't think anybody knew they were going to do what they did, but we made up about 11 games in the standings since that happened, and they really energized the team, quite candidly. |
We hope that this is a win-win situation for both sides. We hope that Mike's career can get back on track and he can regain the level of pitching he enjoyed for so many years before shoulder problems got the better of him. |
We looked at his time in the National League and we believe when he gets back to the N.L. in Atlanta, he will return to the Renteria of old. |
We probably will. When it's time. |
We put together a list of about 20 candidates, and the name Roger McDowell kept getting fed back to us. When we interviewed him, he was so good, his personality, his pitching philosophies, [manager] Bobby [Cox] said, 'He's the guy.' We interviewed only one other candidate. |
We saw it happening and we made an effort to mine this talent we had in the area, |
We say that every year and we prove it every year when we bring guys up from our Minor League system and they help us win. This year, we sort of did it with capital letters and neon lights and flood lights on the letters because we had so many of them here. That's a direct tribute to scouting and player development. |
We will be scouting every major league training camp, looking for the possibility for that to develop. |
We'll miss him. But we're confident we can continue the great pitching program we've had here in Atlanta. |
We're going over a couple things. |
We're not announcing it, because we don't know who it is going to be. Bobby has done this many times in the past when we've had openings at various positions. We'll let them compete for it, and whoever impresses the most will get the opportunity to be our closer. |