It's hard to pick and choose. You look at guys who had good years. If they don't work out, maybe you go to somebody else. Not many teams do it after one year. |
It's something we needed to accomplish for our fans. It was a huge building block for us. |
Last year our training staff received an award for our players spending the least number of days on the disabled list. That has to continue. Our margin of error is still pretty slim. We need the players we are counting on to deliver. |
Matt's ability to retire batters in tough situations makes him one of the premier set-up relievers in baseball. Last season, he had an important role in the bullpen and we're thrilled to have him for two more seasons. |
Matt's ability to retire batters in tough situations makes him one of the premier setup relievers in baseball. |
Maybe he's going to be better than that. Right now, he's got the ability. He wants to be a No. 1 starter. And that's the right attitude to have. |
Next time, they could make a rule that a pitcher has to pitch in the last 30 days of the (previous) season. There will be some kinks like that, that need to be worked out. |
Now we get to the point where we want to keep our players and build from within. Our model is more Minnesota, or more Oakland. We're not the Marlins. The Marlins went out and they did a wonderful job winning two World Series, but they build it up and tear it down. And I don't know if our fans would go for that. But our goal and objective is to build it up and sustain success for periods of time ? for a long period of time. |
Of all the young players I've had throughout my career, I'm as confident this kid is going to hit as any of them. |
One of the best things about getting to .500 is that we don't have to hear about it anymore. It creates new challenges for us and it raises the bar, which I think we all need to do. Our expectations are going to be greater. |
One of the best things about getting to .500 is we don't have to hear about it anymore. The best thing about it is it raises the bar. Our expectations are going to be greater. I'm looking forward to playoff baseball. That's what our goal should be. |
Our guys think he's a little bit of a sleeper. |
Our minor league staff got him ready from an offensive standpoint but we know Rickie's got a lot of work to do on the defensive side. But he got his 300 at-bats in the second half. So the learning curve of both Rickie and J.J. has happened. |
Our pitchers had the lowest batting average in the league last year (.106), so we want our pitchers to improve. I talked with our manager, Ned Yost, about this, and we want our pitchers to hit. I don't anticipate us using the DH very often. |
People didn't really take us seriously as a wild-card contender last year, whether it was because of our $42 million payroll or because we were the Brewers. But we want the expectations to be higher. We've raised the bar here. |