Obviously, I'm leaving a situation that has turned around and is moving in the right direction, |
Of course we watch what the Yankees do, ... but our feeling is they're an island in the game. We're not going to compete with their payroll or revenues. We expect that this team will have a lot more fun than last year's, doing it quietly, without a $180 million payroll. |
Our feeling was let's not block him and sign a guy to a long-term contract unless he's a dominating closer like B.J. was. There really wasn't that kind of animal on the free agent market. |
Our pursuit of Kris goes back to November. One of our goals going into the off-season was to acquire another pitcher. |
The first factor is you have to see if the ability's there. The second factor is his mental capacity. How do you think he'll handle things as teams start to make adjustments to him? How will he handle failure at the Major League level? Everyone goes through that. Those are two of the factors, anyway. |
The way it was relayed to us through his agent was that he's not a guy that likes coming off the bench. He's a guy who wants to play every day. He didn't have the desire to keep playing if it wasn't an everyday job. |
They both have the makeup that you're looking for to be the cornerstones of the organization, |
They really do have some good young talent, especially in the pitching department, |
This is the first time we heard this directly from him. We're elated that he's chosen to stay. We're all committed to improving the team, and it's easier to do it with Miguel than without him. |
This was a tough loss for us. We're still hopeful, but we all knew the importance of this game. We needed [a win] to stop the bleeding. |
upper level management position to be determined. |
We dabbled with getting a guy who could maybe be a transition closer until Chris could take over, but we were never really all that serious because we really feel like he's our guy. |
We got hold of the player, and the player said he had a change of heart and for family reasons wanted to play in the National League because of the trips to San Diego and Los Angeles, which are close to home. I'll believe that over the other one. |
We haven't decided what we're going to do yet, ... We're still talking about it. |
We were trying to [complete a deal] because he said he would be willing [to have] an everyday job in Japan. We were trying to gauge interest, but at this point, most of the rosters are already set. |