Jeff Moorad . |
(Good defense) affects you in a lot of ways. It prevents your pitcher from throwing too many pitches in one inning. It gives your bullpen a rest because your starter may be able to go a little deeper into games. Cameron is going to save games with his glove. |
[It may not be so easy in the future. Robert Manfred, baseball's executive vice president for labor relations and human resources, says baseball will suspend and fine repeat minor league offenders this season. The Padres have administered their own three-strikes-and-you're-out steroid policy for the past five years, though they do not test in the off-season, either.] The word's out in our organization, but the trend we're seeing is that most of the players who tested positive were in [Class] A ball, ... That tells me the problem is spreading fast. I think it's prevalent in college and high school--even before we get them. |
[The changes in the game are also evident in the increasingly hulking physiques of the players. The average weight of an All-Star in 1991 was 199 pounds. Last year it was 211.] We're kidding ourselves if we say this problem is not happening, ... Look at the before and after shots, at the size of some of these players from the '90s to now. It's a joke. |
[Towers said the Padres could re-sign Jackson.] He was going to be a free agent anyway, ... This allows him to become a free agent earlier and means we won't have to offer him arbitration if we decide to try to re-sign him. |
99.9 percent of the time that play's made by him. |
A good defense can shave a team's ERA. We think we've helped ourselves quite a bit defensively. |
After what I went through with Arizona, the last four or five days, they were crazy with all the speculation out there. I don't think it was fair to this organization. One thing I want to make clear is that I wasn't throwing my name out there. It got to the point where it didn't stop. |
All three of these guys are guys who can get to the big leagues in kind of a hurry. We'd be happy with any one of the three. |
Any time you get a chance to get your hands on a first-round pick, you're interested, because there was enough talent there at one point for the player to be drafted highly. |
Any time you lose a player the caliber of a Mark Loretta, it's a big blow. However we are encouraged that Mark did not need to have a full reconstruction of the thumb and that he will make a full recovery to be back on the field before too long. |
Any time you lose exclusivity on a player, there's always that chance you'll lose him. But he's a guy who loves this organization and means so much to the city. As he's often said, he's one of the few guys who plays for the name on the front of his jersey, not the one on the back. |
Based on the type of year he had this year in the International League, we believe Kenny is on the comeback trail. We still feel like he has an upside. |
Brian spent little time on the disabled list. We looked at 200 innings and at least 30 starts. |
But we thought we needed to change there. We felt these were areas where we were not good at and needed to improve. We struggled in some decisions at the third-base coaching spot and in base-running (Lopes' responsibility). |