Since Red Sox fans are so intense and baseball's a long, 162-game season, it helped that this team was as loose as it was. If this team was as intense as its fans, it could have been too serious, too overbearing for everyone. |
That remains to be seen. We have as many as seven starting pitchers, but those things have a way of working themselves out during the course of the camp. |
That wasn't admissible. It didn't come up. |
That's an issue that's coming up, and that's something we're going to have to deal with, ... That's another issue that I don't think we'll be discussing publicly. |
That's between the player and the club. |
That's one of the worst parts of the job, but the alternative is unacceptable. The alternative is allowing personal feelings about a player to influence a decision and have the Red Sox be worse off for it. That's totally unacceptable. I think it's clear that my ultimate loyalty is to John Henry and Tom Werner, to the Red Sox organization. Maybe I can have more fulfilling friendships in the clubhouse once I'm not [the] general manager someday. |
That's something between Manny and the club. |
That's why they pay you guys the big bucks, ... To find the polysyllabic word for this. |
The (Jays) did a great job of executing a game plan. You can't always think four or five years ahead. Sometimes you have to take advantage of an opportunity to win now. They made themselves a lot better and are very squarely on our radar screen. |
The first round of internal planning, looking at our needs and looking at the market dynamics this winter, that will continue. We're going to give everybody the day off [today] and get right back after it Monday morning. |
The goal is to get ready for the season and Manny is getting ready for the season. It will give us a month to get ready for the season. |
The issues had nothing to do with the chain of command, per se. I'm happy with the chain of command. |
The schedule says we play at the end and the standings say we're pretty close and those games will matter, ... Both teams have survived the toughest division in baseball and whoever wins the series will probably get into the playoffs. They might be the only one. |
The way our bullpen has been, this will be a good opportunity for us. If he gets on a roll, and throws strikes, he has a chance to really help us. We don't have a lot of strikeout-type stuff up and down our 'pen. This is a chance to add a guy with a great arm. |
There are a lot of factors involved, some of them are personal, some are family related. He assured us that by staying in Miami and continuing to work with his personal trainer, continuing his regimen, that he wouldn't be behind. In the end, after talking to him, we were OK with accommodating him. It's not perfect, but we're going to support him through this. |