Jim Tracy Approach Quotations

The best way to approach a player with his type of ability and talent is to feel like you've developed a type of environment to allow his development to continue on its natural course. With what we have done this winter, we have put this young man in a position to where his natural progression as a Major League Baseball player has a genuine opportunity to take place without heaping any unexpected expectations on him.

I told him that the worst case-scenario, if he goes the other way with the ball, was for him to get one run in and advance the other runner. He understood me perfectly. I'll take his approach to that at-bat.

He'll do his fair share of damage when it's all said and done. For him to change his approach and expand his strike zone would be wrong. It would do him no good.

I'm not advocating taking a ball on the first pitch every time up there. A couple of times (yesterday), the first pitch was there, and we swung at it. But I'm continuing to see these guys take smart approaches to hitting, and that's encouraging.

He was terrific. He looked like it was his third or fourth game of the spring, not his first. And I liked his approach at the plate, too.

The one thing I noticed about this team while watching from the other dugout is that it swung and missed too much. The approach had to change collectively, in my opinion, as far as each and every guy approaches his at bats. You need a group of players that understand that in a given situation it's pretty important for them to try and put the ball in play, and not swing and miss.

He's doing everything you could ask, with the type of approach we want him to take as a top-of-the-order guy.

If this kid maintains the same type of mentality and approach that he possesses right now, it's a matter of time before you start strongly talking about the fact that he is a candidate to come here and start a Major League game. I look at this guy as being a very good starting pitcher some day.