Jim Tracy Guys Quotations

We're seeing some of these guys beginning to escalate themselves in the direction that you want to see them going.

We're looking for 35 or 38 or 39, and this is an opportunity to find out who are those guys beyond the 25.

We're looking to get guys at-bats. We're going to play our best guys and hope the best in them comes out.

Obviously, that's the hot topic these days. I've done everything I possibly can to keep Freddy involved, and he has responded big-time. You have to get Freddy at-bats, but you also have to give those other guys a chance to jump-start themselves.

I am a firm believer in the fact that a group of guys needs to understand the importance of 90 feet, that it makes the difference in a baseball game. These players will gain a strong realization of that.

He was the type who got everything he could out of his ability. And the reason he did that was his intelligence level and a set of personal expectations that were higher than guys he was competing against.

He's a clubhouse leader, great for young players to be around, knows how to play the game, accepts his role willingly and does it as well as any of the other top flight guys that come off benches and play, that you can think of. What's there not to like about this guy?

I thought they both did a great job. I thought they both did exactly what you wanted to see. ... Both guys passed today.

I will use all 13 bench guys - I have and will continue to do so.

We need some starts where we get seven or eight innings, and it would be great if we could even get one at some point in which the guys in the bullpen wouldn't even have to pick up their gloves one day.

We can't just have specialty guys with 12 pitchers. We're going to need some length in our bullpen.

We have two kids there. Both are very competent kids -- smart enough to understand what we're talking about -- and they will figure it out. We've got to find opportunities for both of them. We'll take it a day at a time and go from there. As I've said all along, with these two guys on the club, I don't want to see either one of them sit for too long a time and not participate. It's advantageous to both of them to do it that way.

To look around here and see the number of guys wearing a glove on their right hand I've never seen this, honest to goodness.

When half of the team is the pitching staff, there are some intangible things that are important. We can sit here and talk about hitting all we want. But that won't help the other part that is vitally necessary to the success of the Major League team, and that's the interaction that takes place between two guys 60 feet, six inches away from one another. That's just as important as anybody's batting average.

We've got to find opportunities for them. I don't want to see either of them sit for any period of time and not participate. We can't let these guys sit for days on end and then ask them to do something special in the seventh or eighth inning.

With our cut-down (Tuesday), we are getting closer and closer to what some things are supposed to look like. The tone of the games now in spring training has changed a little bit due to the fact that some of the regular guys are staying around a little bit longer.

Two perfect pitches to bunt -- they are fouled off and we left our guys stranded. (Chicago) created a two-out situation and got a base hit that scored a run. It's huge.

To summarize for you, both guys passed (Saturday). It doesn't make any decision over the next few days any easier. But that's what you hope for. When you're in a position where you have to make choices like this, they're not easy. It's a great problem to have.

Both have very similar stuff, stuff that can beat you down on any given day. But you don't want guys with very similar stuff pitching on back-to-back days.

Both guys are going to catch in situations and games that make the most sense for them and the club.

I started to fall in love with the game of baseball when my dad gave me my first set of baseball cards, ... I kept the ones I recognized. The guys I didn't were the ones I put in the spokes of my bicycle with clothes pins.

Is Oliver Perez important to us? And Kip Wells? Sure, they are. But we've got a whole clubhouse full of guys that are important to us.

I've always felt that honesty is the best way to go. These guys aren't kids anymore. They are men. Sometimes you tell people some things, and they don't want to hear it. We've all been in that position. Deal with it. Here's what it is.

As I've said, both guys are going to catch.

You need the other guys now. I don't want spring training to get stale. With the other guys coming in, the program changes somewhat. We're at the point now where they are needed.

It's going to be just another game to those guys because they've been given at-bats. That's why they've been given at-bats, so that in a situation like this, they're ready and not rusty.

Not all of our starters are 22 years old, but we do have four of them that are 24 or less. We have to allow a little bit of time to allow these guys to have the opportunity to stabilize themselves.

I'm not sitting here suggesting that guys don't get hits on an 0-2 or a 1-2 pitch ... but ordinarily, on 0-2, you don't see balls get hammered. When you come up through a minor-league system, you know early on that when you get a hitter 0-2, a ball sitting right in the middle of the plate is not a very good location.

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.

I don't want to have those guys out there feel like you're completely jumping the gun. I want to also make it perfectly clear that we are definitely interested in results. And we're going to get to the point where we expect to see very favorable results.

I do feel that way. And that's because I've seen some of the guys in this rotation be very good, even though I was looking at that from afar. What's more, I know that they know what they have to do.