Jim Tracy Plate Quotations

I think it's very safe to say that Ryan is not a finished product defensively. I also feel that, when you look at a major-league baseball team that has 25 active members and half of that is your pitching staff, it's pretty imperative that that stuff back there behind the plate gets taken care of.

What takes place between the pitcher's mound and behind the plate is vitally important to the success of a major-league team. I think Ryan is realizing that more every day.

Think about the ... significance of ... how many at-bats he takes this year with men on base because the guy (Casey) hitting in front of him is going to be on base. There's going to be a number of times that he's going to come up to the plate with people on base and have the opportunity to either extend the inning, put a game away or extend leads. All those possibilities will be there.

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.