Larry Beinfest Players Quotations

There is going to be change just like every winter, ... Some of it will be by design. Some of it will be natural with guys graduating on to free agency. Some because we have young players who we think are ready to perform in the major leagues.

We got the players we wanted. We didn't take players because we thought we could sign them. We didn't bypass somebody. These were the players we wanted. We had worked the budget and worked with David and Jeffrey on the budget, and we're confident if this guy is here at that number, we're going to be able to sign him and get it done.

We're just going to see how the guys react, and how they're playing. I don't think we can speculate right now if this guy is going to be in a platoon situation. We're going to just have to figure it out as we go along, because a lot of these players just don't have the Major League experience and they just don't have the track record of how they perform, left vs. left or right vs. right. You just don't have that right now in the big leagues.

When we initially hired him, we were looking for a turnaround, and we called him a turnaround specialist, ... That's exactly what he did. For me, he really taught the organization what it was to win, and to work hard. It was all about winning early on, every game. He set the tone in the clubhouse, then the working hard. He was out here before the players often, and working hard. Then he challenged a lot of the young players here who had not been challenged to work harder.

This is following through on the market correction and a lot of mixed emotions. We had players who were with us in '03 who helped us win a championship. It's a business, but we've had a lot of history with a lot of these guys. The recognition of what they've done is not going to be lost, but the reality of the situation is the reality of the situation.

That's obviously something he feels strongly about and we're 100 percent behind him. He wants the players to look professional out there, and he recognizes their job and to go about it in earnest. If that's part of it, to look the part, then we're all behind it.