Ozzie Guillen Year Quotations

When you're world champions, you (can) be cocky or try to rub it in their face. It's nice. You have the ring, you have the trophy. I always said last year, 'We're not that good.' This year it's the same way.

The expectations for next year are greater but we need to take things step by step. It's a matter of 25 or 30 baseball players. We already know what we must do. Hopefully, the team will return to form.

Last year we put a lot of pressure on the opposing team because Pod was running. I think his groin is healthy and when he's healthy, we will run.

Obviously, we're disappointed. We had a chance to play better (but) we didn't do what we did all year long.

No -- I could get some advice from him this year ... Advice isn't going to help. You cannot pick when things go right and things go wrong. You have to look at the law of averages where they were winning games early in the year, too. It's hard to continue to win in that many different ways and that many close games. I'm confident they'll get it together and pull it together.

On paper we look really strong. We have another year to compete. Hopefully we stay healthy. I think we have another good year.

From the first day of spring training, I told them 2005 is over. It's a new year and we're just like everybody else. Every team we play this year is going to be trying to knock us off, so we have to be ready.

He will know the league better. Last year he battled the league every day--he didn't know the pitchers. Now he has one year under his belt. With a lot of confidence, he should have a good year.

He showed people today. I think it's one of the best games he's pitched, the best I've seen him throw all year long.

I think it's great because we proved a lot of people wrong, and I think I like that. I call it low key. We took a lot of beatings this year during the year about my team, and we just kept playing. Good thing my players don't listen to what I was saying to the media.

I think that's the best I've seen him throw all year long,

Last year is over, 2005 is done. You can't stay in that year forever.

I will guard him real well. I won't say, 'Get McCarthy up, we need him next inning.' We are going to use him the same way we used El Duque last year when he was in the bullpen. ... If we need someone quick, I'll get someone else up before I get McCarthy up.

We can score more runs this year than last year. That's why we brought those guys here. Last year, God, it was 2-1, 1-0, 3-2 every game. My pitching staff couldn't even breathe one minute. They can't even make one mistake because we'd lose.

We built this team around defense and pitching. I think our defense was one of the biggest reasons we won the World Series, no doubt about it. I knew we were going to play good defense all year long.

You get to the playoffs you got to win 11 games. In the regular season, you win 99 and go to the wire and almost lose. The way we played all year long it was like a playoff game every day. ... I talked to the guys. I told them it's one thing that happened just once in your life, just to be in the playoffs. Some people play a lot of years in this game and never have this opportunity.

El Duque has a year left on his contract with Chicago and hopefully in that year we can make the most of him because he's a winner and knows what he needs to do on the mound.

That's why I picked Freddy to pitch in the road trip. Hopefully, he continues to do what he's been doing all year long.

That team worked so hard all year long, they deserve to do what they're doing now. Finally, they can say, 'We did it!' A lot of teams made it tough on us. It wasn't easy.

That's my third hitter, ... And we've got to play our game and hopefully they don't change the game that we've played all year long.

They played better than we did. We didn't do well what we did well all year long.

That kid has been doing the same stuff all year long.

(Sunday) is a big game for us. Maybe the biggest game we're going to play this year and hopefully we come home with a victory. It's not going to be easy. Those guys are going to show up ready to play and ... you never know what's going to happen.

It's an amazing job this kid did over the last year and a half, ... This kid came in with a lot of problems, mechanics and keeping his pitches down. I always say Contreras got the best arm on my staff. There's not a doubt about it. It was a matter of time when he got more confidence and he was throwing more strikes.

I don't want to say anything bad about Vlad because I don't want to wake him up. I think our pitching staff is doing a tremendous job all year long against him.

All year we play pretty good baseball. Cleveland has played outstanding. We can't control that. Now, we have a chance to control that.