Doug Melvin Quotes (77 Quotes)

This was not a difficult decision for us to make. Carlos filled our greatest need last year by excelling in production from the middle of our order. He is established as one of the league's top run producers and exceeded our expectations from the outset.

We know what our young guys are capable of. We're building that way. I think, actually, we're beyond building at this point. We're wanting to be competitive now.

I want our doctors to look at him back home. After they evaluate him, we'll make a decision. If they don't think he'll be able to pitch in another week, we'll probably have to DL him and call up a long reliever.

Last year our training staff received an award for our players spending the least number of days on the disabled list. That has to continue. Our margin of error is still pretty slim. We need the players we are counting on to deliver.

You get six weeks to get things together. We came in here with the expectations to build on last year's first .500 season in 12 years, and I think we're on track to doing that.

We never expected that team to do anything like it did. He proved a lot of people wrong.

There were a couple times that we talked about it. We were just going to let him go out (to the minors) for two or three weeks to get some consecutive at-bats, then we were going to bring him back. It wasn't a matter of sending him out and leaving him down. We didn't want to lose the progress that we made.

That's a lot for three guys, but we also had a bunch of arbitration guys (who received raises). We've got even more coming (next winter), so it's going to be challenging the next year or so.

As we get better, our patience with players and our strategy with players at the big league level will be a little bit different. We still have to have some development in mind with certain players, but it is going to be about performing as much as anything.

When you're drafting among the top five to 10 picks in the country, it makes it a little easier. You can really zero in on players. Our draft picks won't be so high. That's a challenge.

We think it's time for Corey to get a good shot, unless he falls flat on his face in spring training. If we could get him 250 at-bats this year, that's a step for his development. Corey brings some things to the table.

We keep joking that we're going to sit in the front row when Canada plays USA and wave our little flags.

I went to our professional scouting staff and said we're trading Kolb, find someone to replace him. We challenge them they evaluate talent and make decisions.

People said they were small ball, but they weren't as small as a lot of people like to think. They hit a lot of home runs. But their defense was pretty good and their pitching was very good. Their pitching is what carried them last year.

The one thing we're real envious of is how well they play defensively. That's one area where we need to improve.

Our pitchers had the lowest batting average in the league last year (.106), so we want our pitchers to improve. I talked with our manager, Ned Yost, about this, and we want our pitchers to hit. I don't anticipate us using the DH very often.

He gives you a pretty good chance to win games every time he goes out there. That's what you want.

We hope sometime in April but again, as long as there's no setbacks. We don't want to get into a Mark PriorKerry Wood thing where it's a day-to-day 'watch.' It's better where we're guarded in talking about it until we get to the point where he's going to go out and pitch in games.

Do we have enough I can't answer that compared to other clubs, but I think we've got more than we've had in the past. If Dave Bush does well, we've got more depth than the Matt Kinney-Wayne Franklin years. Compared to last year, we've got better pitching.

This is kind of a land of opportunity. We give guys chances here that they can't get anywhere else.

After reaching an agreement earlier today, we continued talks and all parties were interested in exploring an extension. Brady has worked extremely hard to develop his skills and has become one of the league's most dependable centerfielders and leadoff men.

He's on his own program. This kid's a competitor. He'll take the ball and give it his best.

We'll always have to do that. That's the way our club is built.

There were one or two times we were prepared to send him out but we backed off. Ned had confidence in him and it paid off in the end.

We had an ugly second half a year ago and had a lot of work ahead of us. What we laid out this year, the plan pretty well worked out and accomplished what we wanted to do.

We're always going to be a team that has to move prospects up to the big leagues. It's good to have a mix of young and veteran players.

I have to be open-minded to everything and any phone call. We really don't know what we're doing there. We're not going to drive that. We don't have to move Lyle. Some other ball club is going to have to make the call to us.

We were looking at young pitchers who would have left us the flexibility to do other things. It wasn't something that could happen here, and I didn't want to walk away from the opportunity.

Next time, they could make a rule that a pitcher has to pitch in the last 30 days of the (previous) season. There will be some kinks like that, that need to be worked out.

His work ethic, leadership skills and passion for the Brewers fans ... confirmed to us that this was the right thing to do.

Now we get to the point where we want to keep our players and build from within. Our model is more Minnesota, or more Oakland. We're not the Marlins. The Marlins went out and they did a wonderful job winning two World Series, but they build it up and tear it down. And I don't know if our fans would go for that. But our goal and objective is to build it up and sustain success for periods of time for a long period of time.

We got a letter from him today saying he got a business opportunity that he couldn't pass up. He saw that it was going to be difficult to make our club, and I think he just tired of being a Triple-A player.

I don't anticipate anything happening. When somebody asks about one of our players I always say, 'Make a proposal.' They haven't gotten back to me.

The whole thing is staying healthy. He had some injuries a couple of years ago but is becoming a guy you can pretty well count on. You can't ask for too much more than what he's doing.

One of the best things about getting to .500 is we don't have to hear about it anymore. The best thing about it is it raises the bar. Our expectations are going to be greater. I'm looking forward to playoff baseball. That's what our goal should be.

We'll be all right if they just make the routine plays.

I think that this team here is a team that we can pretty well keep the most of it together for a period of time.

We hope he can rebound. (Organization scout) Larry Haney saw him pitch and said he threw three great innings, then hit the wall. He's still young (24). It happens with young guys sometimes.

I was proud of our young guys playing against them at the end. I like the Japanese game. I'd like to learn some of their techniques and practice methods. I've never been to Japan, and I was talking to farm director Reid Nichols and saying we should probably go over there sometime. When you watch their workouts, they are very meticulous. I'd like to play them a lot more. I enjoy their style of play.

We've talked about framework but not to the point of one side or the having what they want. We are talking terms. Nothing has broken down or gone wrong, so we just keep talking.

You want to see some consistency. Doug takes the ball and gives you a solid effort each time out.

We don't have to hear about the .500 (record), I hope, any more. And we don't want to see below .500 any more.

Matt's ability to retire batters in tough situations makes him one of the premier setup relievers in baseball.

A lot of things have to go right. You can't afford injuries like some clubs, maybe. But I think we're deep enough.

They carried their momentum and enthusiasm throughout the year. They never hit much of a slump. People ask about our club, and I say we're still going to have winning streaks and losing streaks that could happen at any time. The ideal thing is to just be consistent. They had good enough pitching where they never had long losing streaks.

We'll talk to him and see how he feels after he gets to spring training. I'm confident Ben will know whether he's capable of it or not capable of it.

Maybe he's going to be better than that. Right now, he's got the ability. He wants to be a No. 1 starter. And that's the right attitude to have.

We made the decision that we're going to have our pitchers hit. I talked to Ned, and he wants our pitchers to hit this spring. We need to get them the work.

I think Ned is a lot like Bobby. I think the players respect him like they do Bobby. I know he stays in touch with Bobby all the time, so there is some impact there.

He's a good, instinctive base-runner. We're not blessed with a lot of speed. In the end, I think you'll see that Corey Hart may be our best base-runner.