Kevin McClatchy Quotes (21 Quotes)

When you look at building on Jason Bay and Jack Wilson, those are two pretty good players to start with as far as character. That's a nice aspect of it. But the key is performance and strengthening ourselves up the middle.

He understands that our scouting and player development system is the lifeblood of this ball club and the key to our sustained success. A few years ago, we set out to improve our farm system. We did, and continue to devote the necessary resources to that area of our organization. We are beginning to see the results of those efforts, as we see more homegrown talent at the major league level.

When Dave was hired, the first thing I asked him to do was improve our farm system. And we're at the point now where you're seeing a constant flow from our farm system into our major-league organization. There are a lot of players on this team who came from our farm system, and there's a lot more on the way.

A lot of people outside our organization speak very highly of Tracy,

It was important to give Dave the tools he needed to go out and get these players. He's done a great job of getting some veteran players to go with our younger core.

We've been as good as anyone at financing our drafts since Dave took over. It's an important commitment, and I think you have to make that to your employees when you bring them in. I made this one to Dave.

There are certain players who I think haven't progressed, and we need those players to grow. Put on top of that that we have a slew of young players coming into this thing, and I think Dave just wanted to make the decision to get the best person we can to help these guys continue to develop and evolve. Some can make the argument we didn't do that this year.

That's one of the reasons you do these things, because you're trying to get ahead of that. We felt good about this deal. Jack's a good player and a good character guy.

I've put a lot of focus on 2006. I think we have to improve next year. I think we are going to put ourselves in the best position that we have been in a long time.

General manager Dave Littlefield can entertain anyone he wants. I'm fine with what happened, and that was a long time ago.

That's water under the bridge. Jim and I are well past anything like that. When it comes to a decision like this, you're going to pick the best person, period.

I'm not going to lie to you. There were some times -- and I think everybody knows when that was because we had to move some players -- that I don't think our plan was working. We were locked into bad contracts and ... it was time for significant changes. Things are working much better now because I think we're working our plan better. Quite frankly, we've got better people in place to execute the plan, too.

We won't know -- sort of -- the most important information for about two days.

I think what we need is somebody with Major League managing experience. This is just my opinion and Dave might think differently. And like I've said, it's his choice. But we've gone down the road last time with somebody who didn't have Major League managing experience.

All I'll say is this is Dave's decision he can entertain anyone he wants. I'm not going to try to sway him one way or another, ... I'm fine with what happened and that was a long time ago. Whoever Dave picks, we want someone who gives us the best chance to win.

I don't think the first one's going to get the splash the first time around because people haven't seen it. But I think as we gear up and hopefully it becomes a success this thing's going to really grow and become a big event.

We have had no conversation with the Cincinnati Reds in regards to sharing a spring training facility in Sarasota.

I'm disappointed in some of these players' lack of improvement. I'm not going to name names, but you can probably figure out which players haven't improved. And I think we're going to watch that as we go forward.

I do think this move puts even more pressure on us, in some ways. I think we have to improve next year. Dave's made a decision that, hopefully, will give us the best chance to do that, along with adding a bat that we desperately need and spending a little more money. I think we're going to put ourselves in the best position we've been in for a long time.

There was concern there. I'm disappointed in some of the lack of improvement. Dave wanted to make sure we had the right manager in place so these players could continue to improve.

As it always does, it will come down to starting pitching. I don't think you can discount a player because of youth.