June 20, 2011

The Week in Quotes

June 13-19

by Alex Carnevale

HE HITS .343 AND REASSURES HIS PANICKED AGENT AT THE SAME TIME

"I'm happy with Peter. There's no chance I'm going to change my agent. I'm going to be honest with him. I said, 'Peter, I'm going to be with you, so don't worry about anything. I'm with you. I'm happy with you, so don't think I'm going to let you go now because it's not going to happen.'"
-Mets shortstop Jose Reyes on his agent Peter Greenberg.

"I love it, of course. I've said that before. At the same time, I don't want to put anything on my mind. I just want to continue to play. People know that I want to stay here, but at the same time, this is a business, and I don't know what's going to happen."
-Reyes on his time in New York.

"Boras is one of the best, but I feel comfortable with my agent. Why am I going to change agents now? Why?"
-Reyes.

"This guy creates runs, he scores runs, he's driving in runs, and he keeps other teams from scoring runs. I had one manager tell me the other day if he's not the best player in the National League right now I'm not sure who is. That's a big statement."
-Mets manager Terry Collins on Reyes. (Kevin Kernan, New York Post)

HE DOESN'T WANT TO MAKE A THIRD HOME

"I told the Reds and the whole world this is where I want to be. If it doesn't happen, I'm going to be very, very disappointed. I feel like I've made this a second home. I bought a house here. This is where I want to be, man. The fans just took me in. I feel like I need to stay here and give back. If it doesn't happen this year, I feel in my head and my heart, it's not going to happen."
-Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips on receiving a contract extension.

"It comes down to finances. We've got to look at the forecast for the next few years and decide if we can sign another player to a multiyear contract."
-Reds general manager Walt Jocketty on whether he'll let Phillips play out his $12 million option.

"I'm not trying to break the bank. I'm just trying to be fair. I don't want Jayson Werth money or CC Sabathia money."
-Phillips. (John Fay, Cincinnati Enquirer)

TRY OWNING HANLEY RAMIREZ IN FANTASY AND GET BACK TO ME

"Everybody was quiet. It is surprising, but it is more shocking to us all because just because right now nothing is going right for us. This just puts icing on the cake. It just seems right now it is all negative with the Marlins. That's the way it is right now."
-Marlins infielder Wes Helms on the resignation of Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez.

"I just walked in from church. I didn't even know he resigned. I haven't heard a word."
-former Marlins manager Jack McKeon.

"It is tough to swallow. Edwin was great with us. I can't speak for him why he did it. I do know he did everything he could. But it was shocking, it really was. If I put myself in his shoes, being his first full year as a manager in the big leagues and to go through this, one of the worst stretches you can go through possible as a team, it is going to be mentally stressful. I am sure he has had a lot of sleepless nights. I am sure it was just killing him or he wouldn't have done this. There is only so much you can take mentally and physically in anything in life and I am sure he had enough and he couldn't deal with it anymore."
-Helms.

"Knowing the type of person he is and how hard of a decision it was for him to make, himself, again, it's just one of those things we respect his decision and just go out and keep playing. That's what he would want us to do, to continue to go out there and keep playing hard, continue to fight and get out of this, what we're in right now. It's just one of those things, we have to move forward."
-Marlins first baseman Gaby Sanchez. (Manny Navarro and Clark Spencer, Miami Herald)

THE GREATEST HITTING COACH OUT THERE

"I don't know what's going on. It's not like we're in last place; we're in first place. There's a lot of season left. I'm just sad that he's not around us anymore. This is very disappointing. I feel very bad about it."
-Indians outfielder Shin-Soo Choo on the firing of hitting coach Jon Nunnally.

"We make collective decisions. But obviously, this is Manny's coaching staff. He and I talked about it, and we came to a consensus that this was the right move for us. We don't make reactive decisions. We try to work through things and talk through all aspects of it before we reach a decision."
-Indians general manager Chris Antonetti.

"We've been scuffling for a while, and we felt like we need a new voice. Jon's a great person and worked very hard. Certainly coaches coach and players play, but we felt like we needed a new voice."
-Indians manager Manny Acta. (Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer)

WHAT DOES THE TAROT SAY?

"A season is fluid. What might be your biggest need today might not be a few weeks later. The parts aren't necessarily falling into place in sequence."
-Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak.

"It's horrible that he took the loss. It's a strong word, but that's the way I feel... The answer is that we scored four. And that's what you go with, what you live with. And it wasn't enough."
-Cardinals manager Tony La Russa after Chris Carpenter's 5-4 loss to the Royals on Friday.

"I feel as good as I've ever felt, and my stuff's as good as it's ever been. The question is, 'Why am I continuing to get beat?' And, 'Why am I not executing the way I should at times?' I've got to figure out what's going on. At some point in time, something's going to work for me, I would assume."
-Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter on his struggles this season. (Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe)

"WE CAN'T AFFORD..."

"We can't afford to come out here and say, 'Oh, it's a day game, we've lost five in a row.' It's not a good start to our homestand, that's for sure. But there ain't nothing we can do about it now, the first five. We have to be ready to go."
-Dodgers manager Don Mattingly on his team's struggles.

"There is a game tomorrow at 1 o'clock, and I want us to dismiss this one quickly. We can't feel sorry for ourselves at this point. I know it would be easy to make excuses and say 'woe is me,' but we can't do it."
-Mattingly after Saturday's 7-0 loss to the Astros.

"My thought was, if you're not quite hitting your spots, don't be a freight train. At that point try something different."
-Mattingly on starter Chad Billingsley.

"We're having a little stretch. Our pitching and defense have really been our strengths. This small portion of time, we really haven't pitched as good as we can. I think you're concerned to the point where you don't expect it."
-Mattingly. (Steve Dilbeck, Los Angeles Times)

THE REST

"We got Alex [Avila] down there and [Jhonny] Peralta said, 'I like it.' A lot of people say, the first instinct is, 'Why don't you move all those guys up?' Well, where do you want to move them? Do you want to put them in place of [Victor] Martinez, [Miguel] Cabrera? When we went to the World Series in 2006, one of the main reasons we went was the bottom third of our order."
-Tigers manager Jim Leyland. (Jack Etkin, MLB.com)

"Absolutely there are concerns with that. But we monitor every pitcher very closely. If he's not bouncing back, if he's not staying in his mechanics and you can see him grinding out there, that would be a sign you're overextending him. That hasn't been the case."
-Angels manager Mike Scioscia on Jered Weaver's high pitch counts. (Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe)

"The suggestion that the international draft will solve the issue that existed in Latin America is a charade. The only issue that the international draft addresses is reducing the cost of acquiring talent. And that is only an issue for the owners of major-league teams."
-CAA player rep Ulises Cabrera on the idea of an international draft. (Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times)

"It was great. You know where you want to go to eat, you know all the good restaurants, you know where you enjoy playing, you have your friends there, you have your family there. The only tough thing about it is ticket requests, but if that's the biggest issue, that's a good thing. I get to see the ocean here, but it's different."
-Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez on playing in San Diego. (Alex Speier, WEEI.com)

"I shut it down a little bit more, because we were giving away outs with no reason. I want to see how the team functions without the running game. The running game wasn't working. It was killing us."
-White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen on his team's running game. (Scott Merkin, MLB.com)

"I figured he would just take his walk and he didn't. I felt real mediocre. The best thing I did all night was get a sac bunt down. That's not good usually."
-Mets starter R.A. Dickey on giving up a three-run homer to Chipper Jones in the Braves' 9-8 win over the Mets on Thursday. (Dan Martin, New York Post)

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Alex Carnevale is a contributor to Baseball Prospectus.