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November 24, 2014 The Week in QuotesNovember 17-23, 2014CARDINALS AND BRAVES MAKE BLOCKBUSTER TRADE “It's an exciting day for us. For the last several years we've always talked about development, we've talked about controlling our own players, and having that cost certainty moving forward. But we did feel like after the events of this offseason we had to do something different; we had to look at a way to add an impact player to our club. We certainly understand that it could potentially be for one year. Hopefully it's not.” “As far as being traded? No, not (a surprise) at this point. For me, if it happened, if it did have to happen, I'm honored that it's with the St. Louis Cardinals. ... I feel like with a player, whoever it is, in a situation where the contract is up a year from now, I don't think it a surprise at all that a team would make a trade if they don't feel like they're going to get something done long-term.” “It's not something you like to do. But I think where the Braves are right now, this is a deal that really helps us short-term and long-term with players we can control in an area where we are woefully thin in our Minor League system... [Miller] is a young man who has had a great pedigree. He's an outstanding baseball guy. He's a first-round pick who has always had a big arm. Over the past several years, his pitchability has been improving significantly.” “You never really expect the unexpected. There is always a possibility for it to happen, but you don't know about it until it actually does. I look at it in a positive way. I'm going to a great team and a great organization. I'm really excited to be a Brave.” STANTON, MARLINS FINALIZE MASSIVE CONTRACT “It's an exciting day for Miami, my fans, our fans. This is not a lottery ticket. This is the start of work and a new job. It's a huge responsibility, and one I'm willing to take… I want to win, and I want to win in Miami. Yeah, I’m financially good for the rest of my life, great, but I’m not trying to come here and get my butt kicked for 10 hours and go home to a lavish lifestyle every day. That’s not fun for me. At the end of the day, I want to be playing in October, I don’t want to be on vacation.” “We said in order for this deal to work for the next three years before we have increased revenue we have to pay you a smaller amount of money because we need to win, and the only way we can win with you is to surround you with other players. The [Miami] Heat did that too, they took less in order to have more.” MARTIN AND JAYS DIVE INTO PITCH FRAMING “You want the movement from the pitcher, but you want to go out and get the movement before it gets so deep that it looks like it’s off the plate. If a guy has a straight fastball, you’re pretty much going to get it the way it’s coming in. But if you catch with your thumb up, you can manipulate your glove, position it going towards (the plate). I try to teach our guys to catch into a cone, the more you catch to a cone, the better chance you have of getting the pitch, and if the umpire doesn’t say anything, you take it as far as you can.” Adam Eaton sounds excited for 2015:
THE REST “Joel's significance to the Rays transcended his on-field performance," Rays general manager Matt Silverman said in a statement. "He was a clubhouse leader who always sought ways to make the organization better.” “Finding some balance in the lineup is important from a general standpoint. We want to put (manager Robin Ventura) in a position where he has the ability to put out different lineups each day based on what the best matchup is and what gives him the best chance to win, whether it’s the opposing starter or the defense behind the starter they’re running out there.” “The decision on Dave Martinez was especially difficult. He's played a key role in our organization's evolution, and he's done all he can to put himself in position to be a manager. In the end, we determined that our clubhouse would best benefit from a new voice that will add to our already strong and cohesive culture.” “I've been so busy and every day is so frenetic that the last month or two, I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time thinking about it, but you know, we are where we want to be. We're having a wonderful transition, orderly transition, good transition. That's very important.” “Thank God.” “There was such consternation, I don’t think many people understood what we were doing two years ago. Everyone said, ‘Here they go again, another fire sale.’ But what we did didn't work. And it wasn't going to work. I mean, two weeks into the season I knew it wasn't going to work. We had a $100 million-plus payroll, we didn't win a lot of games (69-93), we got the wrong guys in free agency, there were issues with the manager and the community, so we had no choice. We had to blow it up and hit the reset button.” “We put a lot of time and effort into analyzing this decision. We believe these modifications will increase the number of home runs for our team, without hurting our own pitchers. "It's all relative. If we believe we have the kind of pitching that won't be adversely affected by a change like this—which we do—and our own hitters can take advantage of it, then from a comparative standpoint, we're better off.” “You see stuff out of reliever that sometimes it plays and sometimes it doesn't. The same pitcher may have the same two pitches and he's effective last year and not as effective this year, and you try to get back to what made him effective, why he was ineffective and how you can help him. Purely at the Major League level, bullpens are the toughest to predict and the toughest to build.”
Nick Bacarella is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 0 comments have been left for this article.
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