Transaction Analysis: ... (09/14)
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September 15, 2008 The Week in QuotesWeek of September 8-14AND IF THEY DON'T WIN IT, HE'S OUT OF A JOB
"I know the field is bunched up now. But you know what? If we win, it doesn't matter. So I don't really watch who's behind us, because if we win, it doesn't matter."
"Last year, we'd never gone through it before. We hadn't played better than .500 baseball in 15 years. And then all of a sudden, we're expected to win a championship-with a young club that didn't play defense very well, that struck out a lot, that didn't have a lot of power and had pitching that wasn't great. I mean, it was OK, but it wasn't great. And that's tough."
"Last year. I'd come in the dugout saying, 'We've got to get a baserunner here. So if they do this, then we do that'… and you just end up getting frustrated. Or I'd say, 'We've gotta get this guy out here.' But it just doesn't work like that. So I'm not trying to control the damage anymore. Just watching the game and reacting to the game is a lot easier than trying to control things you've got no control over."
"Actually, it felt more like a home game than playing in Miller Park. We didn't hear the boos that we sometimes hear at home. … A guy makes an error, a guy strikes out, and you hear your hometown booing you. It makes you ready to get out of there and go somewhere else for a while. I think we're all looser here."
"I've got my own style, the way I like to do things. I think everybody wants to vent, scream and yell. But I just think that for me and my players, we take a calmer approach. I've got younger players; he's got veteran guys."
"You can talk about having fun, talk about relaxing. You've got to get your shirt rolled up and go out and kick somebody's ass! Period."
"My mindset is that the more steady and even-keeled we can stay, the quicker we'll get out of it. I don't want my kids pressing or stressing because I'm screaming and yelling at them. They've got enough of that coming from radio shows and fans and their moms and dads, if they're like mine." THE CLOSER HE GETS TO A PENNANT, THE SANER OZZIE GETS
"Players have to learn you can be frustrated and upset, but you can't do some things. You're always going to lose that battle."
"You hurt the ballclub, but you have to move on. We played two games without him and won one."
"I have nothing to lose. Everybody I put in the eighth has been getting hit, so why not put the guy that should be there."
"Well, it's not the best thing in the world when we have a doubleheader. I don't remember having a happy face after we leave after a doubleheader."
"Are we going to miss this guy? Of course. But if I feel sorry for everyone, I'll lose the respect of the players." DON'T LET THEM TELL YOU WHAT TO DO OZZIE
"When they sent me to the crazy guy-what is that? This guy told me I was crazy, I need anger management. Shut the f*ck up. You don't know, you don't know my life. You went to f*cking Harvard, and you're gonna spend time talking to Ozzie Guillen, who got eighth grade? You should feel embarrassed. You know what? How many employees you got in your office? Let's trade f*cking jobs for a week to see who handle it better. Just because I called one guy that?"
"My wife say every year, 'Look at those players, they take care of themselves better than you do. Every year, they get bigger and stronger. You out of shape through spring training.' She say, 'Why you don't take care of yourself like they do? They no drink, they no do anything.' Now, I get the last laugh. I'm normal, I'm healthy, I'm happy. I no have to deal with that shit. I no have to answer anybody's questions. I tell my players, 'You get caught with that shit, don't tell me. I'm not gonna (expletive) protect you, I'm gonna throw you under the train."
"I got Cubs fans who are friends. I say (expletive) you. The Cubs fans, they're cocky. They've been (expletive) for a lot of years, but they're cocky. They let you know they're number one in town. But I got a lot of friends with the Cubs. Lou Piniella, I love that man. That's my goal-manage that many years. The best thing that happened to (expletive) Chicago is Lou Piniella and Ozzie Guillen in the same (expletive) town. (Expletive) the boring-(expletive) guys every day. Some people have to be politically correct, some people have to be (expletive) up. That's Lou Piniella and Ozzie Guillen." THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED AND MARK GRACE WILL DO THE COLOR COMMENTARY
"We are not mortgaging our future to do anything. We are taking the profits and making an investment in the ballpark and an investment in the farm system. We wanted to shift the culture and run it like a real business."
"Trades are obsessively critiqued, but they are never made in a vacuum. It's a cliché, but benefiting both sides is the goal. Even in that respect, we don't go back and review trades."
"I was blown away by how well-prepared he was and the knowledge he had about our players."
"We want to know what payroll is over time. If another team has a regrettable contract, what do they do with it? It's not what the information is; it's how to manage it and organize it." JOSH BYRNES: BRILLIANT TURNS TO ANNOYING WHEN YOU CAN'T OUTPLAY THE DODGERS
"You don't want a freshman to tell you how to run the program, but every damn thing he suggested was right, whether it was the arrangement of the field to where to put the batting cages to better ways to utilize practice."
"We try to develop a system that gives us a competitive advantage."
"Their track record speaks for itself. They are not just building a competitive club but a foundation that will have competitive clubs for a long time."
"Each market is like investing in a penny stock. Some might be fruitless investments, but when you hit on one, it pays off."
"Some teams are too afraid to trade prospects, but Josh understands you have to do that. And Haren has fit really well into the success cycle in Arizona." IT'S LIKE GETAWAY DAY, BUT IT LASTS THE WHOLE MONTH
"I've never seen a Yankees team play like that. Cano was swinging at first pitches like it was getaway day. Nady was just lobbing the ball in. The only guy out there playing hard was Jeter."
"Keep fighting. Go out there and play the game the way you're supposed to play the game. I don't care what your record is. I don't care where you are in the standings. Play the game right. Every day."
"I just think there have been times when it looks like we don't do things the right way. Or certainly not playing the game the way we envisioned playing the game."
"Hopefully, in time, this team stays intact, and you will see a very efficient team bring a championship. You can do that with less money than what the Yankees spend."
"We're going to have to look at what has been done wrong over the last five years… Clearly, a lot of mistakes were made." THE REST
"I'm a little confused right now. I still can't believe it. It's a great feeling, a feeling that you can't describe."
"The guy was remarkable. He didn't throw any pitches."
"After we were done with the deal, I went into his office to find a quiet place to type up the final terms. On Curt's desk was 'Negotiating for Dummies' or 'My First Negotiation' or some such book. Theo and I just cracked up."
"I wouldn't want to talk about that right now. I'm doing my music right now. I'm having a great time with my time off. I'm still training, so you never know.
"It changed this country. Changed it for good. It was a sad day, but the US united together for the first time ever. That's the first time I've ever seen this country together."
"I just let it fly last night. Real success comes effortlessly, you know. The best fun is the game when you surrender to it. The hardest thing in life is to trust that something is gonna come. Like Rachmaninoff. He wrote… until he taught himself just to be an instrument of something coming through him. I made up my mind only a few days ago that's what I was gonna do. Maybe I can laugh about this someday."
"He may have taken some things for granted. He may have taken his condition for granted. And he may not have realized that when you leave one place where you've been for a long time… the expectation is different. You know what it is? Prove it." --- Alex Carnevale is a contributor to Baseball Prospectus.
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FWIW, I think the excerpt of Jed Hoyer's quote regarding Curt Schllling was poorly edited. If you read the article, Hoyer is really complementing Schiling regarding how he represented himself in the negotiations and on how his main focus was winning (and how he held up his end of the bargain). Reading the quote without the additional context, its easy to construe it as if Hoyer thought Schilling was a dupe, when that is not at all the case.
I took it more as a light hearted joke type of a quote. It is funny to contrast our normal idea of these negotians, high paid agents in a battle against high paid front offices over millions, with Curt reading a "Negotiating for Dummies" book to get himself a deal. Shows a human side to contract negotiations.