Jim Tracy
Jim Tracy
active baseball behind care finished gets half imperative members pitching plate product ryan safe stuff taken team
I think it's very safe to say that Ryan is not a finished product defensively. I also feel that, when you look at a major-league baseball team that has 25 active members and half of that is your pitching staff, it's pretty imperative that that stuff back there behind the plate gets taken care of.
balls early good guys hits hitter middle pitch plate sitting suggesting
I'm not sitting here suggesting that guys don't get hits on an 0-2 or a 1-2 pitch ... but ordinarily, on 0-2, you don't see balls get hammered. When you come up through a minor-league system, you know early on that when you get a hitter 0-2, a ball sitting right in the middle of the plate is not a very good location.
behind mound plate realizing ryan success takes vitally
What takes place between the pitcher's mound and behind the plate is vitally important to the success of a major-league team. I think Ryan is realizing that more every day.
base either extend front game guy hitting men number opportunity people plate possibilities takes year
Think about the ... significance of ... how many at-bats he takes this year with men on base because the guy (Casey) hitting in front of him is going to be on base. There's going to be a number of times that he's going to come up to the plate with people on base and have the opportunity to either extend the inning, put a game away or extend leads. All those possibilities will be there.
catch speed
We're going to speed Duff up and get him some at-bats. We've just got to catch up a little bit.
easy few gonna guy identical last leave quality recognize saw seeing start starts step teammates took
What we're seeing right now is, in my mind, identical to what we saw last year, when it took him a few starts to get untracked, and then you see one quality start after another. His teammates recognize that's he gonna leave everything that he has on the field, and it's very easy to step up for a guy like that.
came says schedule
What the schedule says is what you do. I think we came out of it pretty good, all things considered.
arm ball decrease instead pushing slot throwing timing
When your timing is off and you're pushing the ball instead of throwing the ball, there will be a decrease in velocity. If the timing is off or the arm slot is off, you won't see the same thing.
impact push runners talking
We're talking about a catcher. Squatting, up and down out of the crouch, runners going, boom, the impact of landing. ... It doesn't make any sense to push it.
rest
We're not going to say we're not going to see him for the rest of the year, ... We're going to take it day-by-day.
beginning direction guys seeing themselves
We're seeing some of these guys beginning to escalate themselves in the direction that you want to see them going.
along change extra fact few general laying steps taken
We're scratching surfaces and laying the general framework. Things aren't going to change dramatically other than the fact that we'll be more detailed-oriented, and a few extra steps will be taken along the way.
beyond guys looking opportunity
We're looking for 35 or 38 or 39, and this is an opportunity to find out who are those guys beyond the 25.
change landscape perception
With what we have here right now, ... you'll see the landscape change and be better than what the perception is.