Mark Shapiro
Mark Shapiro
approach discipline finish great guy needs plate progress quality year
I think he's made great progress from a year ago in his approach and plate discipline. The quality of his at-bats was significantly better. He's a guy that's coming. He needs to finish off some things offensively, but he's coming.
commanding fastball good help last needs point training work year
At some point this year he's going to help us in the bullpen. He's come a long way in the last year and had a good training camp. He just needs to work on commanding his fastball better.
needs pitch starters
A lot is being made about our bullpen, but what needs to get better is our starters. Our starters have to pitch more innings.
finish himself needs third time
If we didn't have a third baseman, we could go with him, but he needs time at Triple-A to finish himself off.
absolutely careful chance gotten keeping players risk tools
We're so careful in our risk assessments that we may have a better chance of keeping our players on the field. And risk-assessment tools have absolutely gotten better.
address aware comment dangers decides further players short until
We want our players to be aware of the short and long-term dangers of these substances. Until Rafael decides how he will address this finding, we will have no further comment on the situation.
factor hard maybe point quality season throw
We want him to throw quality strikes, not just hard strikes. He's going to be a contributor for us this year. Maybe not from day one, but at some point this season he'll be a factor for us.
five pitch
We want him to pitch every five days.
abruptly created farm good instead letting naturally players run traded
We were at the tail-end of a championship run. Instead of letting that run naturally just play out and transpire, we abruptly traded good players and artificially created an upper-level in our farm system.
decisions early
We want to set the roster as early as we can. This year, the decisions are so few.
again crucial filling forward looking role
We are looking forward to him again filling a crucial role in our bullpen.
baseball cup equity excitement flag generate given history interested league major pastime proposal soccer sure waiting winning
We're interested and we're waiting for a proposal from Major League Baseball. It's not going to generate the kind of excitement that World Cup soccer does, given the history and the equity just isn't there yet. But at least for this country, anything with the America's pastime and the American flag is sure to be a winning combination.
addition approach fits mental physical teammate trade
When you trade for a guy, you don't know his mental approach and the kind of teammate he is. That was probably the most encouraging thing, in addition to his physical tools. He fits in well with our team and our clubhouse.
again agreement clear deal next reach value
We're not going to reach an agreement on a multi-year deal with Cliff. We'll look at it again next year. It will be more clear what his arbitration value will be. We couldn't reach a value on that right now.