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MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 7, 2005

Jim Tracy

DALLAS, TEXAS

Q. In a general sense, how important is leadership to you within your clubhouse?
JIM TRACY: I think it's very important. And yet, I don't want to say it in a sense that, you know, you guys get the impression that it's being overdone on my part. But you know something, a positive presence in your clubhouse goes a long, long way, and especially in situations where you hit a little bump in the road and you know over the course of six months, I don't care what club it is and what name is across the front of the shirt, it's going to happen. And it's not so much that it happens; it's how long are you going to stay in it and how are you going to deal with it when you're involved in it. I think that goes a long way in determining the success or failure of any given season.

Q. How specifically can it help a player like Jason who recently has signed with you guys long-term and talked about wanting to step up in a leadership role?
JIM TRACY: I think it's very synonymous. Obviously we're hopeful and I have every reason to believe that it will play itself out. It's another message that gets sent, going back to when the conversation was taking place with Jason Bay on a four-year deal, that we're going to be moving in a little bit different direction. This is a strong statement to suggest to that player that you just signed for four years that, hey, you know, we're doing everything we possibly can to surround you with some people that are going to help to make a difference in Pittsburgh, and I think in Sean Casey, the Pittsburgh Pirates have certainly done that, there's no question about it.

Q. Right now as it stands, your two top closer options have nine saves between them in their big league career. Would you like to maybe bring somebody else in that has saved some games, not necessarily that he would be the closer but just somebody around that has that experience?
JIM TRACY: I think it goes hand-in-hand with the question about leadership amongst the players in your clubhouse. You know, if that chip is there, and it can make sense in the scheme of things of a bullpen, great. But if not, I think what's very important is the continuity of a bullpen.
I think it's very important that, you know, in our case right now, we have two lefties in our pen in Grabow and Gonzalez. I think that's a very nice number to have from a situational pitching standpoint at different points in times in the game. Right now, Ryan Vogelsong, his name is there. You'd like to have what you would consider to be two lengthier guys because I'm not a big proponent of overusing people that end up being a part of a game that you have a real chance to win.
I think there's a right way of putting a bullpen together where that type of order is well-defined. And so in order to do that, you have to have a couple of guys in your bullpen that have some life. If you have a number of situational-type bullpen people and one of your starters do not have one of their better days, and you have to pitch a number of innings out of your bullpen and you are not, you know, you're not aptly suited from the standpoint of the innings that you have down there, you can really get yourself into a lot of trouble.

Q. From when you were managing in Los Angeles to right now, has your image of the Pirates changed? You were beating them nine out of ten times it seemed like. Has your general image of what the Pirates are like and about changed?
JIM TRACY: What I would like to accomplish is to change the perception as to the way I feel they are perceived right now in the industry. I'm really interested in doing that. I'm really interested in getting that message out there to our players; that what has taken place in the past, great, fine, dandy, it's all over with. We're going to start, we're going to turn the page and we're going to start doing things just a little bit differently and we're going to have a real understanding of the fact that, you know, losing more than you win in any given season is really not acceptable; and the fact that not hearing a whole lot about, you know, or with regard, I should say, to the cliche of we're young, we're inexperienced, and having that as a built-in crutch to go out there and not perform up to capability, that's not acceptable anymore either.

Q. Wells had a really, by all standards, a miserable year last year?
JIM TRACY: Yeah, he did.

Q. How important is it when you hear people talk about the young starting pitching that you guys have, would it be to have him as a veteran, he's kind of the veteran of the staff right now, now that Redmond has been traded.
JIM TRACY: I think this. No. 1, I think he's better. I think from what I've seen from the other side of the field, I definitely think he's better than an 8-18 pitcher.
I think that, you know, in saying that, the direction has to change a little bit, and it has to be a hand-in-hand thing. You know, he has to be willing to listen to and want to try to adhere to a direction that we're going to try to give him.
You know, the only way that -- if you have something to bring to the table to impart to a player, you know, it's a two-way street is what I'm getting at. He has to be willing to want to listen to and work at and try to head himself in the direction of what's being suggested to him or, you know, that's a no-win situation. If it's only getting done on one side of the fence, that's a no-win situation. I think he's very capable going on with what I was saying; and the question that you were asking, he is somewhat the senior guy in that rotation, and when you have two very talented, young pitchers as a part of at least the front four in Duke and Maholm, step up performances from Oliver Perez and Kip Wells would go a long way in changing the perspective as to what we were just talking about in the previous question; it would happen very quickly.
You know, it's not unfair to think or feel that these two guys are capable of providing that. They have been around long enough.
You know, with success comes responsibility, and you can't be afraid of either one of them. You can't fear either one of them if you're going to be a winner, and when I say "a winner," I'm not talking about any one specific individual; I'm talking about a team, an organization over the course of a period of years. And when I say "winning," you know, you'd like to, but you can't. With 30 teams in baseball, you'd like to win the division every single year, but you know what, it's not going to work that way. But are you successful in the eyes of the industry with where you started in April and where you finish at the end of September, have you been successful; are you a winning club; are you spearheading yourself in a direction that you need to go in to eventually be knocking on that door and hopefully repeat it five, five, six years in a row. That's where we have to get to. But in order to succeed, okay, you can't be afraid of success. You cannot be afraid of it.

Q. Because you have a lot of young veterans, and it's not like you're playing 15 rookies and you have a nucleus of good young players, do you think that you can chase down St. Louis and Houston sooner or later?
JIM TRACY: I want the thought process to be that you are chasing after those two clubs much sooner than later. You know, how much sooner that is remains to be seen.
You know, can we chase them in 2006? You know, why isn't there every reason to think that you can do that if you play baseball the way that it's supposed to be played and with regard to some of these previous questions that I was asked, everybody understands what the hell it is they have to do in order to remain in that hunt.
You know, I said it in my press conference when I accepted the job, you know, keep your eyes and ears open and look around you as to some of these things we're talking about and the best example of what I'm sitting here describing for the past ten minutes or so is the St. Louis Cardinals. There is a model right there within your own division that if you have any doubts as to how winning baseball on a regular basis gets played, just look, just look, and it doesn't -- you know, it can be as little as moving a man from second to third in the latter part of the game that's going to put you in a position to win. And when you look over there at that side of the field, they don't give a damn if it's Pujols or Edmonds or Scott Rolen or Larry Walker or going back to the last couple of years' clubs that have played in St. Louis. And as a result of that, they are going to win. They do it. When you create and develop that type of a mindset within your clubhouse -- I experienced it in 2004 -- it's a very infectious thing. There's no one specific individual that's going to walk in there and try to tear that back away from you when you know how hard it is to influx it and keep it there.

Q. What are your realistic objectives for this year, knowing the history and no winning season since '92?
JIM TRACY: That's very challenging, isn't it? I'm very intrigued by the fact that, you know what, they haven't had a winning season in 13 years. There's a reason for that. There's a different mindset that needs to take place. There's a different belief that you have to have coming to the ballpark every day. You have to be able to let go. You have to be able to turn the page and allow someone to steer you in a direction as much as to say, you know what, we haven't tried this before.

Q. Open mindedness is going to be a key?
JIM TRACY: Very much so.

Q. How specifically do you go about it, going back to a guy like Wells, who is experiencing rough times, how do you change the mindset of players?
JIM TRACY: All I ask of the group of players that I will encounter, and I won't go, you know, as soon as the mini-camp, but the first day of full-squad workouts in Spring Training is, you know, be open-minded enough to listen. Because I feel like I'm beginning in Pittsburgh with a little bit of a track record that there has been some success realized over the last five years. There has been a method to the madness that we've been up to over the course of the last five years in L.A., and you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that it doesn't work. You'd be really hard-pressed to convince me.

Q. Are you the type to set a numeric goal or something like that?
JIM TRACY: No. You know why? Because I think the numerical goals take care of themselves. You know what, play the game right, play the game better, understand all of the little things about the game, and the numerical value will take care of itself.
But really understand those few things I mentioned to you before in answering that question. Realize that you've got to play the game right. You've got to play it better, you've got to understand the game, you've got to know how to play the game, you have to be able to anticipate. It's a thinking man's game, and the team that does it in that manner and consistently responds to baseball situations in a positive way, time after time after time, the numerical values will be there at the end of September.

Q. How up to speed have you gotten on the guys?
JIM TRACY: I'm pretty up to speed.

Q. How much of an impact do you think they can have? Are they ready to make a big impact now?
JIM TRACY: Anybody can be ready to make an impact, anybody. You know something, there are new names that we talk about every year that make a splash onto the scene and make an impact.
Look at the Atlanta Braves. A year ago were any of them down at the meetings down in Anaheim? I didn't hear McCann's name come up a long lot, I didn't hear Langerhans' name come up an awful lot, and Johnson, another one; yet they all arrived and made a major contribution to yet another divisional championship.
So can Gorzelanny come up and make a little bit of a statement for himself? Sure, he can. Can Sean Burnett come back from his surgery and be another very positive force for us as we get into the season? Sure, he can. Can Kip Wells rebound? Sure, he's capable of that. Can Oliver Perez put together -- is he capable of putting together a hell of a season as a left-handed pitcher in the National League? The stuff I've seen from the other side of the field would strongly suggest that. But, do you want to? Can't be afraid to succeed as I said just a couple of minutes ago. You can't be afraid of that. If you want to be a winner, want to be a champion, can't be afraid to succeed, and you have to be willing to accept the responsibility that comes along with it. It's good character-building type stuff.

Q. How important or how important is it to get to know your guys in Spring Training?
JIM TRACY: I'm getting a little anxious. I'm getting a little anxious to get to that point. You know, one thing in general that I've heard an awful lot of is the character as a whole of this group of players. It's really intriguing to me; that they care; that they will do what you ask them to do. You know, I've heard that from a number of different places and the message I hear all the time is the same general message.
How could you not be excited about wanting to become a part of that and knowing that you've got something to give them, that you strongly feel they haven't heard it put in that manner before, and that they will be willing to try it and that they are looking forward to trying something like that.
You know, I happen to think that there's some players on that club that are pretty talented.

Q. Talking about a paradigm shift.
JIM TRACY: Contrary to maybe what some other people might think, I think there are some very talented young players on that team. And when you look at their service time, you know, you don't look -- they don't have -- some of them do, a few of them do, but not all. They don't have 32 days of service time or, you know, 50 days. You've got some guys there that have got two-plus, three-plus. They know what the big leagues are all about. They have talent. They have some very talented young players on this roster.

Q. A couple of weeks after Spring Training starts, perhaps your best player, Justin Bay, maybe Perez, too, will go off to the World Baseball Classic?
JIM TRACY: Him and a couple of others from what I understand.

Q. How much of a concern is this for you?
JIM TRACY: I'll keep my fingers crossed, I'll promise you that, as I'm sure some other managers will.
You know, because with each and every one of those clubs, you're talking about key elements from a number of different franchises going to participate in those games. You really don't want to see anybody come back wounded because it can really infringe upon what you would try to do beginning in the early part of April. So I will sit there with my fingers crossed.

Q. Bay specifically will probably be the focal point of Team Canada. His maturation as a player and a leader on this team, how can that help him going into an international team where he's going to be counted upon?
JIM TRACY: I think as you grow as a player at the Major League level, anything that you experience helps you. Do you think the home run hitting contest, do you think it helped him, even though he didn't get the results, obviously, and more than likely that he was looking for? But do you think that he was a little bit further along as a man and a mature player at the Major League level by being exposed to that in front of a national audience, etc.? There's learning curves all over the place, and any baseball player or any person in general in life, there's all kinds of learning curves that you encounter. That was one as you just mentioned, being the focal point, in the World Baseball Classic, that's another one where once again, he grows, gets an opportunity to grow. And, coming into Spring Training, this coming February as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates with a brand new, well-deserved four-year deal in hand, is another suggestion that he's become very much a focal point on this ballclub and within the framework of this organization.

End of FastScripts...

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