Dave Littlefield Quotations

We're in a position where we can look years down the road and plug in other things. I think that gives us hope for a stronger future. Now, they've got to win and perform well and all that stuff, but you've got to get yourself to that point where we are now.

Right now, Chris Duffy is the starting center fielder and we're going to go in that direction. I don't think either guy has a solid position on a job. Both of them have got to continue to work hard to establish themselves as big leaguers. Neither one is an established big leaguer, but we have very high hopes for both of them.

I don't know, exactly. But that's something we'll have be doing at some point here soon.

He has a lot of poise. He's a good competitor. He obviously had a very good spring.

What we've seen this spring is that we have many players who are very close to being ready to play at the major-league level.

His performance isn't up to what we've seen in the past.

He's going to be a very serviceable guy.

Kip has had some concerns with some fatigue in his arm. Just as a precautionary measure, we have sent him out to see a specialist in St. Louis. They are now doing some further tests.

I was comfortable that Jim Tracy was an excellent choice. I'm confident, from having worked with the guy for five or six years, that he's a very good communicator, he understands the game well, he has lots of experience as a Major League and Minor League manager, and he's won.

I think we're going to be significantly improved. And I think we're very well positioned or the next four or five years.

I think we made a decision last fall when we had our review and planning meetings that we felt comfortable with the talent level of these starters we had.

I think we've always felt Gonzalez had the talent to do it. We felt this was time to see what he can do.

It definitely can be a serious matter. There's always a concern in regards to clots, aneurysms, things like that. Evidently, we moved on it very quickly. ... I really compliment our doctors from the standpoint of detecting this.

I'm still comfortable in what we have in-house.

We need to preserve our starting pitching depth.

We need to try to continue to get him at-bats. Because of his path the last couple of years, he hasn't had the normal number of at-bats that your prospects have. I think it's important that we get him a lot of playing time at third base. ... We want to exhaust the opportunity for him to play third base, because we are looking at our future.

Those are some challenges some young guys have to face, even guys as talented as he is. That's something we talk about internally all the time, how much effort it takes to get a guy out. Those 100 pitches in the major leagues are a heck of a lot tougher than those 100 pitches at the minor league level.

We'll see how it plays out with Burnett's health, how he does.

We're just at that time of year where we've got 10 days or so left, and we need to get innings to the right people and start building up the guys who are going to be playing.

You hate to send a guy to the minors who has performed as well as he has. The good news is I'm sure he'll be back soon.

At this point, he just isn't ready, performance-wise. He needs some time in the Minor Leagues to get things back together where he feels and we would feel he could compete at the Major League level.

The sense is, with where we sit right now, that he's gonna be back and throwing for us in July. So we prepare in that way.

There were no significant changes in his MRI. We don't think surgery is necessary based on regular playing in spring training and no complaints.

It's time to see if he can do it.

It's going to be interesting, I think. There will be a few guys who will pop out of this thing. It's hard to say who it's going to be.

Considering this will be his first full season making every start, I'm just looking for a consistent performance. If he learns the major-league scene and experiences a full year healthy, that will be progress.

The bad news is you hate to send a guy to the minors because he has performed well. The good news is I'm sure he'll be back soon. This is a guy who's made improvements, who's matured, who certainly gives you the look that he's major-league ready.

Certainly, we're well aware of Burnett's position. We'll see how he finishes spring training. He hasn't faced live competition at this point.

All these guys are going to get an opportunity this year at some point.