Marc Gustafson Quotes (14 Quotes)

He has the mentality. He's been a closer his entire career, and nothing affects him a whole lot. But he's got good pitches. He's got the tools to make it happen and he's got the mentality that he fits in.

We want him to pitch in surroundings where he's comfortable and we can travel to see him pitch.

He's got big-time power and plays a good first-base.

I've, personally, been interested in Jason for several years and personally tried to sign him for three years. We finally got him.

He had confidence coming out of Spring Training, and manager Clint Hurdle and the staff had confidence in him. This isn't foreign to them because they got to live with him, got to see him work. He's our guy. In a perfect world, he would have had a few more starts in Triple-A, but he pitched well.

He's a leader. He's not afraid to go out to the mound and talk to the pitcher, settle him down if needed. He has all the makings of the quarterback on the field, a leader on the field. At that position, it's important.

He's got the makings, the talents, the tools of a big-league pitcher, and he's learning how to pitch. He's learning how to set hitters up. In the past, he might try to strike everybody out, because he's got such good stuff. We've got to teach him about pitching, and he's learning.

Defensively, he's a Major League second baseman, so that's not an issue. We know the offense is in there because we've seen it. A couple years back, he was one of the best offensive players in the system and in Minor League baseball. Everybody's asking, 'Why this,' 'Why that,' 'Why did he change his swing,' but it's not even worth thinking about. He's back to where he was a couple of years ago.

He looks good. He's changed his body. He's a baseball player, first and foremost. He's not too big he's not too muscular.

You don't have to worry about slumps with him because he can always bunt to get on base.

For me, personally, he's always shown that he has the tools to catch, swing the bat and do a lot of good things. But the difference is his confidence.

He's a guy that had arm trouble early in his career, but he's recovered from that nicely. He throws 89-92 mph with downhill sink, attacks the zone and gets groundballs. He has a slider and changeup that he throws for a change of pace, but it's that fastball with the downhill plane that makes him successful.

The injury, obviously, is not something you plan for and it's not something he'd plan for. It was a speed bump in his fast track. Toward the end, he was starting to clean up his mechanics a little bit, starting to get back to what we saw.

We've definitely re-established our philosophy. We're going to go with player development and scouting. And we're going to have to be totally overwhelmed (to make any trades). We're going to let players develop in their own time and go with the guys in our system. We saw last year how important it is to be patient and the best is yet to come.