Clint Hurdle Players Quotations

Obviously, he is having a special spring. He's gained the respect of his teammates and he has gained the respect of the players he has played against. But the bottom line is it is spring training. The fact is there is going to be an Opening Day and he is going to have zero home runs.

His voice was stronger. He got a big kick out of the game last night. He sent text messages to the players after.

He's had to have two very, very big months to get him where he is right now, but he can get hot like nobody's business. At times, I think he fed off the energy that the young players brought when he was going through his tough times.

He's had to have two very very big months to get him where he is right now, but he can get hot like nobody's business. He's probably learned some very valuable lessons through this year. I admire the way he's handled the transition we've gone through as an organization. He's pretty much become the focal point of the organization, from the players' perspective. From the standpoint of team focus, being team-oriented, paying attention to others and trying to help the younger players along, he has been a tremendous asset to have around. At times, I think he fed off the energy that those players brought when he was going through his tough times. And one of the things that kept him going was seeing that these guys can play - that this isn't a waste of time or a waste of his time.

Our goal was to give them something to hold onto over the winter. At the start of the season, we knew we had a difficult task in front of us, a lot of challenges. A lot of opportunities were extended to a lot of young players. And a lot of young players answered.

Our young players give us reason to be optimistic for the future. Holliday continues to improve and should become a good offensive player.

We are a work in progress. These guys had a lot of baggage laid on them last year. We weren't that good last year. There were a lot of young players cutting their teeth, but they also are players who came up together (through the farm system) and had success together. And they want to have more success together.

There is more anticipation on the part of the players than there has been in a long time. The club is growing together and has formed a core group together. They know now that they can compete. The next step is to win.

We are moving forward with a large group of players rather than having five or six guys we brought in to bridge a gap for a year. We had our first taste of the process. The first two months, it was a very bitter taste. We took a lot of ridicule. But we hung together. We are not out of the woods yet, but we've taken steps forward.

We've put ourselves in position to surprise people. We went through a learning process last year, and I think you saw in the second half of the season that our young players started to believe they could compete. We started to grow as a franchise.

There's nothing wrong with that. Now you can start adding up the one- and two-year players and see that we've got a lot of youth on our side.

In a perfect world, you bring young players into an environment (like Atlanta),

It's Jason's time to take the next step, and sometimes when players can't get to certain places, it's up to a coach to take them there. I want him to know going in that I've got the confidence in him to do that. By giving him the ball Opening Day, I can't make a bigger statement than that.

It's a special spring for him. He's gaining the respect of his teammates. He's gaining the respect of players he's playing against. But the bottom line it's still spring training. So, there's the dose of reality ... that there's going to be an opening day for him and he's going to be hitting .000 and he's going to have no homers. But we do like what we're seeing.

What's unfortunate is the baggage the new players are carrying around. Of course, we acquire our share of it last year, but we'd like to think we are growing from that.

We might not have any rookies next year, or maybe one or two. We've had the young players we wanted to look at this year show us they can handle the challenge.

All the players took to heart the conversations that were held at the end of last season.