Jim Bowden Team Quotations

Obviously, if we knew it was going to play out this way, we wouldn't have done it. My preference would be to keep him. We're a much better team with him. My preference is for everyone to be happy in this game. Organizations do better, players do better when we're all happy.

I didn't come to Nashville to move Ken Griffey Jr.. I came here to make our team better.

But we'll trade anybody, ... if a team overwhelms us.

We took a team that won 67 games and made great strides,

My preference is to keep him, because we're a much better team with him. But I'll never close the door on an opportunity to make everybody happy. My preference is for everyone to be happy in this game. Organizations and players do better when we're all happy.

My preference would be to keep him, you're a much better team with him. But I'll never close the door -- ever -- on an opportunity to make everybody happy.

We have compassion for his position on where he's coming from, but we have a job to try to win baseball games with the team we have. We're not going to give the player away.

We respect the arbitrators' decision. We feel that it's a good salary for the team and a good salary for the player given his talents.

At the end of the day, it's not his preference. But it's a personal sacrifice to help this franchise put the best team on the field it possibly can. That's what he's doing. So the organization appreciates it. We've got 12 days to get him ready to play left field. We appreciate the personal sacrifice he's making.

I've never seen a team slump like this with this pitching.

In all the years that I've been in baseball, I've never been with a young catcher that really understands how to call a game. He really works and he's a team player. He goes beyond the advance scouting reports and goes beyond the video. He studies and learns the game. He's a winner. There's not a lot of catchers that can shut the running game down.

I'm hoping Brandon can do what he did in March. I'm hoping he can do what he did all last year in the Minor Leagues and carry it over. That would give this team a big boost.

I'll make that trade every day of my career. We're a much better baseball team having this problem than not having this problem at all.

In the minor leagues the most important thing is developing players. The reason I want to win is I want to develop winning players. So my philosophy is you develop first, but I want to the team to win. I want the players who are prospects and developing learning how to win.

It's a tough club to really analyze. The last five games, I'd say, I think we've seen a team that looks pretty good. Before that, we looked like a team that looked really bad. I don't think any of us know really what we have yet. I think we'll have a better idea starting Monday.

It's a very sensitive issue with Alfonso. We respect him and we respect his ability as a baseball player. The position change and what's important to the team is something we'll continue to address appropriately. We don't want it to become a soap opera.