“There’s not a better oppurtunity in sports”

On Wednesday (day three) of the Winter Meetings, new Pirates manager Clint Hurdle stopped by MLBNetwork’s live coverage for an interview. Here is what they discussed:

On being the new manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates:

Hurdle: “I’m humbled by the opportunity. It is an exciting time for me personally but I think professionally, there’s not a better opportunity in sports across the board. To rebound a city with a team, like there is in Pittsburgh with the Pirates baseball team.”

Chris Rose: “Some people may say, ‘you know the numbers. 18 straight loosing seasons. It’s been tough. It’s a football town’. And you are telling me, it’s the greatest opportunity? Explain.”

Hurdle: “The fact that they’ve lost 18 consecutive seasons, its just bound to turn. Like I talk to hitters: ‘so you’re not hitting, but you’re due to get hot.’ These young kids, they can play. We’re learning lessons. I think we’re adding pieces. It’s an organization that’s committed from the top down. Through that interview process, I found that out from Bob Nutting, Frank Coonelly, and Neal Huntington. We got work to do, there’s no doubt about that but we are excited about the players that are in place and we’re actually finding ways to be creative. I think, [we need to] find some grown men to come in and help us do this. We have internal, we’re adding external.”

On what Hurdle says to the players to get them to believe:

“Well, the first thing that I talked to any player about developing a relationship, because I was a player once, a long time ago, and I’ve had new coaches and I’ve had a new manager from time to time. Anybody entering that door for the first time, I have three questions for the man walking through the door: ‘Can he make me better?, Does he care about me?, and Can I trust him?’ I’m going to lay that out to those guys. I need to find a way and my coaching staff needs to find a way to answer those three questions. Sooner or later for those men. We answer those questions, they will bring the skill sets with them. Too many times in this sport we try to capture the skill set first. We need to capture the players heart first, I believe, and we have got some players who are passionate about playing better and doing good things and doing big things.”

On who are the guys the organization can build around:

“Well, I’m still going through that filing. Watching tape, asking questions, talking to people. I’ve talked to a lot of people outside our organization about the team. Got to watch them play myself for three games last year. But for me, these internal conversations I’m having one-on-one, I’m finding out a lot more. With Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Joel Hanrahan, I had one yesterday with Pedro Alvarez, Garrett Jones is still on my to do list. I’ve talked to Paul Maholm, Chris Snyder. One-by-one I’m taking them down but there is a core group in place. On the offensive side, we need to add to some of the skill guys we got already, our number one focus is improve off the mound. Number two focus is catch the ball, put away outs on defense. We’ve all been around the game long enough. Pitching and defense will win you championships.”