AP Photo via Daylife. Stan Kasten givens himself a round of applause during the June 2009 Draft.)
"First of all, we have pieces on the Major League side that when they all come together, we are going to have more success than what we are having. Let me remind you that it's only two years [since the Lerner Group took over the club] and, yet, we now have a pipeline that will fill the needs that we have up here. The pieces that we have here when healthy, in conjunction with the pipeline that is starting to produce players in the Major Leagues, I think we will only have a few holes left to fill to make us truly competitive."
(Stan Kasten, via Nationals.com, 7/21/2008)
MLB.com's Bill Ladson caught up with Nationals' President Stan Kasten, and we're pleased to report that 2 years and 200+ losses later, Stan Kasten's Pipeline Pipedream has finally been realized!
"We are very, very close now. I'm no longer talking months and years. I'm now talking days and weeks. As I said, once you have that in place, anything is possible. ... It's further supplemented by this pipeline that we worked so hard to build-- having the Luis Atilanos when you need them, having the Matt Chicos when you need them, having the J.D. Martins when you need them, having the Garrett Mocks when you need them. It goes on and on. That's important. It took time, but we finally have it.
I like to say, as I discussed this with baseball people, you need three good stable horses in the rotation in the postseason, but for the 162-game season, I need 10 pitchers. And I think we are finally becoming a team that really has that pipeline filled. I wish it could have been done with a flip of a switch. I wish it could have been done overnight, but those things take a little time. Thank goodness, we are past that period and can now look forward to a bright future."
(Stan Kasten, via Nationals.com, 5/10/2010)
What's that old saw, the one about baseball being a sprint, not a marathon? Or is it the other way around?
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