When it comes time to talk to the team, Bruce Bochy doesn’t beat around the bush.
During the Giants first weekend of full-squad workouts Bruce Bochy took some time to talk to his team about the importance of staying focused and hungry for another championship title. Chris Haft of MLB.com reported that for approximately 30 minutes Bochy incorporated his observations about the team’s progress with a little bit of motivational flare (he even threw in some Winston Churchill quotes). Bochy had this to say about his speech:
"A lot of your meetings, you talk about what it takes to get there. These guys have been at the top, and as I told them, you’re never more vulnerable to complacency, arrogance, sloppiness, indifference, than when you’re riding a wave of success. That’s why we have to keep our focus on what we do to get ready for this season…I hope these guys have had time to savor what they’ve done, because it really is unbelievable…But with that said, success is never final. You have to earn it over and over again. We know that. It’s a new year, it’s a new season, it’s a new race."
In other spring training news Chris Haft of MLB.com reports that the Giants are trying figure out how to piece an outfield together that would prove most effective for the regular season, and the G Men sure do have some options. The term ‘open-minded’ was Bruce Bochy’s mantra about the state of the outfield yesterday, with a slew of competitors vying for playing time, particularly left field. With guys like Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Nate Schierholtz, Andres Torres, Aubrey Huff, Mark DeRosa, Aaron Rowand, Travis Ishikawa, and (possibly) Brandon Belt as potential outfield contributors, a proverbial game of musical chairs is inevitably on the horizon for Bochy. When it comes to center field, Bochy admits thats Aaron Rowand will most likely stay there which, like last year, will leave Andres Torres as odd-man-out to probably fill in somewhere else in the outfield. But for the rest of the group Bochy will have to take his time and evaluate everyone:
"These aren’t going to be easy decisions, believe me," Bochy said. "They always tell you that’s a good problem."