Up Close With The Pittsburgh Sports Report
Jim Tracy

Jim Tracy became the 37th manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates on October 11. Tracy, 49, spent the past five years managing the Los Angeles Dodgers, recording a 427-383 (.527) regular season record in that time. He guided the club to a 93-69 record and a first-place finish in 2004, but lost to the Cardinals in the N.L. Division Series. He finished third in the Manager-of-the-Year balloting on '04, behind Atlanta's Bobby Cox and St. Louis' Tony La Russa. Prior to joining the Dodgers on November 1, 2000, Tracy served as Bench Coach for four seasons under Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou. As manager of AA Harrisburg in 1993, Tracy guided the club to a 94-44 record, won the Eastern League title and was named Manager-of-the-Year. PSR editor Tony DeFazio sat down with Tracy in the Pirates' offices shortly after his hiring.

PSR: You're from Ohio - what kind of relationship, if any, did you have with the city of Pittsburgh growing up?

Tracy: I have a very interesting relationship with the city of Pittsburgh just from the standpoint that as a kid growing up in the state of Ohio - 20 miles north of downtown Cincinnati in a small town called Hamilton, Ohio - and I remember very vividly the early 70s when there were only two divisions in baseball and you saw a lot of very meaningful games played between the Cincinnati Red and the Pittsburgh Pirates. As fate has it, I grew up right around the corner from Kent Tekulve.

During the course of my senior year at Baden High School, I was very close to signing a letter of intent to play football at Xavier University, but they dropped the program. So basically I'm sitting there holding the bag, and not really sure where it is that I'm going to go. So here comes Kent Tekulve's father walking around the corner over the Christmas holidays, and he wants to talk to my father and I about Marietta College, and what a great place to further my development, and then gets to talking about the baseball program and the coach there, who happened to be a very special man named Don Schaly, who left quite in impression on my life.

When you have all that going on, and it has a lot of Pittsburgh flavor to it, and then you end up going to college at a place that's about 115 miles away from the city of Pittsburgh…this is not exactly a major cultural type of adjustment that I'm involving myself in. This is like living about as close to home as you can get.

PSR: You spent a season coaching in Harrisburg - do you have any connection to that area at all?

JT: Still do. Still do. Even though I leave in '93 and go to Ottawa, and then I go to the major leagues and coach with Felipe Alou and then Davey Johnson, and then coach the Los Angeles Dodgers for five years, I have never, ever lost touch with the people that my wife and I, and our three boys, came into contact with in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Just a year that we will never ever forget as long as we live, and friendships that are never going to go away.

PSR: Talk about Jason Bay and where he rates as far as the top young players in the game.

JT: He's one of the best with the potential to become one of the marquee players in the National League. If you look at what he did statistically this season, he hit over .300, he hit more than 30 home runs, drove in over a hundred.

If anyone were to ask me what is the difference in Jason Bay between one year to the next, it's his understanding of what's a ball and what's a strike. He took 90-some walks. He did all that damage and walked more than 90 times. He's really beginning to corral what a strike zone is supposed to look like. Not only the strike zone, but within the framework of that strike zone, he's understanding what it is that he can do and cannot do with certain pitches. He's garnered that understanding.

How high is the ceiling? It's pretty interesting because you still haven't seen exactly what he's going to become…I think eventually he becomes one of the marquee players in our league.

It's very intriguing coming into a new situation and all I hear people say to me is, "Trace, this is one of the finest people you've ever been around." And they know I've been around some pretty damn good ones. I've built some pretty good relationships over the last five years with what I consider to be some pretty special major league players. And they're telling me that he's like one of those guys? And I haven't heard anybody say anything to the contrary? That becomes a pretty interesting piece to want to build around.

PSR: What type of challenge is it to get this talented young pitching staff to reach its potential?

JT: Certainly an interesting challenge, but one that I feel like can be accomplished. I say that not because of myself but because, fortunately for me, I have been surrounded by a tremendous coaching staff. This is where Jim Colburn comes into the picture. If you compiled a list - and no disrespect to anyone else - of some of the better coaches in Major League Baseball, I'll guarantee you Colburn would be on every damn list you could compile.

That being said, you look at an Oliver Perez and where he's at right now; and you look at a guy with a little more veteran flavor like Kip Wells, and on the other side of the field, having managed against the Pirates, you tell yourself that that stuff that I'm seeing does not correlate to 8-18. It shouldn't be that.

And then you take the younger arms, the Zach Duke's and the Paul Maholm's; you've got Mark Redman and David Williams; Sean Burnett's coming back from injury.

I was having a helluva time trying to find a left-handed pitcher last year, and until I got to the Pirates organizational meetings I was trying to figure out where they were all at, and now I know.

There are steps that I think the group as a whole, including the pitching staff, will be encouraged to take to get them to a level that they have not been to before. That's what we're interested in doing, and Colburn is the right guy for the job.

PSR: What excites you the most about being the Pirates' manager?

JT: Having a real good idea of the history of this organization, and I have one. I played against the Lumber Company, I recognize the '71 World Champions, I recognize three division championships in a row led by Jimmy Leyland, who I have the utmost respect for as a Major League manager and a baseball person in general. The point being I realize how rich the history and tradition of this organization is, and the challenge to try to recapture some of that intrigues me.

I don't like to think about 13 consecutive losing seasons, but it's there. But trying to create a mindset with this group of players that it's in the past, we're going to get beyond that. Develop a mindset that when we walk into work each and every day, we're expecting to win. That's the challenge and that's the goal here.

PSR: What concerns you the most?

JT: I like to look at things this way: Any thing it is that I take on, when things get to the point in time that you have to let go and hand the baton to the next person, is make sure that the situation is better when you leave it that it was when you took it on. So if there is a concern, it would be a flat-line type of thing where there is little if any improvement made. I'd be very disappointed if that's the way it ends up.

PSR: What are the team's greatest needs between now and opening day in April?

JT: In general, it behooves us to keep in mind that a helper for Jason Bay in the lineup is not only going to make the organization and the team better, but it's also going to make Jason Bay better.

We have to look at this club knowing where the strengths are and you alluded to one of them, the young corps of starting pitching here. When you've got something like that, you want to make sure that you a re surrounded properly with people that can catch the ball and give the staff the chance to be as good as it's capable of becoming. One of the other strengths that I think is here is the strength of the club defensively through the middle of the field. You gotta like Duffy and his capabilities defensively and what he brings to the table as a top of the order type hitter. Jack Wilson obviously. Jose Castillo is another guy that is a very interesting player.

So if those are strengths, then offensive what we need to do is make sure we profile correctly in some important places. So first base is an area that you look at…is Brad Eldred ready for that? Does that make sense? If not, what does make sense there? The third base position. Now we have - in my opinion, from what I saw from the other side of the field - a very interesting player in Freddy Sanchez. Where does Freddie fit into things? But first base and third base are areas that you look at, and you listen to any and all comers and you discuss the possibilities of doing some things to help improve. With Jason Bay taking up one corner outfield spot, you're still talking about the other corner spot.

The other area I would go is the right hand side of the bullpen. I'm not suggesting that it doesn't contain capable guys - it does - but it also has a lot of very similar guys as far as their stuff is concerned. They may have different names on the backs of their shirts, but their stuff is all very similar. You go from pitcher A to pitcher B to pitcher C, the team you are playing against that night doesn't need to do a lot to adjust to the stuff that coming to home plate. So we've got to take a good look at that. There's not enough contrast in style from the right side of the bullpen in my opinion.

PSR: What player do you most enjoy watching - not as a manager, simply as someone who appreciates the game of baseball?

JT: If I was a fan I think I'd love to watch Barry Bonds hit. I haven't enjoyed all that much the last five years and have to make all the decisions on whether to pitch to him or not. I'd certainly be remiss if I didn't say that Albert Pujols, as every day goes by, becomes more and more impressive to watch. I just really like watching the game played correctly. I love watching the game within the game, the interaction between the middle infielders, the pitcher-catcher relationships, the great defensive plays, the very intelligent offensive plays that help you win games. Those type of things.