He's a quick-read guy. We're exposing him to all phases of the operation. We'll see where he fits in.

Vern's upbeat - you know the kind of guy he is. But it hits you in the gut when you hear that word.

We know he has received other good offers. But we're very interested in acquiring his services because we think he could be the fourth or fifth pitcher in our rotation.

I would hope by the time we have our organizational meetings at the end of October that we have a better sense of who we are, that we have a sense of where we're going, that we set a game plan, which I wasn't able to do, obviously, this year. This whole year's going to be an evaluation process of a lot of things.

I was very pleased. I'm sure Eric feels good about what he did. He had a little extra on his fastball. He threw it by some pretty good hitters.

We wanted to add to our depth. This guy's a true professional, somebody I've had my eye on in the off-season here in the event I did get this job. The playing time will take care of itself.