We looked at his time in the National League and we believe when he gets back to the N.L. in Atlanta, he will return to the Renteria of old.

We had to do it up against a very strict salary/payroll guideline, and that meant we had to go young in order to afford the replacements on our roster. And if we have to go young, we always prefer to go young with our own guys because we know we've done our due diligence drafting people, checking character of people, learning about their personalities and watching them grow and mature.

We could not have acquired a more perfect player for us than Edgar Renteria.

I think these guys can help us.

We've had some very good discussions, and some good secondary discussions. I've told our guys, something good will come out of these meetings.

[The Dodgers] obviously felt like they needed to spend that kind of money to offset some of the benefits he would have enjoyed with us -- familiarity, team support and a manager he knows and admires. Maybe they felt like they had to blow the doors off him, I'm surmising.