Bob Pompeani

What does this deal show about the organization mean to you?

Yeah, I mean, it's a continuation of everything we've seen over the past year or so.

just bringing in guys, uh, you know, we have a homegrown rotation right now, um, drafting well, developing well, um, and, you know, creating the foundation of a team that's going to win for a long time.

So, um,

It's, you know, it's another step in the right direction, I think.

Yeah, it's huge.

That, like, we drafted it.

He was the best player in that draft from everything I heard, and he just...

We got him.

It's hard to say looking at him now that they made the right choice.

It was kind of a layup, it seems like, to pick him with just the makeup and the talent and everything.

It's what we need.

And to put him alongside with all the other guys that we have offensively and on the pitching side, it's going to be a lot of fun.

What have your conversations been like with your teammates as you guys have talked about this extension and having Connor here?

Yeah, it's funny.

What Ben brought up in the press conference about what would the teammates think about it, and everybody's just ecstatic for him.

I think it's funny that that's pretty much the only thing that he's done so far that shows that he's 19 years old, I think, which is not a stupid question or anything.

It's just not having been in a big league clubhouse

at the time that he asked that.

So everybody's really happy for him.