Rob Ratner

And you signed fairly early, but take me through your thought process.

A, going through the year and trying to fend off the, oh, it's a contract year thing, which for some guys is easy, some guys it's not.

And B, now you get into the offseason, you have great agents in the Levinsons.

Tell me about how it went for you, how you felt throughout the process.

Well, so the good thing is, you know, you end up and I'm, I know that I, first of all, I love that perspective of how you've had to sort of go through this, this existence, right?

While you're proving self, proving yourself, proving yourself.

But you get to the end of the year, and you put up good numbers.

And I know you're playing to win.

I know you're playing to win the World Series, but you put up good numbers.

You're like, okay, you know, I put up good numbers.

I've proven that I'm a really good player.

I've proven that I have value because we've seen other guys hit free-ins.

We just had on, you know, Gialito is a guy who we've talked to a bunch of times about this.

about how you know he had a disastrous turn of events and so he lands there and like oh man this is free agency this is free agency but so you land there so when you get into no october november december is that there all right i'm in i'm in a good spot i put myself in a good spot i don't know what's going to happen but i put myself in a good spot

Well, I can scream from the mountaintops.

Why Pittsburgh is a good place, man.

Like, like a good spot, a good team.

And so when you hear them, when you hear their name, when you hear like their, their interest.

What is your, what is your feeling?

What is your, oh, this will be interesting because I think that when you're talking about the pirates, the word is interesting, right?