Ross Atkins

So he's really exceeded our expectation.

And they were high coming in.

So...

The teammate, the way he's handled everything from, you know, every foreign player is different in their transition into Major League Baseball, and his has been as good as I've ever seen.

Yeah, and if you just think about it from free agents that, you know, key free agents that change organizations for the first time and go to different organizations, how big of an adjustment that is.

Now add a layer of your everything about the environment is different except for the fact that you're playing this game of baseball.

But everything else is going to be different.

The language spoken, obviously, the food that's eaten, the training regimens, the strength and conditioning routines, the surfaces, the feel in the air.

And, you know, all of those things changing and him staying as consistent as he has has been important.

Yeah, he's such a fun player.

We use cliches like throwback all the time, and I think in many ways he can fit into a lot of different cliches, but when I watch Ernie play, it's just so enjoyable to watch him play because you see how relaxed he is, and that has come into the fold as he's made that transition back to second.

His ability to find that relaxed aspect of,

you know, his athleticism and maximizing his athleticism with different footwork and different angles, different arm angles, the pivot at second and, you know, relying on those instincts and getting and having to change those patterns is not easy.

And he's done an incredible job of it.

And then offensively, he's been as good as he's ever been.

So we're, you know, man, he's, yeah, he's been awesome.

He's very, very impressive.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because all of the markers, whether it's analytics, any stat that you can look at,

Anything biomechanical that is using data to understand patterns, changes, timing, all of that is very positive and encouraging.

So that gives us a great deal of confidence and belief that it is a matter of just being synced up.