This is what sucks about sports writing. You get put on a beat, so you have to write something, and you don't want to just go out there and kill one of the players you have to cover for 162 games (or however long), so you ask questions and you get answers like that, because what coach is going to say "well, hell, juan pierre made the most outs in baseball last year, why the hell are we paying him this much money?" So now you have a stupid quote from a coach who's trying to just be positive, and you have to run it, because that's all you're gonna get, and now you're pigeonholed into writing a fluff piece about stuff you probably don't even believe.