The Durham Bulls franchise has been an important member of the Devil Rays family from our very beginning and has become an American baseball icon. We are pleased that this association will continue.

This is a classic change-of-scenery trade involving two former No. 1 draft picks that are still young players with tremendous upsides.

He brings veteran leadership in the bullpen. And he's as good a competitor as there is out there.

In an ideal world, we'd have more time to get these players acclimated to the new staff. But we've worked overtime to get these players ready to play and comfortable with the 2006 approach.

They diagnosed it as an acute injury, something that happened on that pitch.

It's better to go with one closer. But you can't force the situation one way or the other. It all depends on your personnel. Looking at our bullpen, it appears that we have a deeper, more diversified bullpen this year.

It's definitely not the way we drew it up.

It's hard in this setting to truly determine a winner, but it allows us to solve the impasse in the negotiations in a timely manner so we can focus on what's most important, which is getting ready for the season.

It's definitely frustrating. He was someone we were looking to give us a different look out of the bullpen.

It's definitely frustrating. He was someone we were looking to to give us a different look out of the bullpen. Pitchers experience injuries all the time. It's a part of our business that we have to weigh in signing any pitcher. I'm confident he's going to work hard and rehab hard to get back good and healthy. So I think we'll see him pitch in a Devil Ray uniform.