Pirates president Travis Williams on why Ben Cherington is returning as GM and playoff goals

Pirates president Travis Williams on why Ben Cherington is returning as GM and playoff goals

Uh it was a very frustrating year in 2025 both on and off the field. Uh that’s not only the sentiment of Bob Nutting, but also myself and everybody else in the organization. We know we need to be better. We will be better in 26. What gives you the faith that Ben is the right general manager to make this team better in 26? Our belief and expectation is that this team is a lot closer than our performance or our records would suggest. Our goal is to win in 26 and make the playoffs. What? Period. full stop. And we know that uh you know with that in mind uh we know that you know we need to build on the momentum that we’ve already built that we already have and moving forward uh we have the best young pitching staff in all of baseball. Uh we’ve got a great core of young uh position players. In addition to that we have one of the best farm systems in baseball and the top top prospect in baseball. And at the same time we know that we need to be better. Uh we need to do things differently this offseason. uh we need to make sure that we’re making the changes within baseball operations to be able to provide our players with the support that they need in order to be able to pro perform at an optimal level and we also know at the same time that we need to be able to acquire or build on our offense and uh we’re going to do that through trades or through u other you know through acquisitions uh trades or free agency acquisitions and we need we need to be willing to do that aggressively and decisively through this offseason. When you say that you believe you’re not far away, could you understand how some people would be skeptical to hear that because the record is worse this year? And yeah, there are some players that are close, but a lot of the high ranked prospects aren’t that close. What do you say to people who might, you know, disagree with your assessment? I I think you just you have to look at what we have in terms of talent. Um, again, building off of one of the best young pitching staffs in all of baseball. Uh, but we knew we fell short offensively. Uh, we had an historically bad offensive year. Uh but that those are things that can be course corrected and we believe that we have the ability to do that this offseason. We’ve given ourselves the flexibility at the trade deadline uh in terms of payroll and we we believe that we have the ability to go out and add and we have pitching depth that we can use in order to turn that into hitting hitting depth. You’ve one of the lowest payrolls in all of baseball. How much do you feel that you’ve actually provided the resources for this to be a winning organization? we have sufficient resources to be able to go out and build a team that can can make the playoffs in 2026. Uh it’s not a resource issue now. We just need to go out and execute. Major payroll increase this year. Uh we’re not going to speak to payroll. We never have in the past, but we have the resources sufficient to be able to win and make the playoffs in 2026. How do you find how do you define that being sufficient? What what quantifies that? Again, I’m not going to speak to quantification of of payroll. There’s lots of things that go into making sure that you’ll be able to be successful in a season. Um that includes adding again taking from a position of strength pitching and being able to turn that into hitting. There’s opportunities there. Uh it’s not just a matter of what you’re adding in terms of payroll and free agency acquisitions, but there’s lots of ways you can do that. And in addition to that, we need to be able to make the changes in inside of baseball operations to continue to improve and allow our players to continue to improve at the major league level and have success at the major league level. But on the note, you’re saying it’s sufficient. The past records would show that they’re insufficient. You haven’t won a division since 1992. So, how how do you say that it’s sufficient? feel confidence that it’s sufficient to be able to be successful and and make the playoffs in 2026. Okay. Travis, specifically with Ben, what are the traits that you like about him or tells you that he’s the guy going forward? I think the guy going forward. Well, again, I think given where this team is at this point in time, um the strengths that we have in terms of our pitching staff, uh the young core position players that we have, and what we have in terms of our throne system coming up, we felt at the end of the day that making a change as as a general manager would set us back. That’s not what our fans expect. That’s not what we expect. Um we’re looking in 2026 to make the playoffs, period, full stop. And so we did not want to veer from that and we’re going to we’re pushing it all in and making sure that we are able to make the playoffs in in 2026. Travis, there was a lot of stuff especially early in the year. You guys had some off the- field some stuff, you know, from this the sign to the bricks, etc. Uh fans got upset. You know, fans may have lost trust in the organization. What is the organization doing to make sure that that side of the business doesn’t make those errors again? And what do you say to people that that might say that we just don’t trust that the organization maybe has our best interests in mind? Um, well, first of all, we start day in and day out with the fans first. That’s always a fans first mentality. Um, we did have some unforced errors early in this year. We own them. We course corrected, made the adjustments that we needed to make uh internally and externally uh fixing those mistakes that we made and uh that starts with me. It’s really on me at the end of the day and I owned it and uh the organization owns it. We’re going to make sure that that doesn’t happen again. On the note of the organization, players themselves have been critical of the state of this organization. What is your response to that? Um, you know, the just like our fans, our players deserve to have an organization that they can be proud of and that gives them the opportunity to come out every day and play to the best of their ability. And as you heard Ben say earlier and you heard me say, we’re going to provide all the resources that are necessary to make sure that that happens. You say make the period, the playoffs period full stop. This next year will be Ben’s seventh, your seventh. Is it fair to say that like I mean forgive the phrase here that you guys are sort of on the clock like it can’t just be we have the potential to do X we have the potential to Y that if you guys do you have the feeling that if you don’t get to X or Y next year that there will be changes that’ll be beyond just sort of making a full-time manager. Listen I came here to win. Uh came here six years ago to win. Came from an organization that won. Uh I know what it takes. Um we haven’t done it yet. At the same time I’m not thinking about whether I’m on the clock or not. I’m here every day showing up, making sure that we do everything we can to win. Ben is doing the same and everybody else in this organization is doing the same. Thank you, Travis.

Pirates president Travis Williams talks about why Ben Cherington will return as general manager in 2026, why the team is confident it can make a push for the playoffs next season, and how the organization wlil try to win back the trust of fans.

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