Team president: Sustainability key to rebuild

Ideal would be to avoid valleys like current one

BRADENTON, Fla. — Travis Williams has a fairly solid understanding of where he stands when it comes to evaluating the Pirates’ onfield performance, good or bad.

“If I’m breaking down spin rate,” Williams told the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette on Thursday, “we’re in trouble.”

While Williams isn’t exactly a frequent visitor to FanGraphs or Baseball Savant, he is president of the Pirates and privy to plenty of important discussions with owner Bob Nutting and general manager Ben Cherington, stuff that involves charting the future of the franchise.

When asked for his 30,000foot assessment of where the Pirates currently stand baseball- wise, Williams echoed what Nutting has said recently — “I couldn’t be more pleased with the direction we’re headed,” Williams said — and offered a little bit more when it comes to potentially growing payroll.

Per Williams’ comments, the Pirates don’t want to look at this as a one- and- done push. While the rebuild has obviously taken longer than fans would want, the team’s focus has been ensuring payroll growth is sustainable.

And, no, it’s not defending the size of the current payroll as much as it is relaying thoughts or setting expectations when it comes to how that number might change over time.

“The beauty of it is we’re doing this in a way so that it is more sustainable than just a peak, then there’s a huge valley,” Williams said. “We’d like it to be waves of talent coming up. I think the way our farm system looks, we’re stacking it up that way. We’ll continue to work toward that. That’s our goal. Fans deserve it.”

Fans also deserve to see talented players remain with the club, and that was the next point brought up in the oneon- one interview. Asked whether he was optimistic the Pirates would extend any of their core players before opening day, Williams smiled and said he understood the question but wasn’t willing to talk specifically.

He said then Pirates remain “open to those discussions and open- minded” when it comes to extensions, although that isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for fans who want to purchase Bryan Reynolds, Oneil Cruz or Mitch Keller jerseys.

“The current economics that we play in, you have to be smart about where you allocate those resources,” Williams said. “We’re more than open to that. We know the fans would love that, but we’re not making those decisions solely on that. We’re certainly making decisions based on what’s best for the organization, and let’s hope those things can come together.”

Williams has also chatted with Nutting and Cherington this offseason a bunch, as the Pirates have actively added a group of veterans.

“I think there’s a real buzz around the team that’s been positive,” Williams said. “Couldn’t be more excited quite frankly about the prospects for this year and beyond because I think we’re right at that turning point. It feels a lot like where the team was in 2011 or 2012 seasons heading into that nice run in 2013- 15.”

An interesting concept

While the bulk of Williams’ comments on the AT& T SportsNet/ regional sports network situation centered around telling Pirates fans there would be games broadcast no matter what, there’s another idea that he interestingly did not shoot down.

If/ when AT& T SportsNet goes away, the Pirates — this will be a common concern throughout baseball this season — must figure out what to do with their local TV rights. If they don’t want to do anything, MLB has already said it would broadcast games and basically handle the whole process.

But here’s an interesting one: What if owner Bob Nutting decided to get into the cable business? It’s far- fetched and maybe improbable given Nutting’s other business interests — chiefly newspapers, ski resorts and ( Wigle) whiskey — but Williams also didn’t shoot it down.

He said nothing has been crossed off at this point, which would include the Pirates essentially handling their own broadcasts.

“We’re looking at all angles of whether [ handling their own broadcasts] is a possibility or whether MLB is coming up with a leaguewide solution, which is one option that’s being actively discussed,” Williams said.

“We’re actively engaged in discussions focused mostly on what we’re doing in ’ 23 and making sure that is without interruption in the same way that fans have enjoyed the product in the past. Then making sure there’s a solution in ’ 24 and beyond.”