Perrotto: Telegram From Travis Williams Likely Contains Empty Promises
Mark Shapiro is a baseball man whose opinion I value.
He was the long-time general manager of the Cleveland Indians and is now the president of the Toronto Blue Jays. Shapiro has built winning teams with both franchises, and the Blue Jays have the No. 1 seed in this year’s American League playoffs.
I’ve been fortunate to have conversations with Shapiro over the years. I always come away enlightened about baseball.
Nearly 20 years ago, when Shapiro was running baseball operations in Cleveland, we had a long talk one night about how to rebuild organizations.
The general rule of thumb for rebuilding is that it typically takes five years. Shapiro, however, believes seven years are needed to mold the organization into the shape a GM wants it to be.
It takes time to align the front office personnel, scouting and player development departments, farm system, and 40-man roster with an organization’s vision. It’s a long, tedious process with the hopeful payoff being a World Series title.
The Pirates haven’t won a World Series since 1979, but they have undergone significant rebuilding efforts over the ensuing 46 years. The last six of those seasons have been under the watch of general manager Ben Cherington, and the Pirates finished with an abysmal 71-91 record this year.
Many fans want Cherington fired, but team president Travis Williams said Monday, while announcing a contract extension for manager Don Kelly, that the GM would be back for the team’s seventh season.
Using Shapiro’s seven-year rule of thumb, Cherington should get the opportunity. I am not a believer that Cherington deserves another chance, but again, I trust Shapiro’s baseball acumen.
However, this must be Cherington’s last chance. The Pirates have had losing records in each of Cherington’s six seasons, and they lost five more games in 2025 than in 2023 and 2024.
Williams explained why he and owner Bob Nutting, who again ducked the media, believe Cherington is still the right man to lead the Pirates’ baseball operations.
“Our belief and expectation is that this team is a lot closer than our performance and our record would suggest,” Williams said. “Our goal is to win in 2026 and to make the playoffs. Period. Full stop.”
That was the goal in 2024 as well. The Pirates went 76-86 that season, their postseason hopes crushed by a 10-game losing streak in August.
And period, full stop? For goodness’ sake, Williams sounded like he was sending a telegram from the Western Union office over the teletype machine.
Yes, that is a dated reference, and you should ask your grandparents to explain it to you. Trust me, though, it’s funny.
“We need to build on the momentum that we’ve already built, that we already have moving forward,” Williams said. “We have the best young pitching staff in all of baseball. We have a great core of young position players, and in addition to that, we have one of the best farm systems in baseball, the top prospect in baseball.
“And at the same time, we know that we need to be better. We need to do things differently this offseason. We need to make sure that we’re making the changes within baseball operations to provide our players with the support that they need in order to perform at an optimal level. We also know, at the same time, that we need to be able to acquire or build on our offense. We’re going to do that through trades, through other acquisitions, trades or free agency acquisitions, and we need to be willing to do that aggressively and decisively through this offseason.”
Of course, Pirates fans have read this telegram before, but Nutting, Williams, and Cherington never deliver on their promises.
PERIOD. FULL STOP.
Jeez, Williams makes it sound like a light bulb went off in his head that they need to build their offense.
When they announced Kelly was coming back, I assumed Cherington would as well.
No F.A. want to come here. They had the ball rolling at the end of the 2015 season…they could attract free agents, but they blew it.
And I know I sound like a broken record, but to continue to insist players play multiple positions is detrimental to their development in the field and you can bet they take those concerns to the plate.
My head hurts listening to blowhard Williams
PERIOD. FULL STOP.
“Sell the team, Bob”
Watching the video of this geek posing as a sports executive would be funny if it weren’t so stomach turning. When asked about how to improve the roster, he referred to trades, then nearly choked on his own words before mumbling out the two most resisted words in his vocabulary, “free agents”.
PiratesFest ought to be a real treat, if this group of incompetents has the stones to actually hold it, and show up for the Front Office Q & A.
Playoff games are still yet to be played, and it feels like the offseason is already lost.
What core of position players is he referring to? It’s Griffin and maybe Flores in AAA next year. That’s it, just 2! And behind them is essentially nothing. What a core huh?
Secondly, they do not have the best prospect pool in baseball. Their recent top 5 ranking was propped up by the strength of Griffin and Chandler. There’s little else behind them of real value considering Flores wasn’t a top 100 prospect but was considered a top 8 player in our system after he was acquired. Chandler has already been promoted and Griffin should arrive by May. You better believe that top 5 ranking is gonna plummet into the 20s by the time the mid season rankings update gets released. It’s gaslighting at its finest
If Griffin isn’t going north with the Pirates out of spring training he isn’t coming to Pittsburgh until after the All-Star Star break. The exception will be if in May the Pirates are north of .500.
John Perotto is an oasis of knowledge and candor in a desert of fluff, deception and empty platitudes. Always enjoy the fairness, facts and brutal honesty.
The team won’t spend. There is no plan… other than fluff, deception and a lot of corporate BS.
Pirates fans: “How do you sleep at night, Nutting?”
Nutting: “Atop a giant mountain of cash.”
What a piece of (work). Full stop.