This morning, Ben Cherington met with the press. The trade deadline and the team's approach towards it was the focus of the session. 

• Cherington on urgency: "Yeah, we have to deliver better more to our fans and really focusing on how do we build a team that is gonna be better on the field between now and March 2026. And our intent will be to be prepared between now and Thursday, be prepared to strike. If we see something that we think can help us towards that. Certainly don't think Thursday is the end of that or by any means. It is an opportunity that comes along and we'll be prepared for it."

• On acquiring players with long-term control: "I think I would really, to extent that we do have decision to make the next few days. If those happens, we look at the individual decisions, look at what the return is. Our goal is to put the Pirates in a stronger position going into 2026. There's lots of different things that need to happen for us to accomplish that. It's not going to be from a single decision. It maybe that we can acquire, whether its this week or this offseason, it may be we acquire players that jump right onto the roster or might soon jump right on the roster. It's also may be we trade for players that are further along, that's in no way a signal that we changed course. The goal is to put together a team that is gonna perform better in 2026. There are different ways to do that. There's a lot of different things that have to happen, so we're just going to be looking for opportunities to do that and if we think that a player that we can get in a trade is valuable to the Pirates that can help us towards that goal, then no matter where or what level they are at then we want to be ready to take advantage of that."

• On type of players to acquire: "... We also know in Pittsburgh, and in a lot of cases, we're going to be acquiring players who are not fully proven yet, who we believe can contribute, whether it's on the pitching side or position player side in the near-term. but aren't fully proven yet."

• If moving payroll is a decision: "It's pretty easy because it's not. The exercise is not to move payroll. The exercise is to get better. So in that, we just communicate that honestly. In that, we say we're open-minded."

• On being risk averse, or not: "I don't think we can be risk averse. I don't think that's going to work in Pittsburgh. We want to win, we're going to have to assume risk. With risk comes downside to that, obviously. If that doesn't work out, we get criticized. That's ok. I don't think we can win without assuming that." 

• Not signing second round draft pick Angel Cervantes: "I do expect he's going to attend UCLA. We respect that decision. As a group, we spend a lot of time over the past several months getting to know Angel and his family and obviously, we really like him. We wouldn't have taken him where we did if we didn't and he's a really talent young high school pitcher. Believe he should flourish at UCLA. As we got closer to that pick in the draft, we wanted to honor our board as much as we possibly can and he was the player we believed was the best player on our board at the time we selected. We understood when we selected him that was a risk. We understood enough about the situation, what we were hearing about him and his representatives that there was some risk that he would not sign. We took him knowing that. We planned for that in the later rounds and after the 10th round and we did, I believe, made a very aggressive and fair offer for him, which he ultimately chose to turn down, and I respect that. Respect that decision, wish him well. We were able to pivot and sign a couple more players after the 10th round once we had that information. We're excited to have the pick back next year in what looks like a really strong draft."