Travis Williams made a statement loud and clear during the "Ask Pirates Management" Q&A session Saturday afternoon at the first day of PiratesFest: 'Bob is not going to sell the team.'
It came shortly after a "Sell the Team" chant broke out toward the beginning of the session and Williams then gave his lengthy response when he, Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton were asked why Bob Nutting wasn't participating in the session as well.
"We know, at the end of the day, this is all passion that has turned into frustration relative to winning. I think the points that you are making in terms of 'Where is Bob?' That's why he has us here, we're here to execute and make sure that we win," Williams said. "So, we're here to answer for that and answer any questions that you have around winning, not necessarily whether the owner is here or not here. He was at an event yesterday and over the course of today he'll be walking around and meeting with some season ticket holders. But, that's relative to whether or not we're going to win this year and what we're trying to execute and the questions were answering. To answer your immediate question that you said earlier, Bob is not going to sell the team. He cares about Pittsburgh, he cares about winning, he cares about us putting a winning product on the field and we're working towards that every day."
Before the initial chants broke out, Williams was asked a pre-selected question about the Pirates' seriousness toward winning and how they handle the criticism that comes from the fan base.
Williams said that he understands the frustration that is brought about by the recent performance of the team and it's not something that they want to continue moving forward. But, they need to find a way to put things together.
"We know that there is frustration, frustration because we are not winning, with the expectations of winning. At the end of the day, that's not due to lack of commitment to want to win," Williams said. "We can just look at last year. It was a big positive going through the middle of the season, we were going into August two games above .500, but unfortunately we had a tough run in August and that tough run in August took us out of the hunt for the wild card. But it shows two things in my opinion. No. 1 it shows how close we were. We have a lot of great talent in this organization, starting pitching, core offensive players, a great group in the bullpen, a lot of young talent still rising through the organization, there's a lot of things to be really positive about. So it tells me one thing, we should all be really hopeful about what's ahead of us this year. Two, what it tells me about also, is that we've gotta figure out a way to win the games we didn't win in August and that's on all of us in this organization. From myself to Ben, to Derek, to lots of other people that are here today and throughout the entire organization, but that's not for a lack of commitment or desire to win whatsoever. That's from the top all the way down to the bottom of the organization. We are absolutely committed to win, what we need to do is find a way to win."
THE ASYLUM
Williams: 'Bob is not going to sell’
Travis Williams made a statement loud and clear during the "Ask Pirates Management" Q&A session Saturday afternoon at the first day of PiratesFest: 'Bob is not going to sell the team.'
It came shortly after a "Sell the Team" chant broke out toward the beginning of the session and Williams then gave his lengthy response when he, Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton were asked why Bob Nutting wasn't participating in the session as well.
"We know, at the end of the day, this is all passion that has turned into frustration relative to winning. I think the points that you are making in terms of 'Where is Bob?' That's why he has us here, we're here to execute and make sure that we win," Williams said. "So, we're here to answer for that and answer any questions that you have around winning, not necessarily whether the owner is here or not here. He was at an event yesterday and over the course of today he'll be walking around and meeting with some season ticket holders. But, that's relative to whether or not we're going to win this year and what we're trying to execute and the questions were answering. To answer your immediate question that you said earlier, Bob is not going to sell the team. He cares about Pittsburgh, he cares about winning, he cares about us putting a winning product on the field and we're working towards that every day."
Before the initial chants broke out, Williams was asked a pre-selected question about the Pirates' seriousness toward winning and how they handle the criticism that comes from the fan base.
Williams said that he understands the frustration that is brought about by the recent performance of the team and it's not something that they want to continue moving forward. But, they need to find a way to put things together.
"We know that there is frustration, frustration because we are not winning, with the expectations of winning. At the end of the day, that's not due to lack of commitment to want to win," Williams said. "We can just look at last year. It was a big positive going through the middle of the season, we were going into August two games above .500, but unfortunately we had a tough run in August and that tough run in August took us out of the hunt for the wild card. But it shows two things in my opinion. No. 1 it shows how close we were. We have a lot of great talent in this organization, starting pitching, core offensive players, a great group in the bullpen, a lot of young talent still rising through the organization, there's a lot of things to be really positive about. So it tells me one thing, we should all be really hopeful about what's ahead of us this year. Two, what it tells me about also, is that we've gotta figure out a way to win the games we didn't win in August and that's on all of us in this organization. From myself to Ben, to Derek, to lots of other people that are here today and throughout the entire organization, but that's not for a lack of commitment or desire to win whatsoever. That's from the top all the way down to the bottom of the organization. We are absolutely committed to win, what we need to do is find a way to win."
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