With Pittsburgh Pirates fans packing the third-floor ballroom of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the “Ask Pirates Management” Q&A session addressed the most repeated submitted question first.

No surprise, it was pointed at payroll: What will it take, in terms of a financial commitment, to make the Pirates a winning organization once again?

“Thank you for the softball to start,” Pirates president Travis Williams said, with a laugh. “As you can tell, we did not screen questions with that as the first one.”

Where past PiratesFest Q&A panels were akin to facing the firing squad of a frustrated fan base, the front office was armed Saturday with counterpoints that had nothing to do with bobbleheads, fireworks or even touting PNC Park as the best ballpark in baseball.

The Pirates brought back fan favorite and five-time All-Star Andrew McCutchen, gave outfielder Bryan Reynolds the richest contract in franchise history in April, had the best record in the National League over the first month, signed No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes to an MLB Draft-record $9.2 million bonus and played above .500 over the final two months to finish with a 14-win improvement in 2023.

“Commitment to win requires more than just player payroll,” said Williams, flanked on stage by general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton. “There’s lots of ways we can invest within the organization to put us in a position to win. That can be through identifying talent, acquiring talent, developing talent and then obviously deploying talent on the field. Payroll, while important, is not the most important factor in terms of how we get to building a championship-caliber team for our fans.

“There’s an absolute commitment from (chairman) Bob Nutting to myself, to Ben, to Derek that we build a playoff- and championship-caliber team for this fan base. They deserve it. I know they want it. We hear it all the time. We certainly want to do that here as well, and we’re doing it every day, day in, day out, to make that happen.”

First Q for Ask Pirates Management at PiratesFest was, not surprisingly, about payroll. Team president Travis Williams’ answer: pic.twitter.com/OcdzKFBqHw

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) January 6, 2024

It was the start of a 48-minute session that addressed both submitted and live questions from fans, which questioned not only payroll concerns but a timeline for making the playoffs, whether they would sign starting pitchers to multi-year contracts, Shelton’s continuously changing lineups and even the decrease in velocity by top pitching prospects Roansy Contreras, Luis Ortiz and Quinn Priester.

Cherington was asked if the Pirates could replicate the success of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who clinched a wild-card playoff berth and reached the World Series.

“I believe we are getting close,” Cherington said. “Typically, there’s going to be steps you take as a team. We took a step last year. We’re working really hard to take another step in 2024. If we do then we start to get into that territory. We’re not that far away. … If you get into that tournament in October, a lot can happen.”

After finishing in fourth place last year, Shelton was asked if he believed the Pirates (76-86) could surpass the Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds to win the NL Central this season.

“Our goal is to play playoff games in October, whether that’s winning the Central — which is definitely the goal — or being a playoff-caliber team, that’s something we are striving for,” Shelton said. “I will be very clear in our first message (at spring training) in Bradenton in about a month that we should be thinking about that every day. I guarantee that every member of our staff and every player will have that goal on their mind going into the ’24 season.”

In a submitted question, Williams was asked when the Pirates are going to spend to the level of other clubs — and whether he would “just pre-screen out and ignore this time” — after opening the 2023 season with a $73,277,500 payroll that ranked 27th out of 30 MLB teams.

“We’re putting all of our revenues back into the ballclub,” Williams said. “That is an absolute. Trying to get better every day and investing in areas where we’re going to get better every day. I can’t speak to other teams and how they’re trying to build a championship-caliber team, but I will speak to the plan that was developed by Bob, myself, Ben and Derek when we first got here five years ago.

“We continue to remain committed to that plan, feel strongly that we’re making great progress — a 14-win improvement last year — believe that we’re going to continue on that same trajectory going into next season. We’re doing all the right things to win for the Pittsburgh Pirates, in a market like Pittsburgh within the economics of baseball.”

After adding a string of starting pitchers on one-year deals, including left-handers in Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez this offseason, Cherington was asked if the Pirates would be willing to sign starters to multi-year contracts. Cherington said the Pirates are “actively focused” on continuing to add to the starting rotation.

“There’s no rule against multi-year contracts. We’ve offered multi-year contracts to pitchers this offseason,” Cherington said. “It’s all about lining up with the right guy and right opportunity. It’s still certainly possible that that could happen. It could happen next offseason.”

Shelton was asked if Oneil Cruz, who played in only nine games before fracturing his left ankle last April, would be eased back into the lineup or serve as their everyday starter at shortstop.

“We expect him to be at shortstop,” said Shelton, who noted the highlight of his offseason was getting daily emails with videos showing Cruz’s progress during workouts in the Dominican Republic. “We expect him to be healthy. The easing-in part comes with how he is in spring training and where he’s at. But we expect him to play, and we expect him to get volume. He’s healthy, he’s moving around and that’s a really encouraging sign for everybody that’s a Pirates fan.”

Finally, a Pirates fan who claimed he hadn’t purchased a ticket in three years, asked Williams why this season should be any different and to list some incentives that would make him return to the ballpark. Williams rattled off reasons ranging from the minor-league system to the stadium enhancements designed to improve fan experience but redirected the question to the team’s most popular player.

“The best thing I can say is, ask Andrew McCutchen why he came back,” Williams said. “We’ve got something really special coming.”

That question was later addressed with McCutchen, who returned on another one-year, $5 million deal in hopes of not only returning to the playoffs with the Pirates but winning a World Series.

“At the end of the day, I look at it like this: You can never satisfy every single person. You can’t. You can be the L.A. Dodgers. But there are still gonna be people within there who are not going to be satisfied,” McCutchen said. “But at the same time, I do think there’s some of that from the fan base. If we can really look and think about the improvements that have been made over the past couple years, you have something where you can be like, ‘OK, they are doing better. They are improving. There is some commitment there. They are signing guys long-term.’ I think there are some positives there. I believe that can help the fan base. The fan base is somewhat excited about that.”

McCutchen was a rookie in 2009, the year the Steelers won the Super Bowl and Penguins won the Stanley Cup, and imagined that “it would be sick” if the Pirates could claim a world championship. He served as the catalyst for three consecutive wild-card teams from 2013-15 but never has advanced past the divisional round of the postseason.

“To be a part of some winning and have that winning culture for a few years was really good. You could really feel the city come together. It really felt like a sports city. That’s there. That’s what the fans want,” McCutchen said. “There have been a lot of fans who have been a part of it, fans who are older who have seen the ’79 and ’71 World Series teams here. They know what that’s like. I truly believe this was a baseball city before it was a hockey or football city. Nothing against the Pens or the Steelers. Great teams. Great franchises. But history has it. I believe that everyone looked at the Pirates at one point. It would be nice for us to be able to build that back up again.”

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