GOODYEAR, Ariz. – As spring training wound to a close, The Athletic sat down with Reds General Manager Dick Williams, who is embarking on his second full season as the primary decision-maker for the team.

Williams was named general manager after the 2015 season, but Walt Jocketty was still the primary decision-maker in 2016 before handing over the reins to Williams amid the team's massive rebuild from appearing in the playoffs three-out-of-four years to drafting second overall in back-to-back years.

C. Trent Rosecrans: You've been pretty upfront about the rebuilding process since you've taken over. Where do you see yourselves in the process right now?

Dick Williams: I think we're very much in the building phase, we've done a lot of what we'd hoped to do over the last two years. We have had very good, very productive drafts in 2016 and 2017 that we think will benefit the club in the near future. We had a very impactful international signing period. We completed the trade for (Luis) Castillo. We've been aggressive on waiver claims, like (Scooter) Gennett. But most recently and most importantly, we've started the process of extending some of the guys that are going to be our core players, like Tucker (Barnhart) and Geno (Suárez).

CTR: You say you're in the building phase, so what constitutes success in 2018?

Williams: Getting better – we have to get better. We have to have guys we've been counting on produce in the major leagues, we need to see them produce and that's what I'm anticipating, that's what will put us in a really good position moving forward.

CTR: I assume much of that falls on the pitching…

Williams: Yeah. There's a lot of young pitchers with opportunities. We have a lot of position players that have room to improve from the last few years. Other than Joey, there weren't a lot of people at that level, so there are a lot of people around the diamond who have room to continue to get better.

CTR: Last year, Tim Adleman and Scott Feldman led you in innings pitched and those guys aren't here still…

Williams: Not even guys that are pitching in the major leagues right now. You can't succeed without quality and quantity from your starting rotation. We need to start to see that this year from some of the guys we've identified as major-league starting pitching candidates.

CTR: When you look at the successful rebuilds, the Astros and the Cubs, it seems like pitching has been imported more than developed. Can you develop enough pitching to become that elite team?

Williams: We believe you can get significant contributions out of homegrown pitching, but we have to do it. We think this group that is going to have a chance to impact us this year can do it. No matter how well they do, it may still be an area that you supplement from the outside. But, we're committed to giving these guys the opportunity to grab it first before we go out and spend the money.

CTR: You'd talked at the end of last year about maybe supplementing, getting another starter. What changed between then and the beginning of this season?

Williams: I think we liked what we saw in the second half of last year from the young starting pitchers – Sal (Romano), Tyler (Mahle), Robert (Stephenson), Luis (Castillo) – the way they were pitching gave us confidence that those guys were going to be contributors. We had every reason to believe (Anthony DeSclafani) would be back healthy and (Homer) Bailey was going to be back healthy. On top of it, (Cody) Reed and (Amir) Garrett, we were hoping would continue to trend in a positive direction, which they very much have. So those factors led us to believe that the money was better spent in the bullpen.

We talked about where we are in the rebuild process. I think the last bit of the rebuild for a small-market team is when you go out and make the big financial commitments. We want to be really sure what the holes are before we make those commitments. The Cubs have guaranteed over $600 million in the last three offseasons together, which is significantly more than the rest of our division combined. Once they saw where they were in their window and once they got to that point, they started to commit that kind of money. I think this year will tell us a lot where we can spend in the coming years. I anticipate having payroll flexibility to spend.

CTR: There seems to be that “prove it” year that you're on the right track before jumping in. You saw it with the Brewers, who jumped in in the offseason, the Cubs did it with Lester. Are you looking for that before making that jump?

Williams: I think for each one of these guys, it's a chance to prove it. A lot of these guys have chips on their shoulders and need to show what they can do.

CTR: Were you tempted when you saw the free agent market as it was, it seemed like it was a Ross or a Marshalls with all the discounts?

Williams: We were monitoring the market closely to see if we could find the right fit. A lot of the veterans took one-year deals so they can go right back out. We weren't looking for that. We were looking for the opportunity to lock up good, young talent for multiple years at good prices. Those deals weren't necessarily there. Some of the guys that signed, we still had significant enough question marks that we felt like it was more important to give our guys the opportunities to pitch.

CTR: It seems you aren't the most attractive market for pitchers looking for one-year deals…

Williams: Yeah, I think, at the end of the day, most veteran pitchers know what they're getting into in our park. The guys we did sign, like (Jared) Hughes and (David) Hernandez, were not afraid to come here. We liked that about them. That is important. We do want guys who welcome the challenge of pitching in our park.

CTR: You have invested in the infrastructure in the last year, two years, in the baseball operations.

Williams: We consciously made a decision to invest whatever was needed to put us in the best chance to succeed operationally. We had to reallocate money out of major-league payroll for a period of time, but it allowed us to do things, to grow player development, grow our sports science and analytics. It allowed us to sign a lot of amateur talent and this year, significantly, it's going to allow us to add another minor-league affiliate in the Appalachian League, which is not an insignificant expense and should have material benefit to our player development. We have continued to reallocate money to where we feel it can help us in the future, building that infrastructure. I think that's a very prudent, patient way to go about preparing ourselves for this next window of success because it's giving us the best chance.

CTR: You mention sports science. Is there something when you look at the last couple of years, you've repeatedly had some of the same injuries, especially with pitchers – lat, teres major or minor, elbows – there has been a spate of pitching injuries. It was only four or five years ago that you had five guys make 161 starts, but is there something that you investigate, see if there's common threads?

Williams: Yes, we're constantly trying to identify the causes of injuries and how to prevent them and recover from them most quickly. You look around the game and just in the last week, you see how many pitchers have gone down with forearm strains and shoulders and UCLs. We're not an outlier in terms of that experience. When you're a small-market team, relying on a group of players without having the cash to buy backups, sometimes it feels a little more painful because of the impact that it can have on your strategy.

CTR: When you look at the draft, you've had some impact guys – we saw Nick Senzel. You have to be optimistic with what you've seen. What do you see in his future?

Williams: I see him having a very successful big-league career and being a positive impact on the field and off the field. I think what has struck everyone who has been around him is just all the intangibles he brings in addition to the ability to play. This guy hasn't had an at-bat above Double-A, he does need to get experience, he needs to see different types of pitching. He needs to continue to gain confidence. We've also asked him to play second base more, which is a position he hasn't played professionally yet. We've laid out a few challenges for him to go tackle at Triple-A. I have a high degree of confidence that he'll be able to meet those challenges.

CTR: It seems similar to Todd Frazier, where you let him play and let him fit in where he's needed position-wise. Is Nick in that same situation?

Williams: There are some guys that you have to be careful about moving them around to different positions. I think Todd and Nick handle that very well. They take it in a positive way, the challenge of trying to be accomplished at a new position. Nick has dove in eagerly each time we've asked him to do something. He's also asking for those challenges. It's a great thing and it's going to provide us with the ability to sort of, when he does come, we'll have some flexibility to as how he can best impact us.

CTR: Can he play shortstop?

Williams: Well, I think Nick can do just about anything he puts his mind to. In that time period he showed tremendous improvement and he showed you that he was the type of player you could put at short. Will he be our best option to be an everyday major-league shortstop in a year or two? That's hard to predict. We want to be the very best at every spot on the diamond. We want to make sure that wherever we do put him, he's a plus attribute. Shortstop is a challenge, but he showed in a short period of time a lot of improvement. When we had him there in games, I didn't feel that it was a weakness.

CTR: As we finish up spring, were there any pleasant surprises, something you weren't expecting?

Williams: I was pretty pleasantly surprised by the quality of the pitching from the guys that we need to see – a lot of strikeouts, did a good job of cutting down on walks. A lot of relievers had good innings. I was very pleasantly surprised there and you had to take notice – when I checked a few days ago, if you take our everyday 10 (which are the eight position players plus the backup catcher and the fourth outfielder), I'm pretty sure seven of them had OPS above .800 or .850.

CTR: And one of them was not Joey (Votto)…

Williams: I think of the three that weren't, Peraza was .750, which is still fine and Joey and Billy (Hamilton) were a little lower. So, you know, you had to be pleasantly surprised that everybody was feeling comfortable at the plate and you just hope that momentum carries over into the regular season.

(Top image: Reds General Manager Dick Williams by Sam Greene/Cincinnati Enquirer via USA TODAY NETWORK)