Cincinnati Enquirer Reds beat writers C. Trent Rosecrans and Zack Buchanan recently sat down with Dick Williams, the Reds' president of baseball operations and general manager, to discuss the team's 2017 performance and look ahead to 2018. What follows is an edited version of a nearly one-hour long conversation.

Cincinnati Enquirer: I’m sure you feel that the team has made some strides. But when you look at the record, it’s the exact same as 2016. What are the strides you feel you made this year?

Dick Williams: We were poised to improve on the record, and the last couple of weeks there, a lot of one-run games didn’t go our way. We didn’t finish strong. We lost a bunch there at the end. You went into the last 12-14 games thinking there’s almost no way we’re not going to improve on the record. We let a few get away there at the end that really stung. I think it would have been nice to show the record improvement. But I agree with you, there were a lot of things that did move in the right direction and that we did accomplish this year that we wanted to. You don’t spend a lot of time patting yourself on the back, though, when you finish fifth. You just continue to stay focused on the successes that you had and you try to build off that.

With the young guys, a lot of people said the young guys didn’t step up or the young guys didn’t succeed like we thought the young guys were going to pitch. I think that’s a little unfair because we asked the young guys to accelerate their development. We were putting them in the big leagues before we wanted to. If you look at the amount of Triple-A innings these guys had pitched before they’re being asked to succeed in the big leagues – (Sal) Romano pitched 13 innings in Triple-A before he was starting in the big leagues; (Luis) Castillo didn’t pitch any, Rookie (Davis) had 24 innings; (Amir) Garrett, 67; (Cody) Reed, 64; (Tyler) Mahle, 59 – not a single pitcher even had a third of a season in Triple-A before they were pitching in the big leagues. Those were six of our top prospects, and we’re essentially asking all of them to skip Triple-A, which is the level where you start to face big-league hitters, older guys. That’s something that caught up with those guys a little bit. They were asked to develop in the big leagues. I’m encouraged by the way they did handle the opportunity they were given, the adversity they faced. You began to see some positive signs from those guys as soon as they were able to settle in.

CE: After this past season, how close do you think you guys are compared to 2016 to being the next winning Reds team, and how does that color your offseason plans?

DW: The lesson we’re all collectively learning is the difficulty of putting exact timetables. Some people are coming quicker than we thought and some people are coming slower. It’s really difficult to say when it will all come together. I had a guy run it the other day, we were the fourth-youngest average age for offensive players this year, and we were the youngest team in baseball for pitchers, average age, for the season. It’s mostly prospects that are driving those young ages. That tells me these next couple years, we will have a very good opportunity to grow into that success.

CE: How much can you really count on Homer Bailey, Anthony DeSclafani and Brandon Finnegan?

DW: I feel good about them going into spring training feeling healthy and showing us what they can do. I would hope by the end of spring training -- if they’ve had a normal spring training -- that we can go into the year counting on them for a significant amount of innings. I think you’d be a little more careful with Disco. Homer at least was able to finish on a regular routine. Disco and Finnegan, not so much. It’s hard to project a full season of innings for all three of them. That’s just the nature of the business.

CE: Shortstop. Where do you feel you guys are at that position?

DW: We’ll continue to talk to (free agent) Zack (Cozart) and see if there’s something that can be worked out there. If not, the primary candidate would be (Jose) Peraza. We believe that he showed at the end of ’16 with an extended look that this is a young, athletic, talented player. He’s still one of the youngest guys on our roster. He played shortstop successfully when he was given the time to settle in there. This year, we really asked him to move around a decent amount. I think that made it a little tougher on him than if he settled in at one spot. But we saw some improvement in his approach at the plate. He would be the leading in-house candidate, but that’s something we would talk about in the offseason as well, whether or not we make any sort of additions there to supplement that. He would be the candidate to start.”

CE: So Cozart or Peraza to start and the addition would be a bench guy?

DW: You want to make sure you have two people who can play shortstop on your active roster.

CE: Does that include Eugenio Suarez?

DW: He certainly can play it. I’m talking more about someone who could get regular playing time there. We think of him more as the third baseman and coming over there in an emergency. I don’t doubt that he could go back and play shortstop, but then you’re weakening yourself probably at two positions. I’d prefer to keep him at third.

CE: Do you envision, at least in spring, everyone seems to think it's a foregone conclusion that Nick Senzel will play in the majors at some point next year, which probably isn't crazy, considering how fast he's moving... Do you envision giving NIck Senzel time at second base because it sounds like you'd be hesitant to mess with what is a really good thing at third with Suarez.

DW: I think it's fair to say that with Nick, we need to keep our options open with him because we will eventually want that bat in the lineup, so we need to find out what our options are with him. I think it's most likely second or third, he also can play short, but I wouldn't characterize it as a primary position for him. I'm sure he could play the corners, if needed, if we wanted to go there, as well. But, we don't want to bounce him around too much. I'm a believer that players of that caliber they play one spot, they're going to continue to develop, they're going to get comfortable, they're going to hit -- NIck doesn't need like three months of games in left field to be able to go out there, I think, and go out there and play.

CE: Where do you feel Billy Hamilton is in his development?

DW: I don't think it's too late for Billy to improve offensively. I think he can continue to get better. What was encouraging this year was that he finished -- he got back on the field at the end of the season, he finished the season healthy, he played more games than he has the last couple of years. He continued to show the defense, he hasn't deteriorated there at all. I still think there's the ability that he'll come out and have a better offensive year.

CE: Is he a leadoff hitter for you?

DW: We have to continue to discuss that internally. I value on-base at the top of the order. Billy's struggled at time to provide that on-base percentage you'd like to see. I thought our lineup had a good look to it when a guy like Winker was in there for a little while at the top of the lineup. I also see the value when Billy's disruptive and making things happen early in the game, but overall, I do place a lot of value in on-base at the top of the lineup.

CE: You talked about the pitchers not having a lot of Triple-A time, has Jesse Winker done what he needs to do at Triple-A?

DW: I think so, I think Joey... Jesse's shown that he can hit major-league pitching. I think that's only going to get better with more experience. I was pleased to see the bump in power, I'd always said there was more in there than people assumed. Earlier in his career, he showed power. I thought we'd see more. Plus the offense was up everywhere this year...

CE: Juiced ball and Great American will help

DW: Yeah.Joey... Jesse. I keep saying 'Joey'

CE: Freudian slip?

DW: They're probably the most similar in terms of approach, left-handed hitters with high on-base and I hope Jesse continues to improve like Joey. He needs to continue to improve, Jesse does. I think that'll come with experience. We asked him last offseason to work on his defense, his speed, his routes, it was noticeably improved. It's something he's going to have to continue to improve.

CE: I was going to ask about a different rookie -- what did you learn in your first season?

DW: The value of contingency planning.

CE: What was the difference between what you thought it would be going in and then taking the actual reins and actually running with it?

DW: You know, that's a good question. I don't know how best to answer it -- but you certainly appreciate the importance of the job when you move over and the breadth of the operations. You really start to feel the weight of responsibility of making sure all of these things go smoothly and the importance of relying on your staff and having a good staff to manage things. I don't know.

CE: Do you feel that you're still in the talent accumulation part of the rebuild?

DW: I still feel like most of the improvement for this coming year needs to come from within. We do intend to supplement. We do intend to spend some money, we do intend to bring in some talent from the outside. We're not at the point where the free agents are going to put us over the top.

CE: How was Japan?

DW: A really neat trip, I'm glad I did it. It was a long way to go for a game, but it was the right game to go for, the right time to experience it, to see what could be (Shohei Ohtani's) last performance in front of his fans. When he pitches he doesn't always DH, but he did. He just had a really impressive performance, not just the stuff. But he went, it was a complete-game shutout. I'm really glad I saw it. I spent time with the general manager of the team to talk more generally about the Japanese baseball market, players they may have interest in in the states and vice versa. I just had a good conversation. It was a really neat introduction to that whole scene.

CE: It's not a zero-sum game, it's not just if you get Ohtani, there's a lot of other stuff...

DW: We have a target list of players that played in the Japanese league this year that are coming out, some are Americans that have been abroad that are free agents, some are Japanese players that have been playing or pitching long enough to be free agents. There's a market out there for players that are available. I wasn't over there to scout all those guys, we have scouts doing that, writing reports up. It was neat to see the level of play, the level of competition and get a sense for it.