Derek Shelton’s career record in 709 games as the Pirates’ manager is 294-415. That winning percentage is equal to the amount of losses he’s suffered in those 709 games.
You can give him all the excuses in the world if you want…his general manager can’t acquire good talent…the owner won’t shell out money to acquire good players so he doesn’t have a lot to work with.
All of those are valid excuses but a good manager gets the most out of his talent. The Pirates do have a few talented players and none of them have reached their full potential under the guidance of Shelton.
It’s always the easiest cop out to vouch for the firing of a manager or a GM or a coach because it’s way easier to fire a manager as a fall guy than trade a player away. Nobody is buying Derek Shelton’s jersey but go to any Pirates game and you’ll see plenty of Bryan Reynolds, Paul Skenes, and Andrew McCutchen jerseys.
The more you watch the Pirates, the more you realize the same issues over and over and over again. Fielding errors. Baserunning errors. Mental lapses. Strikeouts. Even on their best stretches of baseball, it just feels like the world is waiting to crumble.
Ultimately, all of this falls on the manager. The manager is supposed to be drilling these fundamentals into players’ heads. If it’s not working, either the players are tuning him out or he simply isn’t very good at his job.
Again, you can argue their talent has lacked over the years. Just take a look at some of the positions and how they’ve had a different player starting on Opening Day at those positions for over half a decade. That’s on the guy acquiring that talent and that’s a whole separate issue.
Cherington and Shelton were hired together heading into the COVID-19 shortened season. They’ve seen a whole lot of nothing in terms of success.
When Shelton was hired, he was taking his first job as a manager. When you’re trying to break into one of those coveted 30 managerial jobs, you can’t be too picky. The Pirates came calling, knew he’d come cheaper because he was a newbie, and picked him to lead the on-field operation.
I was willing to afford him three years before passing any singular judgment because that’s only fair when he’s never handled an MLB team before. He was getting his feet wet in a season that was unlike any other: 60 games, limited resources because of COVID-restrictions, etc.
But we’re now plenty far into this thing and it’s clear to see, especially after the errors and mental lapses in game 1 of 162, maybe Shelton isn’t the guy for the job. And if he is, his team needs to start playing fundamental baseball starting at 7:10 PM on Friday night.
(Pic courtesy of Bumrunter)