Derek Shelton’s Pirates managerial record is 142-242.
That’s…not good. In fact, it’s historically bad.
BUT calling him a bad manager because of that, to me, is unfair.
Since coming to the Pirates before the 2020 season (one that was of course ravaged by Covid), Shelton has been handed some of the worst rosters in baseball. If not THE worst. Like Guillermo Heredia as your Opening Day right fielder, followed by Anthony Alford as your Opening Day center fielder, bad.
In reality, it was what the Pirates needed to do. They had been stuck in neutral and slowing back sliding in Clint Hurdle’s final seasons in Pittsburgh and the bottom needed to fall out before we could look up again. Derek Shelton just so happened to be the man pegged to lead this crew while it did the bottoming out.
The Pirates rightfully sold off just about every tradable asset from Starling Marte to Josh Bell to Jameson Taillon to Joe Musgrove to Adam Frazier. That’s a credit to GM Ben Cherington who has carried out a clear plan for the beginning: suck now, build for later.
The organization has been praised along the way by baseball writers and analysts for, yes, at least some of their trades, but definitely for their draft classes. The class of 2021 led by Henry Davis at No.1 overall followed by Anthony Solometo, Lonnie White Jr. and Bubba Chandler, was widely regarded as a job well done by Cherington and company.
So this is all to say that the Pirates have done their due diligence to tank. Now it’s time to start rising from the depths.
This might be the first time that Shelton has been given a roster that resembles a Major League team throughout.
Every position on the field has a guy who’s gotten at least 100 games of experience at the big league level. A lot of those starters have what I call “popability.”
Andrew McCutchen, while not his former MVP version, can still hit 20 HR’s. Bryan Reynolds, assuming he sticks around and isn’t traded, can hit 25. Jack Suwinski hit 19 last year while batting just .202 in 106 games. Rodolfo Castro hit 11 HR’s in 71 games. Ke’Bryan Hayes…let’s assume playing through injury limited his pop last year…maybe gets you 15 HR’s? Same with Carlos Santana and Ji-Man Choi. And Oneil Cruz…the sky is the limit with that guy. 30? 35? 40? Who knows. Popability isn’t what a lineup is all about, but it’s a start in today’s homer happy game.
The pitching rotation has Mitch Keller, who I’m still not sold on, but did finish the season strong last year. A wily veteran in Rich Hill who still averaged almost 8 strikeouts per 9 innings last year at age 42. And then exciting young arms like Roansy Contreras, Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo. Plus, there’s Pittsburgher David Bednar there to close games.
It doesn’t look like a playoff team. It might not even be a winning team. But it’s at least a more respectable roster and with that, the true evaluation clock should start ticking for Derek Shelton.
The Pirates should not be worse than their 62-100 finish last season. They just shouldn’t. They’re a better team than last year’s outfit.
The win total should be going up. By how much? That’s the question. It’s still tough to talk win totals with this team, but my expectation is 70 wins. It’s not lofty, but I think Shelton should be able to manage his way out of a 60-something win season.
If he doesn’t, it’ll be a disappointment. It’s the first time that I’ve come into any season with him at the helm with anything representing “expectations” for his team. Of course, 70 wins doesn’t win you anything. The bigger picture is that young players continue to develop, we see some new prospects come up and make an impact and there’s improvement across the board.
Things should be moving in the right direction at this point. With a more respectable roster comes the ability for more fair evaluation of a manager’s work.
Fewer than 70 wins? I start to have my doubts. 70 wins? That’s an 8-game improvement, I’ll take it. 75 wins or more? As my friend Joe Starkey would say, incrinculent!