Derek Shelton seems fairly unconcerned with the numbers in the win and loss columns.
The Pirates' 2021 season ended with 13,011 people sitting through steady rain, as Pittsburgh lost to the Reds, 6-3, at PNC Park Sunday.
The defeat ended their season with a record of 61-101. Amazingly, the Pirates not only failed to sweep a single series, but also went 0-16 when having a chance to sweep a team.
That said, Shelton, who finished his first 162-game season as Pittsburgh's manager, is purely focused on the upside of his young team.
"I'm really proud of the culture we've created here," he said. "We're moving in the right direction."
Shelton believes that. And he believes it because the Pirates were able to use this season to develop their young players. That showed Sunday, when star prospect Oneil Cruz belted his first career home run over the right field fence.
"We've talked about how the lifeblood of our organization is development," Shelton said. "Cruz, (Max) Kranick, (Nick) Mears, (Rodolfo) Castro, those are positive steps for us. And I'm just naming a few guys. But as we go through it, I think that's something that's really important.
"In doing that, we rally demonstrated some accountability of what being a Pirates baseball player is. We played through 162 games… you've go to finish, you've got to get after it… I'm really proud of our group."
The reality, however, is that the team lost 100-plus games for the third time since PNC Park opened. But the team did improve its winning percentage from the covid-19 shortened 2020 season, and that was due in large part to a solid September.
The Bucs played .500 ball from September 6 until the end of the year, going 12-12.
"We played good baseball at the end of the year," said Shelton. "There were developmental goals or greets, but we did play pretty fundamental baseball."
Now, after building the minor league ranks, Shelton — and general manager Ben Cherington — will try to figure out how to get the Major League club to take a significant step forward, and avoid a fourth straight year of finishing in the basement of the NL Central.
"I wasn't here three years ago, so I can't speak on that. But we knew we were going to change the culture," Shelton said. "It's something we had to do and work toward. As we continue to develop players, we're going to work towards that.
"We're going accentuate that and focus on the positive and focus on things that we need to get better at. I really don't think, at any point, there's any sense in dwelling on the negative."
