Evaluating Derek Shelton Early on In Year Two
When Derek Shelton was hired as the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in November of 2019, it was the culmination of a 15-year long journey in Major League Baseball. However, things didn't go exactly as planned, as Shelton had to manage in front of no fans while navigating a shortened 60-game season. 2021 is nowhere and things are beginning to get back to normal both for Shelton and the Pirates. With a full Spring Training under their belts, the pitchers are stretched out and ready to go, and we are beginning to see Shelton's managing style. There have been some good and some bad throughout his year-plus on the job, but like the young Pirates team, he is also a young manager still learning what it takes to be able to manage at the Big League level.
Now, it would be easy to sit back and judge Shelton solely based on wins and losses to this point. In his first 56 games as Pirates Manager, he has gone 26-50 with a team of young, raw-talented players. However, a deeper look into his in-game decisions will give you a picture of what he has done well and what he needs to improve on. Now, every Manager across MLB has made questionable decisions already this season, but it is how many times you make the right decision that really counts. I personally like Shelton a lot and think he is a guy who can stick around throughout this rebuild. But today, we will dive into his decision-making around all three aspects of the game and determine whether or not he is doing a good job as manager for the Pirates.
Handling The Pitching Staff
One thing I have noticed with Shelton is he is very strict on pitch counts and being cautious with his starters. Last season, Shelton's starting pitchers averaged just 4.0 innings a start, and I thought it might have been because he was evaluating talent. But once again in 2021, his pitchers aren't going really deep into games. JT Brubaker is the only pitcher to get through six full innings of work, and he and Tyler Anderson are the only ones to consistently work five innings. Part of this is due to ineffectiveness, but once their pitch counts start getting near 80, Shelton starts to get the bullpen ready. Even in going six innings last time out, Brubaker was pulled after 83 pitches in a close 2-1 game. As the season goes on, we will see if Shelton lets a pitcher get near the 100 pitch mark, but up until this point, he hasn't had a starter go that long yet.
The other interesting thing with Shelton is how he has used his pitchers on the offensive side of the ball. He has worked in the American League almost his entire Major League career, so he never had to worry about the pitcher batting. Now that he does, he has handled it in a couple of different ways. No matter what the score is, it seems that Shelton lets his pitcher have at least one at-bat. This was evident the other day when Mitch Keller got shelled for seven runs against the Padres but still came to bat with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the second. However, after that most of his pitchers haven't made it to second at-bats, aside from Anderson and Brubaker. As starters begin to go deeper into ballgames, we will begin to see more and more how Shelton's strategy with pinch hitters plays out.
Consistency in the Lineup
One of the biggest differences between Clint Hurdle and Derek Shelton that I have seen so far has come with lineup construction. Hurdle was a big believer in switching things up, and routinely rolled out a different lineup night in and night out. However, with Shelton, it seems like his lineups tend to be more consistent, with just a few tweaks here and there. He will give starters days off during the week, but we never see a full-blown Sunday lineup like we sometimes did with Hurdle. While I'm not against the rotating lineup, the consistent reps have seemed to help this young offense hit their stride in the early going. On any given night, you could take a pretty good guess as to who the starting nine will be for Shelton. However, what he isn't afraid to do is to flip a player's spot in the order if they are struggling.
These are the biggest changes we have seen to Shelton's lineups throughout his first-year plus. Just this year alone, Jacob Stallings has hit seventh, sixth, and fifth already depending on the other guys in the lineup. Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman have also been flip-floppers between the leadoff spot and the sixth spot in the batting order. This shows that Shelton really gets to know his players and can see tendencies that warrant where they should be in his order. The only big lineup changes he makes are platooning players or guys competing for spots. We have seen it this year with Anthony Alford and Dustin Fowler in center field, but recently Fowler is starting to win a majority of those at-bats. It will be interesting to see how the lineup looks when Ke'Bryan Hayes returns, but the consistency that Shelton is showing has seemingly worked for this young Pirates team.
Bold Moves on Defense
One thing that I really like from Shelton, is he is not afraid to be bold on the defensive side of the ball. We saw this last year with Cole Tucker when he moved him to the outfield to address an area of need on his ball club. It was a position that Tucker had never played before and thanks to the willingness of Tucker to move, and Shelton's confidence to put him there he was able to get some playing time last season. Tucker played both right field and center field last season, and although he wasn't the smoothest fielder in the world, he was able to hold down the fort for the Pirates. He did not commit an error but had an outs above average of -2 in his 36 games played last season.
We have seen him start to make similar moves with younger players who will be a part of the future of this team as well. Oneil Cruz got reps in both center field and right field this spring, and Rodolfo Castro got moved all over the infield. It seems that Shelton likes versatility in his players, and that becomes more vital with a smaller bench of players available. With so few options to choose from, you have to be able to throw them out there in spots that you know they will succeed. The more spots a player can field, the more likely he will stay on the roster. It had worked for guys like Adam Frazier and Josh Harrison, and Shelton is looking for the next generation of guys to be super utility options. Overall, I think Shelton has done well with what he has to work with. However, only time will tell as he and the team grow together whether or not he is a manager that can bring a World Series back to Pittsburgh.
Shelton and the Pittsburgh Pirates (7-9) kick off their first Interleague series of the year tomorrow when they take on the Detroit Tigers (6-10) in a doubleheader starting at 2:10 pm. The Pirates have not yet named their starter for game one as he takes on Michael Fulmer (1-0, 3.00) for the Tigers. You can watch the game on AT&T Sportsnet, listen on 93.7 The Fan, or follow along with us on Twitter at @Buccos_Cove.
Playing Tucker exclusively in the OF last without so much as 1 inning at SS was incredibly stupid. It was a season to look at what he had and Shelton totally mismanaged it. There was never any reason to believe Tucker could hit well enough to hold down an OF position. But it needed to be seen if his defense at SS was good enough to tolerate a weak bat. But he never played SS and tried to learn an OF position his hitting would never allow him to play. Meanwhile Shelton had a very versatile player in Gonzalez. But instead of taking advantage of his versatility to keep him in the lineup to evaluate his hitting, Shelton moved Newman to 2B and Frazier to LF creating a situation where 2 players were out of position so his versatile player only had to play SS.
ReplyDeleteHaving Keller bat with base loaded and 1 out down 6-1 when Keller had just pitched 2 atrocious innings and was not long for the game anyway was lunacy. Keller didn't even last another 2 innings but you praise him for making sure his pitcher got an AB? Wow, that was great managing.
The reason we don't see the old "Sunday lineups" is because the bench is too small for that. Alford/Fowler platoon anyway and Gonzalez plays a lot as a utility guy. Perez will start a day game on Sunday after a night game so Difo is the only guy who wouldn't ordinarily start. But the problem with a 4 man bench is that the starting pitchers don't go long and have to be batted for early. That uses up 1 of the 4 on the bench by the 5th inning. Perez needs to be held back in case Stallings gets hurt. Which limits Shelton to very few moves. And the 9-man bullpen with only 1 LHP also makes it easy to out manage the Pirates. IMHO Shelton had done nothing to suggest he is a competent manager.