Growth and culture keys in Cherington’s evaluation

When the regular season ends — and potentially as it winds down — Ben Cherington and his staff will begin a formal evaluation process. With a team on pace to lose 100-plus games, it probably seems to some that Cherington should get a bunch of red pens, scribble some nasty words about manager Derek Shelton and his coaching staff and call it a day.

That isn’t likely to happen, although there will obviously be areas where the group can improve heading into 2022.

How the Pirates evaluate Shelton has seemingly been a question on the minds of fans for much of this season, perhaps because of how frequently he’s played Gregory Polanco, how he’s shown a quick hook with pitchers or, more simply, a significant number of losses since he started.

Describing this evaluation process, Cherington unsurprisingly did not list those three items — Polanco, pitching and the losses — as key bullet points. Instead, game preparation, execution and player improvement were three areas Cherington described, and he said it’s often a combination of qualitative and quantitative information forming those evaluations.

“I think it’s the way we’re preparing for games, the way we’re executing during games, how we’re learning from the games and bringing that into the next game,” Cherington said. “I understand some of that is easier to see for me or others than it might be publicly.

“We talk about [the clubhouse culture]. We talk about what it means to be player centered. We talk about our coaching process, what we want that to look like and what feedback we’re getting from players. … things we believe bring us closer to winning more often.”

From the sound of his comments during a Zoom call with local reporters on Friday, Cherington has been pleased with the work of Shelton and his staff, despite the Pirates’ 47-81 record going into the second of a four-game series against the Cardinals.

A big part that has resonated with Cherington includes how the Pirates are getting ready for games and the amount of thought they put into what they’re doing. He’s also been encouraged by how the group has practiced, both in terms of devising plans and the results of them.

It’s also true — and Cherington seemed to acknowledge this — that nobody on the outside cares. They pay for their tickets or merchandise, and they want to see the Pirates play better baseball and win games, not have success watching video, taking batting practice or sitting at their lockers studying snazzy scouting reports.

The reality is that there’s a balance here. The Pirates — specifically Shelton and his staff — need to focus on doing these things right because they don’t have a large margin for error. No small-market team does.

Things like the Pirates committing an MLB-low 36 errors since May 9, Kevin Newman doing a 180 with his glove or David Bednar blossoming into a back-end reliever, that sort of stuff has to happen. Tenfold, really. The Pirates also have to have some pitchers surprise — in a good way — and have guys at Class AAA challenging for time.

Those things have not, and the Pirates have paid the price, their depth thinned out and the losses creating a frustrating season. But given where the Pirates are — young, inexperienced and hoping to be a lot better by 2023 — they would be equally as foolish to overlook this sort of stuff.

“This group thinks about practice all the time,” Cherington said. “It continues to think about and work on ways we can get better with our practice, whether it relates to the connection or the relationships with players themselves and how they can build that trust so that we can get an extra 15 to 20 percent out of each player.

“Love the passion and intention that the group brings to those activities every day.”

Another reality here, in addition to results that are lacking, is the fact that there are still 34 games left to play. The Pirates had won three of four and five of seven before Friday’s game, and they also don’t have a terribly difficult schedule down the stretch.

They still have series against the Cubs (two), Tigers, Nationals and Marlins, four teams that are a combined 63 games under .500. Should the Pirates get some of the same starting pitching they have had of late — that group had been charged with two or fewer earned runs in nine of 12 before Friday — they could make some hay.