Manager knows only inevitable for Pirates is more change
Chances are Derek Shelton does not have pictures of Plato or Aristotle hanging inside his office at PNC Park, though his first season as Pirates manager can be appropriately described by another Greek philosopher.
After all, it was Heraclitus — and countless after him — who championed the idea that the only constant in life is change. In Shelton’s case, Heraclitus probably should have had a few fourletter words, too.
“I kind of figured this is just how it is,” Shelton quipped Tuesday afternoon on his winter meetings Zoom call.
What Shelton has experienced, between COVID-19, injuries and rule changes, created a long and strange first season, one screaming for some sort of vaccine. The craziness has shown no signs of abating, either.
Just take a look at the timeline here:
• March 2020: Spring training shut down. Not only that, Shelton’s Pirates — missing Jameson Taillon and with Starling Marte traded — won just 3 of 21 exhibition games in Florida.
• June 2020: Chris Archer, the Pirates’ highest-paid player and a pitcher expected to bounce back to anchor their starting rotation, is lost for the season.
• July 2020: Shelton and his staff hold summer camp/spring training 2.0 while navigating a laundry list of coronavirus protocols.
• Their best reliever, Keone Kela, pitches just three times
because of a strange bout with COVID-19 and another elbowinjury. The back end of the bullpen — a supposed strength — is decimated by injuries/Edgar Santana’s suspension.
• Bryan Reynolds, Kevin Newman and Josh Bell endure long slumps and see their collective WAR drop 10.1 from 2019 to 2020. Gregory Polanco stinks. Their .641 team OPS, down 100 points, ranks dead last.
• Of the 37 players on the Pirates 2020 opening-day active roster and injured list, 15 are no longer on their 40-man roster.
• After going 19-41, Shelton and Co. must plan for 2021 without knowing whether the designated hitter will remain in the National League, when spring training will start or how long the upcoming season will be.
• As for who will play for the Pirates in 2021, good luck; general manager Ben Cherington is listening on everyone and likely will make several moves to transform the team’s roster.
“I think what this has taught me,” Shelton said of 2020, “is to not have anything etched in stone.”
It also has taught Shelton to stay vigilant when combating the spread of COVID19. In his comments Wednesday, he referenced his kids obsessively washing their hands despite not leaving the house and wearing masks at home.
That was the product of protocols the Pirates adjusted roughly every two days, Shelton said, with baseball becoming the first sport to stage a non-bubble season.
“We changed all the time,” Shelton said. “Because of it, I think we learned a lot, and we’re going to be better prepared for 2021.”
The question swirling around baseball is when exactly that will be.
Owners seem to want to delay the season in order to hold spring training safely. Players would get vaccines before reporting, while teams could hold games with fans, a necessary financial boost after so much lost gate revenue in 2020.
The players, meanwhile, don’t want to lose more pay after making a fraction of what they normally would during a 60-game season. The MLB Players Association has said it’s fine delaying the start, but fewer than 162 games is a nonstarter.
All of that leaves Shelton and his staff in an interesting position, the same as it would for anyone who doesn’t know exactly when the busiest part of their job might start, though the skipper doesn’t seem to be sweating it.
“I don’t like to live in speculation, and we live in a lot of speculation with the way the world is right now,” Shelton said. “General frameworks are really good. Conversations are really good.
“They give us opportunities to work though multiple scenarios, then as we get closer, we try to put those in place.”
Shelton’s first season also featured multiple rule changes: A three-batter minimum for relieving pitchers. The DH. An extra-innings rule when a runner started the 10th inning at second base. Seven-inning doubleheaders.
Shelton was skeptical at first but warmed to the changes. The doubleheaders rocked, he said. The DH was old hat from his time in the American League, and there’s one small change he would like to see made to extra innings.
“The 10th inning should be played straight up,” Shelton said. “After that, if they want to do something else, I’m all for that. ... The three-batter thing, I would get rid of it. I’m not a fan. I’m a big proponent of the seven-inning doubleheader moving forward. Health-wise for pitchers, I would definitely keep that.”
That brings us to the present and future portion of Mr. Shelton’s ride, as the Pirates must decide how to deploy their pitchers?
Figure in normal times, guys aren’t asked to make much more than a 20% jump in innings year-overyear. Forget that now. Even the innings leader among all MLB pitchers, Lance Lynn with the Rangers, logged just 84 over 13 starts.
Shelton said Wednesday that everything was on the table, a comment that could theoretically introduce a six- or seven-man rotation; piggybacking starts, with each pitcher shooting for three or four innings; or even sporadic shutdowns/ periods of extended rest.
Also remember that the Pirates have two starting pitchers coming off of Tommy John surgery (Jameson Taillon and Chad Kuhl), plus another who has battled shoulder trouble the past two seasons (Steven Brault) and a fourth (Mitch Keller) who has just 69⅔ career innings at this level.
“To eliminate anything, we can’t do that right now,” Shelton said. “It’s way too early. Honestly, we’re planning on playing 162 games.”