Is Derek Shelton going to drive us crazy all season?
Or: is the bullpen just a trash heap that would make any manager's decisions look bad?
We will make no snap judgments based on Derek Shelton’s first six games and should remember the following:
In this season, truly nothing matters. (If the Pirates somehow win the World Series then yes, it’s a legitimate title and if you think about actually more impressive than doing it over a normal 162-game schedule because of all the extenuating circumstances. But otherwise it’s just a fake season that never should have started in the first place.)
None of us would likely want to be judged on our performance the first week at a new job.
A manager’s job isn’t limited to the lineup he writes up or the decisions he makes during the game. Leadership matters, character matters, culture matters. Talent matters a lot more, but I don’t think it’s regressive to think that you don’t want Deep Blue the Baseball Manager, and that’s especially true during a season when player’s are literally putting their lives on the line by playing. Clint Hurdle obviously lost his touch (and then some, and then a little more) by the end of his Pirates tenure, but to deny he had admirable leadership qualities that contributed to the Pirates success would be silly.
A manager is working with way more information than we have. Like, as we were all pleading for Clay Holmes to enter the game on Monday (what a cursed sentence right there), Shelton knew he was unavailable and would hit the IL the next day.
Okay, so all of those caveats apply. With that out of the way… the great novelty of the 60-game season is that we’re two months from the end of the season and everyone is on a level playing field. So you may as well make the effort to win every game that you’re in a position to win. Don’t want to pitch Nick Burdi aka Peak Craig Kimbrel Reincarnated on back to back days since he’s recovering from a major injury? Fully support that decision. But let’s look at some other decisions Shelton made during this series against the Brewers.
Monday
He let Chad Kuhl throw 3.2 innings in his return to the mound after two years, post-Tommy John surgery. Kuhl was rolling, the slider was snapping, all good.
MLB Wild Swing Alert: Ryan Braun vs. Chad Kuhl 3.624 feet from center of the zone. #1 wildest swing so far this year. @KuhlWhhip_11 @Pirates #mlb #baseballChris Stratton comes in with 2 outs in the 6th, after consecutive Kuhl Ks, and throws 3 pitches, doesn’t even need to record an out because Jacob Stallings guns down Christian Yelich (who managed to get on base somehow?) at 2nd base. Rather than leave Stratton in, Shelton turns to lefty Nik Turley in a 1-0 game in the 7th inning. Turley proceeds to give up a double, a lineout, a groundout and a walk to put runners on the corners with two down, and righties Lorenzo Cain and Keston Hiura due up. Shelton stick with Turley, Cain somewhat predictably ties the game off the lefty making his second appearance since 2017. Head scratcher here.
Bottom of the 7th, Pirates up 2-1, bases loaded, 2 out. Lefty Alex Claudio is on the mound and must face at least one more batter and lefty Jarrod Dyson steps in. Seems like a opportune time to pinch-hit everyone’s new favorite Pirate, “Phillip Evans.” But Shelton sticks with Dyson and it pays off, Pirates take a 4-1 lead, then stretch it to 5-1. Dyson is a “veteran leader” so maybe Shelton doesn’t want to pinch-hit for him with a guy we’re still not totally sure exists. Okay, we’ll accept it.
So we get to the 9th inning. Michael Feliz comes on to close it out, with a 4-run lead. Nobody who’s watched any amount of Bucs baseball the past couple years feels safe. Unsurprisingly, Feliz labors greatly, getting his pitch count up to 29 before being pulled with 2 runs in and runners on 2nd and 3rd. This is where Shelton goes to Kyle Crick. Given what we now know about Holmes, given that Burdi and J.T. Brubaker were unavailable, Richard Rodriguez was already used, and given that nobody else in the bullpen should be on a major league roster, it’s a no-win situation. Which is what it literally became when Crick gave up the tying hit to Ryan Braun. I don’t think Shelton handled this one well, but with Holmes unavailable it’s hard to be too upset in retrospect. (This is all moot if Josh Bell is capable of throwing a baseball, but more on that later.)
Bottom of the 10th, Pirates with a chance to walk it off after Dovydas Neverauskas miraculously strands the gimme runner on second. With Dyson leading off, Shelton opts for the bunt. Like most sane people I’m pretty strongly anti-bunt, but runner on 2nd, nobody out, need 1 run to win, Jarrod Dyson at the plate… I’d probably bunt in that situation myself, despite the limited advantage it gives you. Dyson failed, Pirates don’t score and lose next inning. An incredibly frustrating loss. Good thing nothing matters.
Tuesday
Shelton puts out a lineup with a 6 through 9 of: “Phillip Evans,” Guillermo Heredia, Cole Tucker, John Ryan Murphy. Sweet Fancy Moses. It’s ugly, but clearly Shelton wants to keep everyone active early on, make sure everyone is getting their at bats. We’ll let this one slide.
It’s 2-2 in the 7th, the Brewers scoring on Keston Hiura’s daily home run against the Pirates and the Bucs scoring on [checks notes] a two-run single from Guillermo Heredia? That’s what it says here, I dunno. Chris Stratton walks the first two batters of the inning, so Shelton pulls him in favor of something called Miguel del Pozo.
One time a few years ago I tried to pitch in the 30-and-over league I play in. I hadn’t pitched in about 20 years, I looked good in warmups, but proceeded to walk 4 straight batters and maybe sniffed the strike zone on 3 pitches. I pulled a proto-del Pozo, it turns out. Although the one pitch that Miggy did groove into the zone was hit 105mph off the top of the right field wall by Orlando Arcia. No matter your bullpen woes or injuries, there was no excuse for bringing in a proven bum who was recalled from Altoona a few hours earlier. Just a baffling decision. Of course it all worked out in the end, because baseball is beautiful and chaotic in that way.
Wednesday
Two straight nights without Jose Osuna in the lineup might raise an eyebrow or two, but it’s hard to deny the hot hand of “Phillip Evans.”
Robbie Erlin striking out Yelich (okay, no great feat this week apparently) and Hiura with a runner on third was impressive and just made it all the more bizarre that Shelton went to del Pozo over him on Tuesday.
The 4 outfielder, extreme shift on Justin Smoak shows that he’s willing to entertain new ideas based on the data. Not that special anymore, more standard than anything.
You will not find a more pathetic offensive performance than the one the Bucs put forth Wednesday, a single dribbler by “Phillip Evans” as the only hit. Manager moves as irrelevant as they get when that’s the case.
Two absolute bullpen meltdowns on back to back nights are a good recipe to get angry at a manager, particularly an NL manager nowadays since handling a bullpen is really the only in-game strategy that’s left. I’m tempted to give him a pass for Monday’s disastrous 9th, but can’t excuse the Miguel del Pozo disaster from Tuesday. It actually made me wonder if he was trying to tank, the decision was that ludicrous. Hurdle’s bullpen management and stubborn devotion to set roles became one of the most frustrating aspects of his tenure. If that’s all we’re going to be able to judge Shelton on this year… please don’t drive us all insane, Derek?
The Bad
Gregory Polanco can’t get around on anything. It’s depressing. I guess he’s working his way back from his usual assortment of injuries plus COVID, but it’s just depressing to see him struggling like this as the final remnant of the Dream Outfield. He’s not alone in looking awful, of course. During Tuesday’s broadcast, Bob Walk was lamenting that the Pirates weren’t doing much with fastballs in the heart of the strike zone. Well yeah, it was “Phillip Evans,” Guillermo Heredia and Cole Tucker. Not much is going to happen.
There are times when Josh Bell is a dominant power hitter who can carry an offense on his back for an extended period. Then there’s the rest of the time, where he looks clueless in the batter’s box -- happy feet, lunging -- and alarmingly incompetent in the field. His throwing woes at first base are well-documented and they cost the Pirates a win on Monday. Christian Yelich’s bases loaded grounder to Bell in the 9th inning should have been a 3-6-3 or 3-6-1 double play. Or even a 3-6 force-out to keep the tying run out of scoring position. But Bell was gunshy, because he cannot confidently throw a baseball 90 feet with any accuracy (a reasonable skill for a major league infielder to have), so he ran to first to get the sure out. We know what happened after that. The DH is here. It is meant for people like Bell. I mean just put Colin Moran at first he...
Shit man.