DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Shelton keeps it classy

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Shelton keeps it classy

[Music] [Applause] Credit where due, Derek Shelton could have made quite the scene yesterday in Minneapolis. He did precisely the opposite. Good morning to you. Good Wednesday morning. I’m Dan Kawachovich with DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you’re into football andor hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. Shelton was introduced as the Twins 15th manager in the press conference at Target Field. got to admit I I watched the video of the entire thing and not just to see if he would eventually say something about Pittsburgh or what happened here and he did and I’ll get to that in a moment but just to see how he’d carry himself with some of the similar type questions at a similar point in his tenure meaning he just started there and how he’d respond to things about rebuilding because the twins I mean you talk about gutting a roster. I don’t know that anybody’s ever topped what the Twins just did. A lot of it sounded familiar and a lot of it, I’m going to be honest with you, I kind of felt bad for some of the reporters in the room because they’re asking stuff and this is totally understandable that anybody who’d been here for any amount of time, whether it’s covering this team or just being around this team, the Pirates, would have been able to just jump in and say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. this is not your guy for fundamentals, okay? This isn’t the one, but go right ahead and ask him that anyway. Now, he fielded that and other stuff predictably well. You can recall that he could handle himself on a podium or in a dugout facing reporters day after day after day. In fact, I’m of the belief that the reason that Minnesota management would hire someone who just went through what Shelton went through is that he did that. Meaning, he handled himself well. He didn’t lose it. He didn’t freak out. He didn’t start blaming people. He didn’t throw over the food table. More often than not, unless an umpire had done something to offend him regarding clock management of all curiosities, and that actually was a trend, he just kind of sailed through it all just like he did when the Minneapolis reporter asked what happened in Pittsburgh. Yeah, I think the fact that we went through a really tough time. I mean, we had lost some games in a row and I think when all teams go through that there probably needs to be a change and it was probably the right time. It was the right direction. I think anytime someone steps into a new role, it’s because things didn’t go the way that organization wanted it to go. So, completely understand that, completely respect that. Still have a lot of, you know, really close relationships there, but at times, you know, things in certain places run their course. And I was very fortunate for my time in Pittsburgh, the things I learned in Pittsburgh, but it was a situation where they probably needed a different leader. Okay, now that’s not accurate. And he has to know that it’s not that they went through a tough time. It’s not that they struggled for a stretch and needed to make somebody a scapegoat. If that’s the case, he and Ben Cherington would have been long gone before this firing occurred in May. There was a ton more to it. Now, he’s not going to talk about obviously the reasons that the pirates wanted to fire him because wow, that would be one heck of a way to introduce yourself to the Twin Cities. And he’s not going to rip anybody who was responsible for that here. He just wasn’t. and there wasn’t going to be anything to gain. I can still feel comfortable in tipping my symbolic cap in his direction for conducting himself the way he’s always conducted himself. What really did happen, of course, is that Shelton showed up in Bradenton appearing to be, at least in the eyes of a good many of the veterans in the clubhouse, disinterested. Checked out was the term that kept coming up when players would describe it for me. And it wasn’t just one or two guys. This was across the board. Baseball people, man, they’re weird like that. They they see and sense everything unlike any species in the history of civilization. They just they just know. and they knew before the season started this wasn’t going to go well. You can’t have a manager who’s checked out. That’s just going to hurt every part of every process at the major league level. And sure enough, it did. That’s not to say that the players weren’t blameless. It’s certainly not to say that the GM who assembled this terrible roster was blameless. But the manager thing was the early focus within that clubhouse. and there was going to have to be change sooner rather than later since the GM knew nothing about anything. It didn’t happen at his level and it wasn’t until Bob Nutting’s attention was gotten and even that took a while to turn into Nutting stepping in and firing the manager when Cherington had no intention of doing so and then having Cherington sit in a press conference room with us reporter types telling us that it was his call. It wasn’t. I guess if there’s one lesson to be learned in this entire scene above all for me, it’s that wow, you know, there’s only 30 teams that do this, you know, that have entries into Major League Baseball. How do you hire a manager without doing even a modicum of diligence? The Twins couldn’t have done any homework on this. The Twins, I’d have to presume, looked at the Pirates history, looked at some of the criticisms of the GM and of the owner, and you meet with Shelton, and he’s like the most gregarious guy, and he looks you right in the eye and asks how your kids are doing. And I don’t mean to be mean here. He he actually is all that. I’m not mocking it. And then you just say, “Hey, we got our guy.” You look at whoever else is in the decision process. And you say, “Did we get our guy?” They go, “Yeah, we got our guy.” All right, we got our guy. And we don’t want to check into anything that happened in Pittsburgh. Nah, I mean, they’re the Pirates. What are you going to do? It’s the Pirates. All it would have taken is a single Google search. When we come back, J1Q. [Music] If you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for steak on a stone. 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I have seriously have never heard that name before. The other two obviously, yeah. Uh they were put there to clear spots on the 40man roster for uh other players who are currently on the 60-day IIL. those including Jared Jones, Andy Rodriguez, and three other guys who are household names to the extreme that Jack Little is. And if you don’t think it was a body blow hard enough to Pagarro that he was waved by the worst hitting team in baseball after hitting three home runs in one game in Denver this summer. You should know that the Pirates currently have 35 players on their 40man roster. So they value literally nobody five nobbodyies more than they do any of these people who were just wiped. Anyway, on that note, Wayne brings up that Cam Deainy, one of the people who is still on that 40man roster, is 28 years old. Wayne says he had 34 at bats and 20 strikeouts. Why is he still on the 40? The Pirates 40 is loaded with players who have absolutely zero chance of being part of a winning team, but they are cheap and they have years of control. There are probably at least 10 players on the 40 right now who not one team in the league would claim if they were put on waiverss. Yeah, that sounds about right. Not about to do some deep dive on Cam Deainy, but his 14 games in the majors have seen him hit 139 with 21 strikeouts and 36 at bats. Yeah, he’s 28. He’s on your 40man roster. And just for fun, and this is no commentary, well, it’s kind of a commentary on the caliber of this 40man. There’s people on here named Dugan Darnell, Michael Daryl Hicks, Jack Little is on here. Did I mention that yet? Or wait, no, he’s not. He’s one of the guys who’s gone now. Okay, so the Jack Little era is over. And Will Robertson is on this list. I don’t know who that is either, but he’s in his late 20s. Actually, almost all these guys that I just mentioned to you are in their late 20s. What an organization. Six full years of rebuilding. Six full years. And the 40man is more than a quarter comprised of old minor leaguers who can’t play. Dial 321 bucks right now for your season tickets. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’re going to have another one of these tomorrow.

Derek Shelton keeps it classy upon introduction in Minneapolis.

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