The Pirates formally introduced Derek Shelton as their new manager Wednesday, and he, like new general manager Ben Cherington, immediately started talking about building a "player-centered" culture.
"It's going to be one that's built on relationships and built on communication, and we're going to build a coaching staff that's gonna have that at the forefront of their minds," Shelton said shortly after taking his seat at the elevated table in PNC Park's press conference room.
Shelton has already reached out to players and touched base with about 15 so far. Sometimes players will not answer their phone for an unknown number, but when that happens, he usually shoots them a text introducing himself.
"I think that goes back to... just developing relationships and talking to them," Shelton said. "Letting them know that I'm here and, hey, if they want to talk or they want to shoot a text and we can talk through things, because things are going to be different."
So far he has talked to Josh Bell in person Tuesday and went to Primanti's with Joe Musgrove.
Musgrove paid.
"I will not eat for a week," Shelton joked.
The team announced Shelton's hiring on Nov. 27. The search took nearly two months to complete, starting with Neal Huntington interviewing candidates in October before pausing when he was fired. Shelton did get a call from Travis Williams within 15 minutes of his hiring, letting him know they were pausing the search until a new general manager was found, but he was still being considered.
Shelton tried to manage the stress by cleaning his garage. As the wait continued, he cleaned it again. By the end, he had the cleanest garage in Florida, cleaned 15 times over.
When he went for his first interview, he did not know if the job was right for him, but after seeing the organization's and Cherington's dedication and desire to succeed, he really wanted the job.
"We realize that it's a partnership," Shelton said. "It's not the front office versus the coaching staff. It's all one group, and it's baseball operations. And I think the manager and the general manager really have to have a strong relationship. I was fortunate. I saw probably as strong a bond in Minnesota as you can have in that respect, so I look forward to building that with Ben."
Shelton has 15 years of big-league coaching experience and spent the last two seasons as the Twins' bench coach. He took care of many of the day-to-day operations last season and was manager Rocco Baldelli's right-hand man. He also served as a hitting coach with the Indians from 2005-09 and the Rays from 2010-16.
He and Cherington worked together in 2017 when Cherington was the Blue Jays' vice president of baseball operations. Shelton was the team's quality control coach. In the role, he worked with both the front office and the players, an essential skill that will need to carry over to being a manager.
"Being well versed [in analytics] and having a staff that's well versed is very important because players want information to get better," Shelton said. "That's the reason they want things. They want to know how they can go from point A to point B, so it's part of my job and our staff's job to take the information that we have and then isolate it to the fact that we can deploy it the right way for each guy."
This is Shelton's first turn as a major league manager. He mentioned Joe Maddon and Kevin Cash, both of whom managed the Rays when he was a hitting coach there, as influences on his coaching style. He also took a lot from Baldelli, who was a rookie manager in 2019.
"He is the most humble human being alive, and I think we can all learn humility from him," Shelton said. "The way that he embraced the job and embraced what he did and did not know, and was able to defer to his staff and defer to me at times on what we should do and how we should do it. His humility is second to none... Just being around those guys and learning their different traits, and seeing the good and the bad."
Shelton has a good reputation with working with players. During the interview process, Cherington said there was "really overwhelming" positive response for Shelton from players who had worked with him.
"[I spoke with] all kinds of different player who really spoke with conviction about Derek," Cherington said. "As a coach, as someone who can connect with all kinds of different people and ultimately just cares about helping players get better."
Five other key quotes from the event:
• DK asked Shelton how he plans to continue player development and instruction in the majors to get the most out of young players in Pittsburgh. His response: "I think it's a big part of building a coaching staff and having a coaching staff that has development based ideas and is able to build relationships. I think one of the things that has to be at the forefront of out mind is development is not going to stop when we get to the big league level... I think it's a goal of myself, my staff, the baseball operations group, that we're going to have to realize that development is going to have to continue at this level. And it's very important that [it's] not just from the first day they get here, but on through."
• Cherington on the evolving role of the manager across baseball: "I've been lucky to work in baseball for 20-plus years, and I would argue that the role of the manager is more important every day. Even more important now than it has been because of what you're describing (analytics, new information), because of the importance of ultimately putting players in the best position to improve and succeed. Everything that goes into that, the manager is leading that environment and process at the major league level, and it's a really, really critical job. I don't think an organization can have success unless that manager's doing that job extremely well. The word I would use, ultimately, it is a partnership and a collaboration. We're going to talk about things all the time. We're going to share information. We're going to try to help each other. Ultimately, there's things Derek is going to make the call on, and I think that's really important. That Derek is the leader of the major league team, the major league clubhouse and is perceived as such. But we'll help each other every step of the way in terms of leading a baseball operations crew, then ultimately, working together to build a great team."
• Shelton on establishing communication and a sense of fun in the clubhouse: "I think how you develop communication and fun is by building relationships. And for me to instantly think that I'm going to walk in the clubhouse and because people have said positive things about me that everybody's going to trust me and everybody's going to like me, I realize that's not true. But it's my job, and it's the job of our baseball ops and especially the coaching staff on a day to day basis that we're building relationships and we're building that trust, and we're giving players the opportunity for their voice to be heard. I mean, they're not going to make, ultimately, the decisions, but they're grown men and we want to see how they're going to respond to things. One of the things that I've probably learned the most is the more you talk to players, the more you build relationships, not only on a professional level, but a personal level, it's going to lead to better things. We're going to start that way. It's definitely going to be a culture [where] we're going to have fun. You're going to see us laugh. It's gonna be a fun place to be around. And I think from the players I talked to, starting a couple days ago, they're excited about it."
• I asked Cherington if the player's testimonials got the lion's share of the voice when considering feedback for a manager of a player-centered environment. His response: "I think it's all important, really. We get feedback from players, from coaches, from people who work in front offices, for the media, from agents, you name it. Lion's share? I don't know. It's an important input, for sure, because it goes back to what Derek said. You talk about a relationship, well the relationship's built on trust, and that trust is, I think, the first step towards learning and improvement. If you're trying to share information in a way that helps each other, helps someone do their job better, that needs to rest on a level of trust between two people. So if players feel like there are people- whether it's manger, coaches, whoever it is- in the clubhouse that they can build trust with, it just puts us in a better position to ultimately share information both ways and help each other."
• Shelton on the optimism he can offer to the fans: "I think the fact that we're going to be very process driven. The fact that we're 100% aligned, front office and in the manager's chair and in the coaching staff chair. And I think when you're able to do that, along with continue to develop at the major-league level, that I think that passion is going to come through and there's going to be good things ahead."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Derek Shelton introduced by Pirates, PNC Park, Dec. 4, 2019 -- MATT SUNDAY / DKPS