Amid a swirl of snowflakes outside PNC Park and a spectacular swirl of change inside, the Pirates' new braintrust beamed from the press conference podium about the bright future of baseball around here. And fairly so. If I'm being honest, this wintry scene was more uplifting than any witnessed here all summer.
Partly, that's because Derek Shelton was a blast.
The new manager, finally introduced a week after he was announced and two-plus months since Clint Hurdle's firing -- hey, a lot's happened, right? -- laughed and smiled with a visible ease and sense of self-assurance. He made others laugh and smile, as well.
On how long his hiring took: “I have the cleanest garage of any house in Florida. I probably cleaned it 15 times.”
On sharing that podium with Amherst alum Ben Cherington: "I’m definitely not as smart as Ben. I went to Southern Illinois."
On clumsily donning the No. 17 jersey presented to him by Cherington, then sitting down with several buttons still undone: “This has never gone smoothly for any manager who has ever done it, right?”
That kept on throughout the session and beyond, when Shelton, Cherington, Bob Nutting and Travis Williams broke into separate interviews. Smiles, laughs, self-assurance. And not a solitary trace of the nose-in-the-air condescension of any of their predecessors. Just a bunch of guys feeling good about where they are and where they're headed.
"One thing 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," Shelton would say. "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."
They are, actually. Joe Musgrove, the clubhouse's leader in every way, stood silently in the back of this press conference room. The previous day, he'd begun indoctrinating Shelton to our way of life ...
Before you ask, yeah he's been there.
Yesterday, @ItsbuccnJoe59 took our new Skipper @DerekShelton8 to try his first @primantibros sandwich. pic.twitter.com/FpOyrGtug5
— Pirates (@Pirates) December 4, 2019
... and here he was on this day as a show of support. Josh Bell, who's also been hanging around town "until it gets cold enough to chase me away," as he told me, met with Shelton face-to-face here over the weekend. I've heard from other players who are stoked, who can't wait to get going with this guy.
It's all good in the moment.
But that also raises this: If Shelton and, more important in this equation, Cherington, like these guys, do they build around them? Or, do they survey the damage in the minor-league system wrought by Neal Huntington and Kyle Stark, and decide instead to blow it up and replenish at the lower levels?
I pounded this issue with everyone in sight: Rebuild or not?
That started with the chief decider himself, Cherington. I mentioned to him that I didn't sense there'd be much appetite for a rebuild. Not with his current players, who are seeking support from above. Not with the public, which ran out of patience roughly three decades ago. And he replied ... cautiously: "The kind of player we want with the Pirates is one who wants to win. That's going to help us, having players who want to win. I would be excited to hear that from players. And then, it's our job to try to support them as much as possible, help them any way we can, whether it's coaching support, information support, giving them the best chance to succeed. And we're just going to focus on getting better."
If that sounds like a GM who hasn't made up his mind, yeah, you've nailed it.
Cherington and I spoke extensively later, and he's been so swamped with immediate, pressing tasks -- hiring the manager, rounding out the coaching staff, preparing for Winter Meetings next week in San Diego -- that he's hardly had opportunity for even a cursory review of the system, much less giving it the exhaustive attention it deserves. I get that.
But that doesn't change that deciding on a rebuild is the top priority for this franchise this offseason.
Assuming it hasn't already been decided.
As mentioned, I carried on several conversations here, and based on those, I feel comfortable saying that the Pirates' foundational thought entering 2020 is that they'll adopt more of a hybrid stance: Build around younger players already here, such as Bryan Reynolds, Kevin Newman and the like, while pursuing prospects in exchange for older players.
And you bet, from what I was told, that means Starling Marte's a goner. If it doesn't happen next week in San Diego, then it'll happen over the offseason or even in the first half of the 2020 season before the July 31 trade deadline. But one way or another, provided there's value in return, he'll be traded.
I've written since August that I'd be OK with that as long as a competent GM was in place. That's now the case.
Nutting's made clear to all concerned he doesn't want "a chase for .500," meaning settling for mediocrity with patchwork moves. That's a healthy thought process. At the same time -- and this, in the fullest context, is to Huntington's credit -- there are enough younger pieces already in place that the hybrid approach can work if executed smartly. Move Marte after what might've been the best year of his career. Maybe even consider moving Bell at his peak, with three full years of arbitration control ahead. But otherwise, fortify the present, including with a realistic increase in payroll.
They're getting there.
• Cherington was also diplomatic when asked about Marte's comments in the past week to Deportivo about how he wouldn't mind a trade to the Mets because he sees the Pirates as rebuilding and would prefer to be with a contender: "Really, I appreciate what he said in the sense of where it came from. I don't know Starling personally, but I have a lot of respect for him as a player and that he wants to be part of a winning team makes perfect sense to me. I would want players to feel that way. I'm excited that we have a lot of players who feel that way. I look forward to getting to know Starling. He's a really good player, and he would help our team win."
• Cherington and Shelton both confirmed some -- but not all -- of the remaining major-league coaching staff will be brought back, "but I'm not ready to announce it yet," Cherington added. I've reported for two months that hitting coach Rick Eckstein was told by way-upper management he'd be back, and that felt cemented here. Shelton has worked with Eckstein and spoke effusively of his work. This is a big W for the Pirates, having found a way to keep him through this whole episode.
• Hear this one out: Cherington will keep Larry Broadway as player development director and Joe Delli Carri as scouting director. Which sounds awful, especially after -- as I'd heard and reported a month ago -- Broadway wasn't going to keep his role. Time will tell as to how this plays out, but Cherington assured me that the processes will be the priority in the minor leagues and that he's got the right people in place to implement those promises. With the fresh hiring of Steve Sanders, the Blue Jays' former scouting director, as his assistant GM, he'll have someone infinitely more qualified and capable to oversee both the development and the drafting than Kyle Stark -- that's me expressing that specific sentiment, not Cherington, I should add -- so the dynamic will change.
• It was Stark who fired Omar Moreno and others. And he did so with zero permission from anyone. Broadway's name was attached because he was officially slotted as the supervisor in that area and, thus, he was told to make the outreach to Moreno and the rest. I was told all this emphatically. Ugh.
• I asked Cherington how he'll assess the system:
• He won't exactly floor anyone with hype, huh?
• A catcher is needed, with Elias Diaz cut loose, and Cherington isn't ruling out a prominent role for Jacob Stallings while also acknowledging he'll endeavor to find an additional one this offseason. That's a smart play. Stallings has lifelong backup written all over him, but he hit better than anyone expected and earned respect from the pitching staff, and that's not something to casually discard.
• A neat glimpse of Shelton here, answering my question about how he'll handle analytics:
• I don't know Shelton. I don't know the man. I don't know what kind of a manager he'll be. Like most everything about baseball, it'll take relentless repetition to learn. Months, if not years. But I do know that first impressions count at least a little, and this one was overwhelming positive.
• When it was all done, Shelton and his family -- wife Alison; children, Jackson, Isabella and Gianna; and parents Ron and Kathy -- playfully stepped out onto PNC Park's snowy, soggy setting to pose for pictures framed by the Downtown skyline, giggling about the cold. Thought this was fun. Kind of like the whole thing.
• Nutting did this. All of it. He might've waited too long. He might've needed too much of a push. But he did the right thing.
• How many days till pitchers and catchers?
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Derek Shelton introduced by Pirates, PNC Park, Dec. 4, 2019 -- MATT SUNDAY / DKPS