As we all anxiously await the start of an NFL Sunday, let me take a few paragraphs to contemplate the fate of the woeful (is there any other word for them?) Pittsburgh Pirates and, more specifically, their field manager, Derek Shelton, aka, "Sheltie".
"What, me worry?"
A season that held such hope for a post season berth - right up until a dreadful ten game losing streak in at the beginning of August and has spiraled down ever since - will end one week from today with the twenty-eighth losing season over the last thirty-two years. The management team of GM Ben Cherington and his hand-picked manager has yet to put together anything even resembling a winning season, and one could argue that this five year rebuild has resulted in nothing but the team running in place and with little hope for turning things around come 2025.
In almost any business, this would call for some significant, if not drastic, changes. In sports, the obvious fall guy would be the manager or head coach. We are looking at you, Sheltie. One could make a case that in the analytics driven sport that MLB has become, the field manager makes very little difference. His roster, his starting line-ups, and pitching rotation are dictated mainly by the Suits that sit at their laptops and tell the manager what the algorithms decree. So, some say, Derek Shelton has very little to do with how the team is run, and even John McGraw, Miller Huggins, Leo Durocher, and Danny Murtaugh put together wouldn't be able to make chicken salad out of the chicken shit that the Pirates have put in uniforms over these past five seasons.
I would agree with this up to a point. Once the game starts, it is the manager who makes the in-game decisions, even though many may come from the binders that the analytics guys have given him. It is on this point where I believe that Shelton has come up short. Woefully short, in some instances. Also, and I really think that this is the critical factor, at some point players just plain tune out and STOP LISTENING to whatever the manager (or head coach) is saying night after night. That is what I believe has happened to the Pirates in 2024, and that is why a change needs to be made. A fresh voce needs to be installed in the manager's office at PNC Park.
Of course, GMBC has already stated that Shelton will be the guy to manage the Pirates in 2025, so it would seem that the only way for Sheltie to go would be for Cherington to go as well. Cherington's failures as a GM are also many, but that would require more paragraphs than I am willing to write as Steelers kickoff time nears. The guy who would make that decision would be team owner Bob Nutting, aka, the worst owner in all of Pittsburgh Sports Franchises History. Both Cherington and Shelton are in the midst of multi-year contracts, and the thought of Nutting firing them both and paying them multi-millions of dollars to not work for him is, well, that just ain't gonna happen.
So we wait to see if the Pirates can go 4-3 over their last seven games (1 with the Reds, 3 with the Brewers, and 3 with the Yankees) just to see if that can EQUAL last season's dismal 76-86 record. Then the season will end and we Buccos fans will have no real positive things to look forward to in 2025, other than the games that Paul Skenes starts.
The Katzenjammer Kids
The Pirates last game is Sunday against the Yankees. I’m hoping that Cherrington and Shelton are fired Monday.
ReplyDeleteNo, it’s not the incredibly bush league DFAing Roddy today so he won’t get his “in 4 at bats”$200,000 bonus.
More so, it’s hearing DK’s Daily Shot on the Bucs today and agreeing with every word of it.
It’s because we’re going to win fewer games this year than last year.
I’m done. Sweep house. We should have a good starting pitching staff next year. I want a GM who can put a team around that and a manager who can coach it.
Of course, I don’t think Nutting will do this. I don’t think he’s willing to eat those salaries. And fundamentally, I think he’s too conservative to act in that kind of “we have to win” way. I’m not just talking money. He’s simply not driven to find a way to win.
I’ll probably have my best time with the Pirates in 2025 when I go to Spring Training and when Skenes — and some of the other starters — pitch.
And to be totally fair: too many players didn’t produce this year. They seemed primed to, and then largely fell on their faces. Or their knees.
I think we do have a more talented team than the wins & losses show. That’s why I want a new manager and the new coaches that come with that. Same thoughts, again, as to the GM.
That was from Alan. I didn’t mean for that to be anonymous.
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