Derek Shelton has been one of the Pirates’ point people for individual workouts in Bradenton, Fla., the first-time manager describing those sessions as “nothing extremely advanced” and mostly a way for some guys to stay in shape during this awkward time.
Furthermore, the 49-year-old Shelton has waited his entire life to manage in the major leagues. Now, COVID-19 has pushed the date of that first game back indefinitely.
But one of the more difficult parts of the virus outbreak for Shelton — aside from the whole global pandemic thing — might be the part-time job it forced him to try, and quit: fourth-grade math teacher for his daughter, Gianna.
“I found out both from Gianna and from [his wife] Ali that I am not fit to teach any fourth-grade subjects because of my lack of patience,” Shelton said on a conference call with local reporters Thursday. “I will step back and let them do that.”
While elementary education might not be Shelton’s thing, he’s seemingly been handling this entire time period about as well as anyone could expect. Shelton met with other members of the major league coaching staff Thursday to discuss spring training, stressing the need to keep conversations going. He’s talked about players with general manager Ben Cherington. He has entrusted pitching coaches Oscar Marin and Justin Meccage to manage their pitchers’ workloads, and the Pirates manager has even started reading a couple books.
One is on one of Shelton’s favorite bands, the Beastie Boys. The other is a Roberto Clemente book Shelton swiped from Cherington’s office.
“I’ll have it done by the time [Cherington’s back],” Shelton joked. “He won’t even notice it’s gone.”
In terms of actual baseball, Shelton has seen some of it lately, though not much. The same as Cherington, he said the greater concern has been the safety of everyone associated with the Pirates and the world at large.
“Baseball is very much secondary right now,” Shelton said, who added that, to his knowledge, no Pirates players, coaches or members of the front office have been tested for COVID-19.
Only a handful of major league players remain in Florida, Shelton said. They’re working out Monday, Wednesday and Friday, staggering times to ensure proper social distancing. They’re basically just doing some strength and conditioning stuff, with a little hitting and throwing mixed in.
Players departed the Pirates’ spring training facilities with a framework of what to do, Shelton said. And yes, it was definitely a little easier because they had a month or so of spring training before the entire thing was put on hold.
“It’s a little different than a general offseason where guys are training their own way because of the fact that we had been together for four-plus weeks,” Shelton said. “They went home with specific guidelines in terms of strength and conditioning and training.”
How to handle the pitchers is an important topic right now — and will be again once a ramp-up starts, as much will depend on how quickly and safely guys can get ready to go.
Marin and Meccage tailored individual plans for guys to incrementally throw less, although they still want everybody doing something.
“We don’t know when we’re going to start again,” Shelton said. “We have to make sure that we don’t go from 75 [pitches] to nothing, and we also have to make sure that we don’t waste a ton of bullets trying to stay fresh because we don’t know when we’re going to start.
“More than likely it’s a gradual de-load just to make sure their arm care situation is consistent. Then once we do have a general timetable and we make sure arms are maintaining that strength, we will build back up.”
Among the other topics Shelton addressed:
• Shelton described any personnel moves at this time as “on the back-burner.” Basically anything baseball-related has taken a backseat to greater concerns right now, as it should.
“We still are talking about different things because we have to be prepared, but I don’t think we have anything that’s imminent or anything we’ve gotten to the point that we’ve finalized,” Shelton said.
• MLB and the MLBPA agreed on a package earlier Thursday that would pay minor league players a flat sum to cover them through April 8 — the day before the start of their season — with another piece expected to compensate them from April 9 onward.
Suffice to say, Shelton is a fan.
“First and foremost, I think you have to commend Major League Baseball and the Pirates and the 29 other teams of stepping up and doing something for those minor league players,” Shelton said. “As we all well know, those guys are the future of major league teams and they’re very important for the sustainability of a lot of teams, especially us in Pittsburgh.”
• Shelton was asked about an Associated Press report that MLB was thinking about postponing the draft amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the Pirates manager said until something becomes official, it’s really not worth worrying about.
“The draft is important to us,” Shelton said. “To speculate on how they’re going to do it or what they’re going to do, it’s too hard to tell. The next time they do have a draft, whether it’s this year or however they go going forward, that is going to be an important part of our organization. But to speculate on what’s going to happen this year or how they’re going to do it, until they set forth the guidelines, it would be too hard to answer that.”
• While Shelton isn’t a huge football fan, he lives near Tampa and has noticed something about the Buccaneers’ reported new quarterback, some guy named Tom Brady. He also has no issue with the NFL continuing to conduct business.
“We’ve had some news here recently with speculation about who the next quarterback of the Bucs is going to be,” Shelton said with a laugh. “I think the fact that people are talking about sports in some regards is good. Because sports, regardless of what it is, in society is an outlet.
“I think the hope for all of us has been that at some point — hopefully sooner than later — society is going to get back to being normal, or more normal, and we are going to have professional sports, and there’s going to be events. The fact that the NFL is running business as usual without doing anything to harm anybody, I think it’s great.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG
First Published: March 19, 2020, 9:58 p.m.