Behind the Plate To Behind The Lineup - Derek Shelton

The GMs welcome Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton to the show. Derek shares his remarkable journey through baseball, from his days as a college catcher and early coaching stints in the minors, to the years he spent grinding as a hitting coach and bench coach across the league. He opens up about the lessons learned along the way, the mentors who shaped his approach, and the challenges of preparing for the opportunity to finally lead a Major League clubhouse. The GM's also discuss the Ryder Cup and rules they would like to see changed in pro sports.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. Alongside Ryan McDonough, I
am fad Levine. This week we have Derek Shelton, thirty
year Major League player coach manager who's going to join
us RAN. Before we get to our conversation with Shelty, though,
I want to ask you a question from a listener.
Matt from Louisville wants to know what did you make

(00:27):
of the whole envelope rule and how it impacted the
end of the Ryder Cup.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
That I was fortunate enough to attend the Ryder Cup
this past weekend at Bethpage Black Golf Course on Long Islands.
It was a bucket list event for me. I've been
fortunate to go to a bunch of big sporting events
Super Bowls, NBA Finals, the Olympics, etc. And this was
really neat. To have the Ryder Cup on US soil
in the metro New York area was really fun. So

(00:53):
I'll admit I didn't know anything about this rule. I
was on the course on Friday, and for those who
don't know, the Ryder Cup is a three day event.
Friday and Saturday are team play. There are foursomes, two
Americans and two Europeans. Play against each other in different formats,
but on Sunday, all twelve players are supposed to play

(01:13):
in singles matches. What I hadn't thought about that to
be blunt, is what happens if somebody's injured and not
able to play in a singles match. And I found
out the answer. There's a rare rule involving an envelope
where on Saturday night, after the team play is done
but the singles play is about to get started, the
captain on each side, so in the US case, Keegan

(01:35):
Bradley and on the European side, Luke Donald, they need
to write down the name of one player and put
it in a sealed envelope that they hope has never
opened and unsealed, because that is the player who is
going to sit out in the singles match if a
player on the other team is not able to play.
So unfortunately that that's exactly what happened. The US was
in a big hole. I think they were down twelve

(01:57):
to five. Europe only needed fourteen points, so they needed
just to win two matchups on Sunday, And what happened
was Victor Hoblind, who played pretty well from Norway for
the European team. He had a neck injury, he went
and got an MRI, he got treatment, he was not
able to play. That they made the determination Sunday morning.
So sure enough, here comes the envelope. It gets opened

(02:19):
and out comes the name of Harris English. So poor
Harris English with his team in a huge hole, and
now we know what happened. The US went on a
historic run on Sunday and almost pulled off by far,
the best comeback in Ryder Cup history. They fell just short.
But poor Harris English, one of twelve teammates, has to
go watch the eleven other American guys go out there
and play extremely well, have all this momentum, and he

(02:42):
is just sitting out. In fact, the thing that I
couldn't understand that I want to get your take on,
is in any other sport, when a participant is not
able to compete or a team's not able to compete,
that is a forfeit and that team loses. That's not
the case in the Ryder Cup. Because Victor Hoblin was
unable to play, the US had to basically disqualify Harris English,

(03:02):
and then each team got a half point. It was
essentially a tie, which to me that as a rule
that I don't understand and one that I think needs
to be changed.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
It seems remarkable. It seems like it's just ripe for
so much manipulation. I mean, you know, we remember Beck
and Golf and Caddy check when Rodney Dangerfield had his
injury to his arm and got to replace himself. I
mean that you just don't see that in between then
and now.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
But yeah, it just.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Seems like, you know, what's stopping a player on the
deem from saying, hey, listen, I'm not feeling great to
manipulate the score at the last so that you actually
can have the score and potentially win as a result
of that. It just seems it just seems like there's
so much manipulation that could happen there. You know, it
leads us down the path of like thinking of what

(03:47):
are some of the other rules in our respective sports
that we would recommend changing, Because when you watch the
game as closely as we have over our careers, there
are things that just leave you where the practical application
of a rule doesn't seem to really clearly match the
theory of the genesis of the rule. And I'm thinking
of a few things in baseball, and I'll just name
a few, and then I'd love to hear your thoughts

(04:09):
in the NBA. One is kind of the whole concept
of errors in baseball, I think has gotten pretty far afield.
The fact that a pitcher who makes an error and
then that run scores. It's an unearned run, so it's
actually the picture's mistake, but it's an under and run.
And you know, pictures that one of the most important
statistics for them is er, so you know, they can

(04:30):
engineer an under and run on their own, and that
seems a little bit silly.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Another thing relative to errors is that as much as
we've modernized the game and automated so many of the
elements of it, we still have people who are sitting
in the press box who are the official scorers, who
very subjectively determine in each instance of you know, fifty
to fifty balls, whether that was an error or a hit. Well,
at the end of the day, you know, a picture

(04:56):
salary is driven a lot by his ra which would
be in acted by that decision by that person, But
so too is the hitters salary is impacted by his
batting averages on base percentage and his slugging percentage. Those
are all impacted by somebody who's just sitting up there,
who I'm not saying is flipping a coin. But sometimes
these are very you know, on the margin calls and

(05:17):
very subjective decisions, and they're impacting people's salaries. The last
one that is a rule that was proposed in baseball
that has not actually taken root, but I think would
cause a lot of debate is we've talked about in
the playoffs that the higher seed would actually get to
pick their opponent in the first round. So in this instance,

(05:38):
the Cleveland Guardians are the three seed in the American League,
they would get to pick whether they wanted to play
any of the seeds below them. Similarly, the Dodgers would
get the same choice, and then going to the next round,
Milwaukee is the one seed in the National League would
get to choose who emerged from the first round who
they got to play in the second round Toronto in

(05:58):
the American League. That hasn't made it to the books yet,
but that is another one that I think would draw
a lot of debate on both sides of the ledger.
But for you, Ryan, what are some things that jump
out to you? In the NBA of rules that have
always left you scratching your head.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Get to follow upon what you just said about Major
League Baseball teams thinking about picking their opponent. That has
been discussed in the NBA as well. The NBA right
now has a bracket they rank the teams one through eight,
and that bracket does not change. So that's another thing
that's been discussed. That is reseeding after each round. Should
the number one seed, if they continue to advance, always

(06:35):
get the lowest seed versus say, if the seventh seed
in the NBA playoffs upsets the two seed, they're on
different sides of the brackets, so the number one seed
would not meet the seven until the conference finals. Should
they just get that team, theoretically the second worst team
in the playoffs in the next round. That's been discussed
as well. A few rules I'd like to see change
that I think it's important for us to to take

(06:57):
our listeners inside why these things get change sometimes and
why they don't. This rule, frankly, is probably more important
to front office executives like us than.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
It is to owners.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
But one of the rules that I'd love to see
change in the NBA is on rookie scale contract options.
I know that's a mouthful, but a player gets drafted
in the NBA in the first round, he has a
two year guaranteed contract. Well, the challenge is on those contracts,
you have to decide before the last guaranteed season if
you're going to opt in for next season. So, for example,

(07:28):
fad guys who were just in the draft one year
ago in twenty twenty four, right now they had last
season and this season guaranteed. But before this regular season starts,
teams are going to have to decide do I want
this to pick up this player's option for next year
the twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven season, And you
don't have the benefit of eighty two games to find

(07:49):
out that throughout the course of regular season, so teams
are guessing. As you can imagine, with young players draft
in the first round, teams usually opt in, especially to
that third year option, but having to this after year one,
do we want this guy for year three? When keeping
in mind these are the very youngest players in the league.
Sometimes teenagers is a position that I don't think teams
should be put in, and frankly, it's different from most

(08:11):
veteran options, which are pretty much all exercised after the season,
most of them after the NBA Finals, when you've had
the course of eighty two games in the regular season
and the playoffs to decide.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
So I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
An adjacent rule to that ad that I really don't
like is if a team decides to decline the player's
option and then trades the player the receiving team the
team that traded for the player who had his option
declined by another team, they're limited in terms of what
they can pay that player to the amount of the
option that was declined. So that's a little bit complex,

(08:43):
But basically, the reason the NBA has that rule that
it exists is because they did not want teams declining
options safe for superstars. So pick a young Lebron James
or Giannis victor Wim Miyama in this case, they did
not want that teams that declining that option and then
giving him a giant contract to kind of cur favor
and you know, enforce his loyalty to the team keep

(09:03):
them off the open market. So I understand why a
current team can't exceed the amount of the option, but
I don't like that. If you're another team. You see
a young guy who maybe hasn't worked out somewhere else,
you want to take a challenge, take a chance on
him and say he blows up in your uniform. Well,
you have a ceiling on what you can pay that player.
So if you're in a developmental stage, it's often better,

(09:24):
in a counterintuitive way, to let that player play somewhere else,
because if he's really good and you have money, then
you're not limited. You can pay him anything next year.
So those are a couple of rules I would like
to change, along with one final one.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
That and this is timely.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
We've talked about a lot with the LA Clippers, Donald Sterling,
Kawhi Leonard, the Aspiration scandal. The NBA's tampering policies I
think to this point have generally been pretty weak. Some
of them where teams have been caught having impermissible conversations
with free agents. Poor free agency started have resulted in
just the removal of a second round pick or two.

(09:58):
And to put that in context, in the NBA, you
can buy into the second round with cash. Team sell
picks for cash, So if the reward is you might
get a great free agent or two, but if you
get caught, you're only going to lose a second round
pick who's not nearly as good as the free agent
you're going to get. And then your owner, if he's
willing to spend and then go and buy another second
round pick, why wouldn't you do it in that case?

(10:20):
So those are some of the things I'd like to
see changed, you know, Thad, because I think the punishment
kind of has to match up, you know, with what
you're getting if you're successful in it, and the risk
reward in the NBA, to me, has incentivized people to,
if not outright cheet, really go into that gray area
because the upside is so significant and right.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
I think we've talked about it in previous episodes, but
I think your points spot on, which is, you know,
these rule books are thick. There's a lot of rules
that govern our actions. Some are really not enforced as strictly,
and most of those, in my opinion, were ones that
don't really impact the competitive balance. So an example of
that would be there's a signing deadline where you can

(11:02):
sign international free agents in Major League Baseball, but typically
weeks in advance of that, somebody will write an article
in which they'll detail all the projected signings for the deadline,
and they're pretty much spot on. But I don't think
Major League Baseball is really in the business of wanting
to crack down too hard on that because it doesn't
discernibly impact the competitive balance issues. But then when you

(11:24):
start maturing into where you're starting to tamper with people's
employees or people's players, that really does and you start
seeing more severe penalties. But then I think on the extremes,
when something happens like the transgression in Houston that led
to a World Series title, and then ultimately the penalty
is a five million dollar fine for fans, executives, people

(11:44):
in the game, that seems misaligned with the actual transgression.
So there's a sliding scale here that in my experience,
is really linked to how much it's impacted the competitive
balance or imbalance in some cases. But probably the lead
have additional latitude on the extremes that they're just not anticipating.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, I thought.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
I've been around a lot about college basketball coaches over
the last twenty five years, and before paying players was
legal with the NIL the dilemma a lot of them
faced was if you win, good things will happen. Either
with your current employer, you'll get a contract extension, stay employed,
continue to go forward, or even if you get fired
but you've won, you probably get a job somewhere else.

(12:27):
So there are a lot of guys who lamented doing
it the right way. They weren't cheating, they weren't paying players,
but they lost and then they were beat by guys
who were paying players. And that's a difficult one. You know, basically,
win and good things happen. But in some situations, in particular,
to win, you probably had to venture in the gray,
or go through all the way through the grayer and
get to the black and pay guys under the table
to try to keep winning. These are the challenges and

(12:48):
dilemmas that executives face across sports. We're going to be
right back after this. We're going to have Derek Shelton,
you know most recently as the manager from the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Listen to him on Sirius XM. You've seen him on
the MLB Network. That now will be right back with
Derek Shelton right after this, stay with us on Rosters.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
It ranked Welcome back to Rosters, Soraines alongside Ryan McDonough
I am Thad Levigne. I'm really excited to bring on
dear friend and colleague, Derek Shelton. Born to Kathy and Run,
Derek strapped on his first set of catchers Geart age three.

(13:29):
Derek played high school baseball for his father, who was
his coach, before enrolling in Southern Illinois University. Derek's minor
league playing career was cut short by an elbow surgery
after he posted an incredible three to forty one batting
average across forty six minor league games. After serving parts
of eight seasons as a minor league coach, Derek was
named the hitting coach for the Cleveland Indians in two

(13:50):
thousand and five. He then served for seven seasons as
the hitting coach for the Tampa Bay Rays before assuming
his role as quality control coach for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Derek served as the bench coach for the Minnesota Twins
in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, and in twenty nineteen,
Derek was named the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a
post he held for five plus seasons. In twenty twenty two,

(14:13):
Craig Calcateria ranked Derek the seventh most handsome manager in
the major leagues, notably behind Rocco Baldelli and Kevin Cash. Derek,
Welcome to Rosters to Rinks.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate that illustrious introduction.
I think the only thing you got wrong there that
is that the injury did not end my career. Lack
of ability ended my career. So I was three forty
five batting average.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
You got to hold on to that for us.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah. Yeah, And I really appreciate the fact that Rocco
finished above me in the most handsome manager I mean.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Roco and Kevin I sore as if I've ever seen
them finishing ahead of.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, and I still hear about that weekly from Roco.
So there we go, Chelte.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
One of the tradition on Rosters to ringses we asked
each guest who comes on to share their sports origin story,
how did you fall in love with sports as a kid,
and specifically baseball?

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Oh, I think you hit on it there. I played
for my father in high school. My father was a
high school teacher, then further was an administrator and was
a basketball coach. Was a baseball coach. He played in
the Oriel organization. He played on an Oriel team that
I think is you and I have talked about that.
His rookie year that Joe Altabelli managed had Bobby Gritch,

(15:30):
Don Baylor, Johnny Oates, the other Ron Shelton, who was
the director of Bull Durham. Sports were just rampant throughout
our house. I mean it was three sports. I grew
up in northern Illinois. So the love I think of
sports basically comes from the fact that my dad was
just immersed in it, and then he had marsed my
brother and I into it.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Shelton, people look at the end, which for you, at
least until this point, was manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
But I think the path shaped so much of us
along the way to that point. Once you became the
manager for the five plus years, how did your path
as a minor league player and then working for some
of the most progressive organizations in baseball Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Minnesota,

(16:11):
despite that as negative influence there, and then Pittsburgh, how
did that How did all those stops along the way
impact you when you became manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Right, I.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Think that's a great point. I think at each at
each stop you learn something, and I was really and
I love the word you used their progressive. I was
very fortunate that I worked for probably the most progressive organizations.
Cleveland was ahead of their time at the at that
point with Mark Shapiro running that, and then Tampa was
way ahead of everybody else for a lot of years.

(16:42):
And I think that the league has caught up. So
not only I think that I take from the organization
in the way the organizations were run from the top down,
from ownership down, the front office down, but secondly, the
gentleman that I worked for, the leaders and the one
thing that I took from every guy that I worked for,
whether it was Eric Wedge or John Gibbons or Kevin

(17:04):
or Joe Madden or Rocco or Paul malader is everyone
made it about the player. And I think at our
level that's the most important thing, because the old adage
of we all don't have jobs unless there's the players
is very true, and I think we could never lose
sight of that in a leadership position, Shelty, I want.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
To dive a little bit deeper there, you know, having
gotten a chance to work with you some of your
superpowers or that you're an exceptional relationship person. Your ability
to connect to every type of player in the clubhouse
is so unique. Can you talk a little bit about
that and share with the listeners that the diversity in clubhouses,
I mean, you're connecting with Jason Castro, MIGUELSONO Byron Buxton,

(17:48):
Max Kepler, these people come from very different backgrounds, very
different educations. You had the magical touch of like lifting
all of those guys up. Where was that instilled in you?
And can you talk to the to the list a
little bit about that?

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I do think that
the genesis of that starts two places. Number one, it
starts with my dad being a high school administrator and
watching him have interactions a lot of the people that
I grew up around that were in my house, you know,
as a young child, were teachers. And then I watched
my dad transition from being a teacher and being a
peer in that situation to being an administrator and basically

(18:22):
being these people's boss, and then the interaction of how
they were with him. And I think the biggest thing
that I learned in that situation was the ability to listen.
And I think best, our best leaders are listeners first,
so I think that's kind of where it transitioned from.
And then I worked for a gentleman in New York
by the name of Mark Newman, who ran the Yankee

(18:45):
system for a long time and was credited a lot
with developing that system in terms of I mean the
core four came from there, that you know, with Pasada
and Jeter and Pettitt and Mariano, but it was also
the coaches did he developed in the ability to take
someone outside the box. And I can remember specifically working

(19:06):
an instructional league one year and that, as you highlighted,
I was a catcher, and all of a sudden, Mark
was like, you're working with the outfielders and I knew
nothing about outfielders and I got thrown in a group
with veteran outfielders. So the ability to listen, learn, study,
understand what was going on. And then the last component
to that, I think in our game today, it's so multicultural.

(19:28):
Guys are coming from all over the world. And I
managed in the Golf Coast League for the Yankees for
two years and one of the teams I managed, we
had eight position players that started that none of them
spoke English. And I did not speak Spanish, So you
learned from talking to people about the inflection of your voice,
what you say, how sarcasm is not understood, And I

(19:48):
mean you've been around me. I'm a sarcastic person. So
how you changed the tenor of your voice I think
helps you. So you take every step along the way
things that maybe you don't think about, but then you're
able to add into a major league clubhouse to develop
those relationships.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, Shelty, I think the reviews of this podcast are
generally positive, but how sarcasm is not understood, it might
be one of the negative ones with that. And I
got back and forth on now on tangents just about
random things. I want to go back to the beginning
again with you. And I'm sure when you started thirty
plus years ago in baseball, the organizations were so much
smaller than they are now. So how as a young

(20:26):
guy starting out were those smaller you know, did those
smaller organizations benefit you as far as probably the ability
to do more You mentioned working with the outfielders there,
and as the organizations have grown and as you ascended
to a major league manager with the Pirates, how did
managing those people impact their job and how much time
did it take up to manage an entire organization, which
I think most people don't realize how big these clubs

(20:49):
at the highest levels in the NBA and Major League
Baseball are today as far as the expanse of people
you have to manage.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, right. I think the first part of that it
was it was maybe why my assent to hire jobs
might have happened quicker than other people. Is when I
got the job with the Yankees in the minor leagues,
I moved to Tampa. I grew up in northern Illinois.
I moved to Tampa, and it was probably the best
thing that I ever did, because you know, minor league

(21:17):
coaches are paid year round, but they only really work
from February fifteenth, when spring training starts, until the end
of the season. Well, I lived in Tampa and Mark Newman,
who I talked about before, basically treated the younger coaches
in Tampa is you're gonna work year round. I loved it.
And then the other thing it did is I was

(21:38):
a twenty seven or twenty eight year old that had
never played in the big leagues. But I'm in a
situation where all the guys that are Yankee, like greats
Now Hall of Famers that lived in Tampa, Tino Martinez,
Derek Jeter, Joe Girardi, Jorge Posada. They lived in Tampa.
Strawberry lived here, Cecil Fielder lived in Orlando. So I

(21:58):
was there with that group players and by no means
was I doing any coaching, But I was sitting there
basically through osmosis listening. I had a conversation earlier in
the year with Mike Lole, who was an original Yankee
draft and then traded to the Marlins, and he said,
do you remember I came in every day for you know,
sixty straight days and spent it with Gary denbol He's like,

(22:19):
you were there just putting the ball on the tee,
and I was, But I was also learning what Mike
Lole was doing to be it was a transition for
him being a major leaguer. The ability to do that
in just environmentally being able to be there was so
important in my career. And then it also, you know,
very honestly taught me win and when to talk win

(22:41):
and when not to talk. And I think that's kind
of a learned thing because the young people in today's
game they want to get to the higher position really quick.
And there was a couple of times where I did
talk and then I was told later like, this is
probably a time for you for you not to talk.
So I think the ability to be around those plays
early on was extremely impactful. The game has completely changed, though,

(23:05):
and that and I have talked about this previously. The
biggest learning experience I had as a major league manager
is I am a list. I like to make lists.
I will make a list of what I have to
do in the day, and what I found out very
quickly when you're leading a major league team, that list
gets blown up very very quickly in the day because

(23:25):
a trainer could walk in, a strength and conditioning guy
could walk in, one of your coaches could walk in,
a player could walk in, members of the R and
D staff or the front office staff could walk in,
and it changes the whole course of what's going on.
And I think in today's professional sports, the ability to
break down your day, the ability to adjust, the ability
to take in information is so much greater than it

(23:48):
has been in the past. Because when I got to
the big leagues, there were six coaches. Now there's upwards
of fifteen or sixteen. There's a performance director, there's three trainers,
there's two strength and conditioning coaches. There's so many things
going on. A dietitian that's coming in and saying like, hey,
this guy's not following their meal plan, and you have
to have those conversations. That is how the game has
changed in my mind.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, Shelty. One thing I've always viewed it is I
think our jobs are so much more like an emergency room,
and we have to be doctors, and we can't have
best laid plans for the day. And if we're doing
our jobs to the best of our ability, we can
like do an emergency surgery or we can just you know,
sew up a little stitch on a kid's knee. But
it's everything in between, you know, like we have to

(24:30):
be able to do all these different things. We have
to be extremely versatile. Take take the listener into a
day in the life, like when did you show up
as a manager, what were the types of conversations you
aspired to have during the course of the day, and
ultimately how did that day typically unfold?

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Well, when during the time in Pittsburgh, because I actually
still live in Saint Pete and I have a fifteen
year old that's home. My wife wasn't there except for
in the summer. I spent a lot of time at
the ballpark, and I found myself after years one and two.
Now I start during COVID, so there were very strict
guidelines on when you could be at the ballpark and
when you could not be in the ballpark. But probably

(25:06):
after year two, I would get to the ballpark between
ten and eleven every morning and sit and basically have
a cup of coffee. It was one of the few
times during the day that my door was actually closed,
because I wanted to have that you know, cliched open
door policy where people could come in and out. But
if you close it at that point during the day,

(25:27):
you could get a ton of work done, whether it's
you know, making personal calls or catching up with people,
or just getting prepared for an upcoming series or knocking
things off the to do list. Because what I thought,
my view of it is at twelve or twelve thirty,
when the staff started to come in, you wanted to
be able to have your door back open. You wanted

(25:48):
to be able to have conversations. There may be people
that come in early, specifically to have conversations with you
about topics the previous game, what we're going to do
moving forward. So I would go from ten thirty to
noon and keep my door closed, and then at noon
I would open it up and the conversations would start.

(26:08):
Usually there were conversations amongst the coaches that would come
in early to work out or the performance group based
on health of the upcoming day or the upcoming series
and how we were going to plan it out. By
two o'clock, you had players in the building. And I think,
especially now because the one transition, like Ryan has talked about,
the food is so good in major league clubhouses that

(26:30):
players will come in to eat and play. And major
league clubhouses are so nice now guys are coming in,
whether it's for the sanctuary to eat, to get away
from their family and kids at times, for just relaxing.
I mean there's relaxation rooms, there's sleep rooms. I mean
that you and I were with Nelson Cruz, who slept
more than any human being I've ever been around. So

(26:52):
by two o'clock it's that, and then you start your
media obligations, whether it's you know, a national show, an
XIM show that happens a week, or you're meeting with
the beat writers, or you're meeting with you know, doing
a radio show. There's so many media obligations, especially on
the baseball side, and then once you get into three
point fifteen and beyond, you're getting into a situation where

(27:14):
there's early work going on. There's work in the cages.
One of the things that I kind of learned from
my days coaching and other managers I work for is
I try to stay out of coaches areas. You know,
I think it's a time where they should be able
to coach. They should be able to teach. Players do
not want the manager standing there while they're doing it.
There's a whole different vibe when the manager steps in

(27:35):
the room because he's the person that's making the ultimate decision.
But if we were out on the field, I wanted
to be out on the field for two reasons. Number One,
you get out of a you know, an office that's internal,
so you're outside, you're getting that fresh air. And then
number two, there's other people around. Whether you're talking to
your bullpen catchers, you're talking to your coaches, you're talking
to analysts that are on the field. But it gives

(27:56):
you time to be able to have those conversations, and
then you get into VP, you get into a pregame
situation where you're doing your script of how you're going
to pitch that night, and there's usually that's the time
I would spend thirty thirty to forty minutes with ben
Cherrington our GM and kind of work through there. And
then actually, the best part of the day, and I'm
sorry this is the long winded answered, is six forty

(28:16):
when the game starts. That's when everybody else goes away
and you get to do the fun thing. That's the
sanctuary of you know. The thirty to are the three
to three and a half hours of hey, we're just
doing the game. Now. You do have fans that could
be critical and they can think that we could yell
at and you're dealing with a lot of other factors,
but the six forty to the end of the game
was usually the best part of the day.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, Chilty, how did you build out your coaching staff
and how did you doing the roles along the way,
especially as the bench coach in Minnesota impact delegation. I
think that's one of the biggest challenges for any first
time general manager, head coach manager is delegating at times.
You know, some of the veteran guys are more comfortable
with that and learn some of us, especially who came up,

(29:02):
I think like the three of us did where we
kind of grinded and climbed the ladder, are used to
doing a lot ourselves. How did you kind of balance
that and what are some of the things you learn
as you reflect back on your time in Pittsburgh that
you did well and maybe a few things that, if any,
that you would do differently if you get another opportunity
to manage.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah. I think in terms of the staff, and this
is a really important one for me. We built our
staff in Pittsburgh in twenty twenty very development based, and
we were going through a significant rebuild in Pittsburgh, and
I think the conversation that Ben and I had was
we have to have people that have spent a ton
of time in the minor leagues because we're going to

(29:37):
be dealing with younger players and we're going to be
dealing with a lot of teaching and coaching. And I
do think that was really important at the time. The
reflection of that going back to it is in hopefully
getting another chance to do this moving forward, realizing that
probably needed more major league playing and coaching experience on

(29:58):
a staff and being able to separate that. And why
I saw that as important is our team started to
change and we started to get different skill sets of players.
I really feel that having that diversity of your staff,
and it's not just cultural diversity, which is extremely important

(30:20):
in terms of relating to players and having conversations with
players and understanding what players have gone through. I think
that's critical when building out a staff, But the ability
to have previous experience at that level, I think is
something that really stands out in terms of the delegation.
I was really fortunate the year that I spent with

(30:42):
rockaball Delhi when he was a first time manager. There
was a lot of delegation there, and I think one
of the things that I learned was if you can
take as much off the manager's plate on a daily
basis being the bench coach, it's better for the manager
because we highlighted what's going on in the manager's day,
and as many things as I could take off Rocco

(31:04):
or Paul Maltors in that in that case, as much
as I could take off their plate, they could focus
on other things because I never got the full scope
of the conversation that they were having with Derek Falvey,
who was a president or that who was the GM,
because I shouldn't. I'm not the manager. I'm the person
that's helped helping, you know, kind of supplement that. And
it's one of the things I tried to do with

(31:25):
my staff is I tried to push as much responsibility
to them as possible to kind of ease the burden
of what was going to go through my day to day.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
It's exceptional, you know. I was blessed in my career
one time to meet a chief of staff for Barack
Obama and he said exactly what you just said, Shelty,
that his role, he felt, was taking all the moderate
to lesser things off the president's plate so they could
focus their time when the biggest decisions they have to make.
And if they believe that you're doing that as professionally

(31:58):
and exactly the way they'd want it done, and they
can totally delegate and empower you to do that, it's
very fulfilling to you. But it also liberates them to
do what the job demands, because, as you point out
earlier and the listeners. You know, I personally think the
major league manager position is the most demanding job in
all of Major League Baseball. You guys have to talk
to the media twice a day. That's a lot more

(32:19):
than the President of the United States is talking to
the media. You also have to service Now these extremely
large coaching staffs, you're supposed to be developing them. You're
developing the performance staff, you're developing the twenty six man
player group in the room. And oh, by the way,
you strategically have to prepare for that night's game and
do everything that's required there. They are things that are

(32:39):
left on the cutting room floor. But one thing I
want to focus on with you, and this is something
you said at your opening press conference when you took
the job with Pittsburgh, is you wanted to have fun
and you are a person who uplifts rooms. You're a
culture creator. How did you instill that in the room
in Pittsburgh when you join that franchise?

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, I said that. I mean, you wait along for
position of that level that you want to make sure
that you have fun in doing it. And that's about
the players. Now. The turn that we took in that
regard was COVID was the first year, and you know,
COVID took a lot of fun out of a lot

(33:17):
of things. But the main thing that I feel COVID
took fun out of that first year was just the
ability to be with people. And because we had to
separate so it was kind of twofold is you could
only be with certain people. We tried to make it
that year in Pittsburgh and it was in the i
mean the guts of our rebuild. We had torn everything down.

(33:41):
We tried to do as much as a group as
possible because it was really the only people you could
hang out with. So when we went to hotels, we
tried to do trivia stuff or have game rooms, or
have get togethers because you couldn't go out in the city.
I mean, going out to dinner in Chicago is a
great thing. When during COVID we could not go out.

(34:01):
You could not be in a situation you were doing that.
So we tried to do as many player and staff
functions as possible, and then on top of it, as
many staff function as possible, just to build the camaraderie
as a staff. A lot of fun though honestly comes
from winning, and we were challenged with that in Pittsburgh
a little bit because of the rebuilds we were going through.

(34:25):
So I think the consistency of how you walk into
the room every day is really important and that allows
you to have fun. It's also the biggest challenge when
you go through a situation like we went through in
Pittsburgh because of the fact that we just did not
win as much as we wanted to.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Shelty, there are very few athletes who live up to
the hype they get as teenagers. Lebron James comes to mind,
as does Tiger Woods coming out of LSU. Paul Skeen's
had a lot of hype around him. You had the
chance to manage him as a rookie and then early
in his career. What do you think makes him so special?
He is the cy young favorite in the National League.
We'll see how the voting goes. And also, as a

(35:05):
secondary part of that question, do you think you could
help us get Libby done on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
We're looking to bring in.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
A younger demographic and I think having her on would
really spike our listener numbers.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah, Well, the second part of that, I'm sorry, I
don't think I can help you In that regard the
first part, I think the answer is kind of multi leveled.
Number one, Paul was raised really well. If you spend
any time around his mom and dad, you see the
character of who he is as a human being. The
second ponent component of that is he went to the

(35:36):
Air Force Academy for two years. In the guy that's
the head coach of the Air Force Academy, Mike Kazlowski,
is a wonderful human being. I've known him since I
was five years old. His dad and I. His dad
and my dad taught in the same conference growing up
in high school. But I think a lot of Paul's
discipline comes from how he was raised and then going
to the Air Force Academy and then having a coach

(35:57):
that basically sat down and was like, you need to
leave here, you need to get out of here because
of how talented you are. And then he was fortunate
he got to LSU with a gentleman that dad and
I both know, Well, that's the head coach at It's Georgia.
Now Wes Johnson, who was the pitching coach in Minnesota
with Thad and I. That is probably one of the

(36:18):
best pitching minds I've ever been around, and when talking
to Wes before we drafted him, when he started to
tell me about the conversations he was having with Paul
in the complexity of him for a twenty year old
college junior, you realize that his mind works differently. And
not only does his mind work differently, but the ability
to stay with the routine, the ability to have the

(36:40):
work ethic that he has that it's been instilled in
him and be disciplined in it. I mean for a
first year player, rookie player, and a second year player
in Major League Baseball, he never varies from what he's doing.
And then lastly, a lot of players never get to
this point. But his ability to manipulate the baseball, and
I'm by that is you can hand him a baseball

(37:03):
in telling him not I would not tell him, but
the pitching people tell him like, you need to put
pressure in this place, so you need to change the
ability to go on the horseshoe this way. And then
the action that he was able to get off, that
he's being able to create pitches at such a young
age that some players don't get into ever if not
later in their career. Just by his ability to manipulate

(37:24):
the ball. So all those factors go into the fact
of why he is so talented and he is he's
the best pitcher in baseball. He's doing things that are historic.
But I really feel that his ability to stay with
his routine that was instilled not only growing up but
through his formative years are what make him special.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Chelsea's staying on the theme of freakish talent. O'Neil Cruz,
can you take us behind the scenes of you guys
make the call that you're going to shift him from
shortstop to centerfield? What goes into that decision and how
do you communicate that to O'Neal and how did you
receive that?

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Well, there was a lot of thought to it. This
was not something that was a fly by night conversation,
like we did not decide on a Sunday afternoon, Hey,
we think we should move him to center field. We
put a lot of time in it, We put a
lot of effort into it. Now, we put a lot
of effort into the ability to stay at shortstop because
I think, as we all know, the premium value of

(38:21):
staying at shortstop in midjor league baseball kind of supersedes
everything because you have a sort if you have an
offensive player that's a shortstop, the value goes through the roough.
So we put a lot of hard work in and
to O'Neil's credit, he did the work. He got better
at shortstop. We didn't think collectively as an organization that
it was ultimately the position he was going to play

(38:42):
long term. He had had this significant injury. We waited
probably about a month and a half before we actually
made the decision. Before we made the decision, we outlined
the complete plan of what we were going to do,
who was going to implement it, how we were going
to do the work, and so we then we sat
down with him to have the discussion. We felt it

(39:03):
was important to have that decision made so we could
do at least a month in the big leagues. It
wasn't a winter ball situation. It was a situation he
was monitored. It was a situation not only where he
was monitored with the ability with our coaches, but also
with the technology with having hawkeye data, so we could
track what is jumps, what his reads were. We wouldn't
be able to do that in winter ball. And then

(39:25):
we sat down and had the conversation postgame with O'Neil,
and we did it through an interpreter. We did it
through another Dominican coach that was in the room as
a support system for O'Neil, because we knew he was
not going to be happy with this. Everybody that did
play shortstop wants to stay at shortstop. It was part
of his identity in terms of how he received it.

(39:47):
He received it professionally, but very quietly. He was not
pleased with it. We did give him a little bit
of time after that to kind of adjust to it.
And I would not say it was a situation where
he any means pouted, because he did not, but he
internalized it and he was affected by it, and I
think he was hurt by it. And then ultimately, after

(40:09):
a few days, we got into a situation where we
put in a plan of work and how we were
going to go about it, and then kind of transitioned
into that.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
You know, not all these conversations go as well as that.
I remember a conversation that John Daniels and I had
with Nelson Cruz in which John said, Hey, do you
think he maybe should start pitching? The hitting thing doesn't
seem to be working out for you. I think Nelson
said curse words and then proceeded to hit close to
five hundred home runs, and so the jury still out
as to whether he would have been a better pitcher.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
But he did okay as a hitter, Yes he did,
Yes he did. That was a wise decision on his part. Chelta.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
I've always felt these jobs as a head coach, manager,
general manager, it's almost like you're running on a treadmill
at eleven or twelve miles per hour. You're just constantly
going trying not to get ejected. I think you and
I had similar pass where I was gam of the
Suns for about five plus years and then got fired
at an unusual time in preseason. The season was just
about to start in the twenty eighteen nineteen NBA calendar,

(41:06):
and to me, it felt like somebody just kind of
pulled the plug out of the treadmill and you were
flying and it stopped. So if you would take us
and our listeners inside, you know, people know obviously about
your time in Pittsburgh and that it ended in early
May after thirty eight games. What have you been doing
since then? How did it go immediately after? And then
you know, did you take some time to kind of
recover and refresh your battery.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
So to speak.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
And then what have you been doing over the past
couple of months now that you know you're on that
treadmill for so long and then it stopped pretty quickly.
What's that process been like for you?

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Yeah, I think initially I would I it's not a relief.
I mean when you're in it every day. And we
got off to a we got off to a really
challenging start to shear in the first month and a
half and we were in a seven game losing streak.
When when I was fired it, I mean, honestly, last
year of a contract in year six. I kind of

(42:00):
felt that it was coming. When when Ben walked into
my office, I you know, I was like, I'm very
aware of why you're here. I've been in this game
a long time. What I did the first part of
it was sleep. I mean I had not been sleeping
very well. We had not been playing very well. So
I slept for about two or three days and probably
as well as I've slept in a while. And then

(42:23):
I spent some time with my family. Like I said,
I have a twenty five year old, I have a
twenty one year old, and then I have a fifteen
year old. In my fifteen year old, I think it's
sad knows is a club volleyball player. So I became
a club volleyball dad and went to tournaments, and it's
so funny. The first tournament I went to, I ran
into Brandon Hyde who had been fired the manager of
the Oorls had been who had been fired like two

(42:44):
weeks earlier. So I was able to spend a lot
of time with Gianna and doing that, and that was obvious.
That was honestly refreshing in a way. That was interesting
because with my two older kids, I was working in
Tampa when they were younger, and when you work in Tampa,
I was able to actually see things. In Gionna's point,
I was not able to see these things. I didn't

(43:05):
know anything about volleyball. So I turned into making fun
of the volleyball dads that stand on the sideline and
get mad to being the volleyball dad. I was actually
doing that last night in a game, being that person.
And then I had the opportunity, which was unique, to
get in a little bit to the media side of it.
XM Radio called me and asked me if I'd want

(43:27):
to do a fill in situation on their XIM shows.
So I've done some stuff on the leadoff Spot with
Steve Phillips, which is half radio, half TV. I've been
on Loud Outs in the afternoon probably three mainly three
times a week. I've done some TBS pre and postgame.
I went to the MLB Network and did some stuff,
and that was really challenging because you have to And

(43:49):
the thing I've enjoyed about it is when you're working
specifically for an organization, you're focused on that organization or
the organization that you're preparing for. Now I'm objectively looking
at every organization I'm having to prepare. I've actually hosted
a few times, which has probably been as nervous as
I've been because you have to go in and out

(44:10):
of breaks, you have to do reads, you have to
do all these things. It's been a new challenge for
me and a challenge for me to basically, I think,
kind of renewed my vigor for the game and my
love for the game. And then you take all that
on top of talking to people you trust in respect
and leadership roles about the reflection of what I did wrong,

(44:33):
what I did poorly. I'm not so much focused on
what went well. I don't think you need to do that,
but I focused on how I can become a better
leader and why I need to become a better leader. Shelsey.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
One of the things you kind of glossed over there
was the fact that I think most people watch movies
about how these things go down and it's contentious and
there's chairs thrones and you're given a box and you're
escorted out of the building and you're humiliated. That's not
really how these things go to You're you're still friends
with Ben Sherrington and could you just like take us

(45:05):
inside what what was that last conversation like and kind
of disavow the listeners of this notion that it's not
always the way Hollywood portrays it.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
No, it's not like you get the box and you
have like the you know, your high school basketball trophy
in it, and you know you're in you're stapler, Yeah,
you're stapler. Like I am going to say, I had
a really cool office that was I mean that I
think you know me well enough. I had a lot
of pearl jam stuff. I mean I had a keg,
I had a heavy bourbon area. So I had a

(45:32):
lot of stuff that I still don't have that I
need to get. But yeah, I mean I think to
Ryan's last question, I mean I kind of knew I
was getting fired. It was an off day and usually
when that's happened, and basically what I did it was,
it was it was an off day and I went
to the office early, and then Ben texted me and said, hey,

(45:54):
could you think about coming in because he was there.
I was like, I'm downstairs, so you know, he he
walked in, and I think how it went down. He
walked in. I had my computer open. He's like, hey,
can you shut that? And he kind of looked at
me and I said to him, like I know. I
was like I know, and you know, he's like, I'm sorry.
You know, we were in this together and this happens,

(46:15):
and like I told him at that point, I mean,
we shared some other personal things which I will not
get into, but I did say to him, like Ben,
we were friends long before this. I mean, he offered
me a job when I got fired from the then Indians,
when he was the farm director in Boston. He offered
me a minor league job before I went to Tampa
and then I worked with him in Toronto and I

(46:36):
have since talked to him multiple times this year. I
mean he you know, the first three weeks, four weeks,
he texted me once a week, just checking in on
me to see how he's doing. He's my friend, he
will he will always be my friend. I shared five
years in a leadership role with him where he and
I were probably the only two people that understood ninety

(46:56):
percent of the challenges that was going on in Pittsburgh.
It's not anything that's contentious. It will never be. I
mean maybe in certain situations it is if you don't
like your boss. But I liked Ben then He's been
a large part of my life. He helped me become
a better leader. He challenged me on things that I
did not do well. I don't think there's very many

(47:17):
people that can challenge managers in situations of what they're
doing and how they're going about it on a daily basis.
So the respect I have for him will will not
go away. But in no way is it contentious. I
mean I still talk to him. As I touched on,
I mean he had texted me. I think as we
go through this next hiring cycle, he will be someone

(47:37):
that I will lean on. He's someone that's seen me
in that role. He will have the ability to talk
to other leaders, other general manager, other president of baseball
ops about, you know, hopefully the things that I did
well and the things that he appreciated by me as
a major league manager, and then also guidelines of what
can make me better in that space, because everyone knows

(47:58):
when you have a job, the next version of yourself
should be a better version if you look at it honestly,
if you step back and reflect of the things that
went well, and I know there's some things that I
definitely need to improve on, and he's probably going to
be No, he's not. Probably he is the person that's
going to be able to give me the most clear cut, refreshing,

(48:23):
honest feedback in that regard.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
You know, Sheltery, One thing I've always acknowledged is these roles.
You know, when you look at Fortune five hundred companies,
they tend to have advisory boards or boarder directors to
help guide and hold you know, executives accountable. We don't
have that in professional sports.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Who did you.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Lean into and is that something you'd want to do
differently the next time? Is have a little bit of
an inner circle, somebody maybe outside the clubhouse, who you
could bounce ideas off of, so that you could have
that sounding board that maybe isn't somebody in the same
uniform with you, that you could give you some real
honest feedback and help you develop through your next phase

(49:02):
of your career.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
I think that's really important, and I do believe strongly
in this. I think we miss in baseball. I think
we miss in professional sports, especially North American professional sports. Now,
if you look at the Premier League, there's a lot
of teams that run basically a position that's not the
head coach or as the manager as they call it,
but someone that's actually sat in that chair that is

(49:27):
a sounding board for that person. In that regard, it's
someone that does not want that person's job, but is
there kind of as a mentor. Because honestly, no one
knows what you go through. No one knew what Ryan
went through or Ted you went through sitting in that chair.
Until you go through it. You can think. I thought
when I was a bench coach, I was the most
prepared bench coach ever to manage. I wasn't even close

(49:48):
to being prepared for what you go through on a
daily basis. So I think we miss in professional sports
in that regard of not putting someone on the payroll
that's there is you know, that person could not only
be a mentor to the major league manager, but to
all managers throughout the system, but someone that the manager
could kind of lean on. And what ends up happening

(50:10):
in professional sports or in Major League Baseball, is you
lean on other managers in the game. I talked to
Aj Hinch a lot. I mean, you know, the playoffs
are in progress, and I talked to Aj probably once
a week, not in any way mentoring Aj, just his
ability to have conversations. He's my friend. I talked to
Roco a lot during the season because he was someone

(50:33):
I was with and understand. So I think you end
up talking to people that you think have similar mindsets
to you in terms of what you're doing and how
you're going about it, and then you also develop relationships
with other people. Dave Roberts is someone that has become,
you know, a pseudo mentor to me. He's been through

(50:53):
a lot more different things than I have. I mean,
we're in similar in age, but we have definitely different
backgrounds in terms of he was a really good major
league player. He's managed the best team in baseball. But
just different mindsets in terms of what you're doing. The
ability to lead, how you go about things, I think
is really important. If you're going to improve as a leader,

(51:15):
you have to be able to be able to you
have to be able to get information from someone, and
you have to be able to take that information and
listen to it. And I really think it's something that
in professional sports we don't do as well. I mean,
we are a fortune five hundred business. It's a billion
dollar business. Every team is valuation in anywhere from what's

(51:37):
seven hundred and fifty million dollars to whatever the Yankees
are valued at. But we don't treat the coaching aspect
of that. We don't treat the front office aspect of that.
In any ways. I think, going back to Ryan's question
earlier about progressive organizations, the Rays did it better than
anybody I've ever been around. When Andrew Friedman ranam with

(51:59):
I mean it was Andrew Friedman and Eric Neander and
Heim Bloom and James Click and Peter Bendix was an
intern at that point and Joe was running it. But
the situation was and the way Stu Sternberg ran it
was like, you guys are basically going to have conversations
and take your egos out of it because we want
to put the best product on the field every day,
and I think there's very few situations. I think we

(52:21):
started to touch on that a little bit in Minnesota
when I was there with the group we have, But
you have to check your ego at the door if
you're going to do that, and there's not enough leadership
groups in professional baseball in my opinion, that have those
kind of groups that your ability to do that with.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
It's been a problem on this pod as well, Shelty
with that not checking the dego at the door. We've
had a number of conversations offline about it. Just wants
all the attention and all the credit now and serious.
On a more serious note, the last question I have
for you is you're in a unique position at this
very moment. We're recording this show calendars about the flip
from September into October, which means playoff baseball. I'm going

(53:02):
to ask you to look at the league from thirty
thousand feet. Now that we know the playoff field, which
teams do you like, which groups do you think you're
poise for a long run, maybe into the World Series
or to win the World Series? And are there any
specific players you have your eyes on as guys you
think could be standout performers in this postseason.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
Yeah. I think that's a great question, and I think objective.
My objectivity has really kind of heightened with the fact
that I have been doing some radio stuff and you
have to change. The Yankees are playing the best baseball
of anybody going into this. I think they have the
benefit of being in the wild card situation. I think
the Dodgers also have the benefit of being in the

(53:40):
wild card situation because Otani needs to pitch. It's really important.
The Mariners pitching is very interesting to me and I've
kind of been on the Mariners for about a month
and a half because they have four or five pitchers
that if they get hot, they have the best pitching
group in baseball. And then the last team is the
fit with Suarez and Sanchez at the top. I think

(54:04):
Rob Thompson is one of the best managers in the
game with the way he handles his club, and then
the fact that Trey Turner played the last day of
the season in his back, their offense has the ability
to score runs, and if you get into Citizens Bank Ballpark,
it's a whole different environment. So I think it's truly
one of the home field advantages. Chelsea, Well, I.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Have one last question. I want to make one last
point before I make that last question, Ryan, I think
a little bit different than basketball, where it seems as
if a lot of veteran coaches get multiple chances, second,
third chances, major League Baseball, there are a lot of
first time managers out there, and for a variety of reasons.
You know, sometimes general managers are trying to find the

(54:45):
next superstar guy. But I will say, like everything we
talked about in the show today, it just points to
the benefit of experience, like each of us will be
better the next time we get an opportunity. There's so
much that you don't int paid in the role, despite
how much we think we're prepared for it. I think
the wisdom, the experience, the perspective is invaluable whether or

(55:07):
not we return to the pinnacle positions that we we
formally had, or if we're advising people in those pinnacle positions.
I think we bring that experience and wisdom there and
I know Shelter would do that as well. Shelty, I
want to just shift your tension. Same question that Ryan
just asked, but from a managerial perspective. I don't want
you to rate the managers in the postseason, but I

(55:27):
wanted you to just maybe highlight one or two for
the listeners who were guys that you genuinely believe enhance
their team's chances to win. To who are the difference makers?
Who are the guys that when you were playing the
other team you're like, oh, man, I'm going to have
to be really sharp tonight because I know this guy's
going to make some moves on the margins to help
their team win.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Yeah. I think that's an unbelievable question, Dad, Well, I
mean I think the first place. Yeah, your face, I
let you ask you good questions. I'm sorry, Ryan, I apologize.
There's the ego thing.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
There's the media clip of the week.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
We didn't have to wait longer to come through, Shelty,
you know, pumping in the background over here.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Rare it's I think you highlight a little bit of
what what Tito has done in Cincinnati. The stabilization there
I think is really important. Uh, to the group having
been there, done that, that is definitely important. I don't
know if they have the depth though in terms of
to play. I think the managers that you're gonna see,

(56:27):
you know, Rob Thompson again stands out to me. Boonie
stands out to me, having been there, done that. Dave
Roberts stands out to me, done that. And where it
really becomes the aspect of managing is it's your bullpen.
It's managing what you're going to do in the fifth

(56:47):
and sixth inning. And I think we saw a J.
Hinch do a masterful job last year from August first
on the way he managed a bullpen. And I know
that the Tigers struggled going into the playoffs this year,
but having to make manage that fifth and sixth inning,
I think where it really stands out. And it's not
only making the move, but it's anticipating the move that's

(57:11):
going to be made on the other side of it
is probably the more important thing. And there's certain times
that managers, you know, make moves to try to get
the other manager to make moves, and it's almost the fact,
and I know this is going to sound strange, it's
the manager that's patient that doesn't make the move, that's like,
all right, you want to make that move, but I'm

(57:33):
playing chess with you for the move that's going to
happen in the seventh inning, and I may give up
an out in this situation because I'm going to run
myself back into a better situation later in the game.
And I think as we watch these playoff games, there's
gonna be times that we're like, why is this guy
not doing something? And then we see that guy come
to the plate later in games and you're like, Wow,

(57:54):
that was a really good move. And we don't we
don't highlight and talk about those moves enough because we
want to instantly as a society, especially in social media
the days, we want to instantly be critical of the
first move that was not made, thinking that, all right,
there could be a move made later on that will
ultimately help us win the game.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
He is Derek Shelton. Look for him in a Major
League Baseball dugout sometime soon, maybe even soon, Or look
for him if you're a high school volleyball tournament, especially
down in Florida. I'll probably be going nuts on the
sideline for Derek Shelton. Four Thad Levine.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
I am Ryan McDonough.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Thanks for joining us. Join us next week in every
week right here on Rosters the Rings.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
Please join me host that Levine, Ryan McDonough and other
general managers every week for Roster Syrings on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts