Yesterday, the director of Pirates dismissed Derek Shelton, ending his mandate of more than five years as director of the organization. This mandate did not have exactly many protruding facts, because the pirates never won more than 76 games in one season under his direction and he left the manager’s chair with a record of 306-440 in total. For a use of nebulous and difficult to assess from outside as director of the Grande League, there are few options other than the vision of a club record such as the reflection of the manager’s professional performance.
All this is to say that the replacement of Shelton by Don Kelly in the canoe is not necessarily a shocking or controversial decision for the pirates. After years of failure, including a disappointing 2024 season when they finished with a record identical to 2023 despite the addition Paul Skenes And Jared Jones For the rotation, Pittsburgh was surely hoping for a great year in 2025. It is a long season, but things have not worked in this way so far: the club has experienced 12-26 so far and currently has a sequence of seven consecutive defeats with only three serial victories this year.
That being said, it is difficult to argue that even a renowned temple manager could run this club. The hackers had an extremely calm off -season which enabled them to enter the season after spreading $ 22 million in expenses over seven free agents this winter. Perhaps if Skenes was supplemented by regulars above the average as Teoscar Hernandez And Gleyber Torres instead of roles Tommy Pham And Adam FrazierThe team would be in better position and Shelton would still be used.
The rear zoom in the specific situation of Shelton, seasonal shots for managers have become increasingly rare over the years. Rather famous, the 2022 season has seen four managers get fired with more than a month of baseball to play. The Rangers shot Chris Woodward in mid-August. The Blue Jays dismissed Charlie Montoyo in mid-July. The Phillies and the Angels both shot their managers (Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon, respectively) at the end of the first week of June. Two of these four teams continued to make the playoffs, although it should be noted that Toronto had a record for victories and was in the playoff position when Montoyo was dismissed.
For each dismissal like that of Girardi, which occurred when the phils were only 10 to 18 years old before they ultimately gave things up and went to the World Series under Rob Thomson, there are several who do not change the result of the season. Before the successes of Thomson and John Schneider in 2022, the last team to make the playoffs after shooting their manager was the rocky of 2009. On the other hand, the Orioles and the Royals in 2010 were both significantly improved after hiring the mid-season Ned Yost and Buck Showalter. Although none of these teams did the playoffs, Showalter led Baltimore to the qualifying series of his second year as a manager while Yost finally led the Royals to consecutive appearances of the World Series in 2014 and 2015. The Marine season turned last year after the dismissal of Scott Servais in favor of Dan Wilson, and Seattle is currently holding the second best record in the American League.
Perhaps, then, the argument to make a change of management in season is that it offers your new manager an opportunity to get comfortable in the role in a season which has already reduced by a bad start under the previous director. There could certainly be value in this, as well as the possibility of giving an internal candidate a kind of trial in the canoe before weighing external candidates during the offseason.
On the other hand, one could say that if a club does not have the confidence in its manager to stick to more than a month of poor performances from the team, this club should simply have a change in management the previous off -season so that the team was led by the ideal organization of the organization for work from the start of the season.
Where do MLBTR readers fall as regards this debate? Are the changes of management in season a good practice that leads to positive changes within the organization and can encourage teams to success, or are they widely devoid of meaning intended to demonstrate the urgency that would have been better demonstrated during the previous off-season? Have your word to say in the survey below:
