Perrotto: Accountability Should Never Go Out of Style (+)
Times change.
I fully understand that. The world keeps progressing. Few things remain the same.
The days of a manager publicly chastising a player are long gone. We’ll never see another moment like what happened in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training camp in 1991 when Jim Leyland got in Barry Bonds’ face in front of the entire team, a group of media members and fans.
And that’s fine because there are more civilized ways of doing things.
Yet one thing that should never go out of style is accountability and the 2022 version of the Pirates have a problem with that.
It starts with owner Bob Nutting refusing to take questions about the direction of his franchise. However, the problem also carries over from the owner’s suite down to the field.
The latest example came last Friday night during the Pirates’ loss to the Mets in New York. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes got caught on camera eating sunflower seeds while a ball was in play.
The Mets-owned SNY aired a clip of Hayes taking his glove off and reaching into his back pocket for sunflower seeds while the Mets’ Eduardo Escobar rounded third base on his way to scoring from second base on Tomas Nido’s single.
This was a bit of a shocker because Hayes, his subpar offensive season aside, is one of the few Pirates with a true feel for the game. He rarely makes mental mistakes.
Hayes’ father Charlie spent 14 seasons as a third baseman in the major leagues and clearly taught his son to play the game the right way.
Furthermore, Young Hayes has never done anything on or off the field to embarrass the organization. That was a factor in the Pirates being comfortable in signing him to the largest contract in franchise history in April, an eight-year, $70-million deal.
However, the sunflower seed incident was a bad look. Making it worse is manager Derek Shelton took no disciplinary action.
Shelton called it an “unfortunate situation” and “an outlier situation.”
“It’s one play in a game,” Shelton told reporters. “We moved on from it.”
I’m not suggesting Hayes should have been immediately banished to the Triple-A Indianapolis or even fined by the team. However, benching Hayes for Saturday’s game would have sent a message to the rest of the team that there is a certain standard to be upheld.
Shelton also did nothing Aug. 9 when second baseman Rodolfo Castro’s cell phone came out of his pocket during a loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix.
That happened the same day Castro had returned to the Pirates after spending two months with Indianapolis. Part of the reason Castro had been sent down was because of a lack of hustle.
While Castro clearly wasn’t trying to do anything nefarious, he also should have been benched for a game. Instead, Major League Baseball had to provide the discipline in that case, suspending Castro one game for breaking its rule prohibiting players from having electronic equipment on the field during game.
The Pirates are in line to finish last in the National League Central for a fourth straight season and have a second straight 100-loss year. It is a team that doesn’t know how to win. Letting things slide isn’t going to help create a winning culture.
Being a dictator doesn’t work anymore. Furthermore, Shelton is a really good guy who is in a really tough spot managing a rebuilding club with less overall talent at the major league level than any of the 30 MLB teams.
However, at some point, a manager must hold his players accountable.
Of course, lack of accountability with the Pirates starts at the very top and, is just trickling down.
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