Twins manager Derek Shelton brings new energy: ‘Ready to run through a wall for him’

FORT MYERS, FLA. – When Derek Shelton is sitting in his manager’s office at Hammond Stadium, there is a two-month calendar to the right of his desk with all his daily tasks before “TRAVEL” is written in black ink March 24.

There is a whiteboard to Shelton’s left that lists strategic topics he wants to bring up to pitchers and catchers, like how they want to align the infield for bunts.

On his desk is a roster with some names highlighted. Shelton is in the process of meeting every player one-on-one in his office, which is partially a chance to become more familiar with each guy and an opportunity to explain how he views their roles entering camp.

During the Twins’ first few pitchers and catchers workouts, Shelton has embraced staying busy. He has chatted with fans. He’s roving across fields and bullpen mounds. As catchers took batting practice Saturday, Feb. 14, he was in left field with a glove running after some balls with a group of coaches.

It’s the way he wants it after he was unemployed for four months last season, fired by the Pittsburgh Pirates in his sixth season managing the club.

“You don’t realize the privilege of putting a major league uniform on until you don’t put a major league uniform on,” Shelton said after the first pitchers and catchers workout.

“Putting it on today, it was like, I haven’t done this in a while and it’s not just another regular spring training. That gets taken away from you for four months — today was a really cool day for me.”

He admits it was hard on him.

“You go through stages of grief,” Shelton said. “You thought you were pretty good at something, and they told you to go home.”

Shelton spent a lot of time at club volleyball games to watch his youngest daughter, Gianna. He joked he became one of the intense parents watching in the stands until his wife, Alison, chided him for yelling at the team’s 15-year-old libero to move her feet.

After a few weeks, Shelton started to reflect on what went amiss during his five-plus years with the Pirates.

What did I do wrong? Why and when did it break down?

“I was fortunate that I had the time” to reflect, Shelton said. “If I would’ve been let go at the end of the season, I would not have been ready for this. I needed that time to go through it.”

Shelton is already using some of those lessons. He stresses overcommunication, especially with younger players, because “you have to make sure what you said is what they heard.”

When the Twins signed Victor Caratini to a two-year, $14 million contract in January, Shelton immediately phoned catcher Ryan Jeffers to reiterate that Jeffers will be the main starter.

Shelton traveled to meet several players in the offseason, including Royce Lewis within the first two weeks after his hire.

“I’m ready to run through a wall for him literally and figuratively,” Lewis said.

Granted a second chance to manage, he made 21-year veteran LaTroy Hawkins the first hire on his staff as a bullpen coach, and he hired three-time All-Star Grady Sizemore as the outfield coach.

“I love his attitude,” said Hawkins, who previously worked as a special assistant and broadcaster. “I love his mentality. I love his loyalty. I always said if I ever wanted to coach, it has to be somebody I trust.

“And I trust Shelty. Just the way he goes about his business, he’s funny, he’s really smart, and he can get guys to do things that they probably don’t want to do. That’s not easy to do this day and age. He can do it.”

Sizemore, who was previously on the Chicago White Sox staff and had a 45-game stint as an interim manager, had Shelton as his major league hitting coach in Cleveland for five seasons and in Tampa Bay for one season.

He called Shelton easy to work with as a hitting coach who had a good understanding of his swing, but very direct with players on the standards he wants to set.

During Shelton’s one-on-one chats with players at the beginning of camp, he’s telling players whether he thinks they are competing for a job or reminding some of the younger players that they will probably start in Class AAA and to soak up the experience instead of putting pressure on themselves.

Shelton puts himself in the “enjoying camp” group. When he was the Twins bench coach in 2018 and ’19 under managers Paul Molitor and Baldelli, he was in charge of setting the spring training schedule. It was a lot of sleepless nights, he said, making sure everyone was on the right field at the right time, and all the equipment and machines were working.

“In ’18, I was scared to death that I was going to screw something up for Paul Molitor,” Shelton said. “That was the biggest thing. I had only been around him twice before we started camp.

“Then with Roc coming in, the anxiety was like, OK, we’re creating a whole new structure now. I also had someone that’s a really close friend of mine that was doing it and going through it for the first time. It was a different level of anxiety for both years.”

Out of baseball last summer, Shelton wasn’t certain he would receive another shot to manage. He’s confident he’s much better prepared for the job now. In his first years in Pittsburgh, he didn’t know what he didn’t know.