Glenn Sherlock and Derek Shelton started to talk regularly in the later parts of the 2019 season. It was nothing too formal. Shelton, the Twins bench coach, and Sherlock, part of the Mets' staff, discussed their teams, playing the game, how both of them were doing outside of baseball.
The two stayed in touch through the fall, and in mid-December, the conversations started to take a new direction. How about coming to Pittsburgh?
Sherlock was receptive to the idea, and after talking to GM Ben Cherington last weekend, it became official. Sherlock had joined the Pirates staff as a major league coach.
"My family's thrilled, I'm thrilled, to be a part of the Pirates organization," Sherlock was telling me over the phone. "It's a great organization. It's a storied franchise, and Pittsburgh is just a tremendous place to play baseball."
Throughout their coaching search, Cherington and Shelton stressed they were looking for candidates with the "right experience." That mindset lead to the hires of Don Kelly, 39, as bench coach and Oscar Marin, 37, as pitching coach, two young up-and-comers with only one season of major-league coaching experience under their belts.
Sherlock, 59, gives the Pirates a veteran voice for rookie manager Shelton's staff. He has been in professional baseball for 36 years. Kelly was 3-years-old and Marin was 1 when Sherlock first suited up in 1983.
Sherlock has been part of the Mets coaching staff the last three seasons, including being their third base coach from 2017-2018. He was with the Diamondbacks for 19 years prior to that, serving as a bullpen coach for 14 seasons, a bench coach for three and a third base coach for two. He also was the catching coach with the Diamondbacks and he worked with Mets backstops as well.
He believes adding someone with decades of experience will help, but like Shelton and the other members of his staff, Sherlock wants to be a better coach as well.
"I've been fortunate to be around a lot of good baseball people and a lot of good baseball players," Sherlock said. "I've done a lot of jobs, from bullpen coach to third base to bench. I've always coached catchers. I think my experience is certainly going to help, but the one thing about that is there are still a lot of things I still have to learn, and I'm looking forward to learning new things from Ben Cherington and Derek and other guys who have been in other organizations."
The Pirates had been considering adding a quality control coach to their staff. It is a new role that has popped up across the league in recent years, and while the responsibilities differ from team to team, generally, they work with players, the rest of the staff and the baseball operations department to help implement new ideas. Shelton was a quality control coach with the Blue Jays in 2017.
While the Pirates do not refer to the new position as quality control, it checks many of the same boxes. Sherlock said he knows what his responsibilities are, but he does not know if any pre-existing title reflects what he will be doing.
His primary focus will be working with the catchers and run prevention with both position players and pitchers. He will also assist Shelton and Kelly with game preparation and management.
"It's an exciting role because I'm going to be doing some different things," Sherlock said. "The catching thing is my passion. I love coaching catchers. The run prevention is something that I have experience doing... I'm interested to hear other people's ideas on how to approach this."
Catching has been a point of interest for the Pirates this offseason. While they are still exploring trades and there are other options in free agency, at the moment, Jacob Stallings and Luke Maile are the only two catchers on the 40-man. Both excel defensively but struggle at the bat. Neither has ever been anything more than a backup, either.
Coaching catchers has evolved over the past decade, with teams now looking for more than just physical skills like blocking and throwing. So what is going to go into coaching the Pirates backstops in 2020?
"Now, it's a lot about catching metrics and receiving the ball a certain way and keeping the count in your pitcher's favor. That's important and we're going to spend a lot of time on," Sherlock said. "The other is the information part of it. Sometimes that can get confusing, so we want to make sure that we can keep it simple and we get can get that information to the catchers who can use it when they're calling their game and trying to put the pitcher in the best situation he can."
That information includes scouting reports and insights on Pirates pitchers.
Sherlock has not had a chance to talk to either Stallings and Maile, but he was quick to compliment Stallings' improvement in 2019. Stallings and bullpen catcher Jordan Comadena were responsible for most of that improvement, developing a workout routine to make him one of the best pitch framers in baseball.
Sherlock said most of the things coaches learn come from players, so he is looking forward to seeing what he and Stallings can teach each other.
"I want to understand from the player's point of view, what's working for you? Why do you think it's working? What can we do better? What can I do to help? I'm excited about the group we're putting together."