The Pirates organization still fails to see its main issues.
The news that Derek Shelton was fired on Thursday shows that the Pittsburgh Pirates organization is, in theory, taking responsibility for this failed season.
Shelton was undoubtedly not a manager deserving of keeping his job — he was the only manager from the 2020 hiring cycle still roaming — and he is not the most qualified on that list. In this case, Shelton is a good baseball man who wasn’t managerial material, at least not good enough to motivate and maneuver the talent (lack thereof) on the rosters he has been given.
Like Shelton, Don Kelly is a good baseball man. However, his big league playing experience and watching Jim Leyland manage for many years in Detroit give him a good chance to be a better leader and thinker than Shelton was (Shelton having lunch and chatting with Leyland clearly didn’t help him enough). He will have a chance to prove that no matter how bad this season gets.
Unfortunately for Kelly, whatever he does may not matter unless this team miraculously turns things around. Because owner Bob Nutting genuinely believes that this 2025 team, built by General Manager Ben Cherington, is built to win now, Cherington will do whatever’s necessary to keep his job, which may not be as hard as I or many others have predicted based on Nutting’s current perception.
Cherington stated after last season that he and Shelton would be “accountable together” before handing him the keys to a more unreliable offense than he created in 2024. If Cherington had any sense, he would have pushed for Shelton to be canned at the end of last season to see if they could pull a Terry Francona or any other experienced manager that could have put a staff together that may have had a better chance to create anything salvageable from this roster.
But instead, he kept his hands tied, like he has for his entire tenure in almost every aspect of his job, and settled for 38 games of Shelton before being forced to make the move (we all know that Cherington’s hand was forced, even though he says he made the “recommendation” to fire Shelton).
So why does Cherington seem to be getting more leeway, despite noting his fault in all of this, (and, in my opinion, he is much more to blame between him and Shelton) to be allowed to conduct at least one more of what will probably be another underwhelming MLB Draft and Trade Deadline?
Simply put, Bob Nutting does not make drastic moves with his business, whether through spending or changes to upper management. It’s important to note that he has had only two general managers and two presidents (not counting McClatchy’s one-year stay as President despite no longer owning the team) since 2007. President Frank Coonelly and General Manager Neil Huntington had a 13-year run until 2019, before Travis Williams and Cherington replaced them.
Doing a side-by-side comparison of what happened during Huntington’s tenure and Cherington’s thus far, they’re not comparable except that Huntington didn’t have any actual success until year seven of his tenure, and Cherington is in year six, which is maybe why Nutting could potentially stay patient with him into the 2026 season. However, for Cherington to sign another contract with this organization (with his current one expiring at the end of this season) after what will probably be another 90+-loss season would be almost unbelievable, but this is the Pittsburgh Pirates we are talking about.
During Huntington’s tenure until the magical season that was 2013, he went through two managers before getting on the Clint Hurdle train in 2011. He oversaw steady improvement in the 2011 and 2012 seasons after four disastrous seasons from 2007 to 2010. With Cherington, it was three rebuilding seasons with Shelton before steady progress in 2023, but the same results in 2024, and now whatever the heck this season is. In the end, if he’s out of a job next season, he may regret not being more aggressive in this past offseason with the coaching staff and in the trade/free agent market.
But if Nutting thinks this team is close to winning, as his recent comments suggest, Cherington may get the benefit of the doubt and see a third manager (and make Kelly a lamb to the slaughter).
Nutting would be wise not to look at history with Huntington to make current decisions about Cherington, although it may be too late. Not only do both GMs have the same ending to their last name (-ington), but Cherington has proven to have a similar conservative, analytical approach that may have worked back then, but not in today’s game.
Whoever the manager is now and in the future, it won’t mean a thing unless a different perspective is allowed in Cherington’s place, not a carbon copy. And with Nutting’s frugalness and unwillingness to adapt, I don’t know if that will ever happen.