Shelton Deserving Of Sixth Season Piloting Pirates

When training camp opens at Pirate City in February, the front office folks in Pittsburgh made the right call to keep Derek Shelton as manager.

What Shelton doesn’t need is a pity party. His goal in leading the Pirates is simple – get his troops to win more games in the 2025 MLB season. In the past two seasons, Pittsburgh has finished in fourth and fifth place in the National League Central.

The Pirates have registered two back-to-back seasons with identical records of 76-86. The club needs to collect a winning season. Going 86-76 would demonstrate progress.

To those who at the end of the 2024 season were calling for Shelton’s dismissal, if the Pirates’ front office followed through with this request, who would they pursue of equal or greater value within their budget?

The Pirates have made adjustments that should lead to positive changes for the coming season. Three days after the final game of this past season, hitting coach Andy Haines and bullpen coach Justin Meccage were fired.

In 2024, Pittsburgh was 23rd among MLB clubs in team batting average. With an anemic score of .234, after leading the Pirates’ hitting corps, Haines’ time, after three seasons on the job, needed to expire.

As far as Shelton’s eyes and ears in the bullpen, Meccage, after holding down the post as the coach for the relievers for five seasons, he didn’t deliver winning results in 2024.

Will the Pirates’ skipper be on a shorter leash with ownership, beginning with general manager Ben Cherington come Opening Day March 27 in Miami? One would think so. When the club plays its 162nd game of the season in September on the road in Atlanta, are the odds favorable that Shelton will still be running the Pirates’ dugout?

It’s all about winning. What have you done for me lately?

It’s safe to say that when Shelton begins the drive from his home in Pinellas County, a 45-minute commute south to Pirate City in mid-February, he will feel some level of pressure on how to prepare his club better, more efficiently than in the past.

It can’t be emphasized enough of the importance for the Pirates to get off to a quick, winning start. A nice short winning streak would send a message that this season won’t be like those of the past five under Shelton’s leadership.

In April 2023, Shelton was signed to a contract extension. As the Pirates’ 41st manager in the club’s celebrated history, his accumulated record of 294-414 can be summed up in one word – unacceptable.

As baseball people go, Shelton,54, is as smart as they come. During the past 20 MLB seasons, Shelton’s understanding of the game has been in high demand throughout the American and National Leagues. Before landing with Pittsburgh for the start of the 2020 season, there were stops with Toronto for one season, two seasons as Minnesota’s bench coach, seven seasons as the Tampa Bay Rays’ hitting coach, and handling the same role with the Cleveland Indians for five seasons.

All the planning, all the personnel choices for the Pirates’ 26-man roster, whatever parts of molding the 2025 season, Shelton will process with the greatest amount of research and baseball gut knowledge. He can run the bench effectively, but Shelton can’t put himself in the lineup.

Players must play. Injuries need to be kept to a minimum. Out of respect to what he has contributed to the Pirates over the past five seasons, Shelton most certainly has earned another shot at giving the Pirates’ fan base a winning product.