The pirates the humble have a new captain.
Thursday, Pittsburgh Pirates announced that manager Derek Shelton has been relieved of his functions. Bench coach Don Kelly, from Pittsburgh who has been in the club since 2020, will take over as a manager. It was the earliest MLB season that a manager has been dismissed since 2018, when Cincinnati kept Bryan Price on April 19 after the start of his 3-15 club.
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As would be expected, the press release of the pirates contained enough words of GM Ben Cherington and the owner Bob Nutting to feed a small village.
Hired in November 2019, Shelton leaves the city of Steel with a record of 306-440. The percentage of Pittsburgh victories. After a ugly of 19 victories in the 2020 season at the cocovated period, Shelton's Pirates displayed victories of 61, 62, 76 and 76. Club 2025 is 12-26 entering the game ThursdayFollowing a campaign of 51 victories despite the continuous brilliance of the second year AS Paul Skenes, widely considered to be the best young launcher in baseball.
Shelton's mandate was defined by the loss, the constant reluctance of ownership to spend on payroll, the loss, the arrival of Skenes and more losses. In fact, the percentage of victories of Shelton .410 is the third lower among managers to serve at least five years in the integration era. His hackers never made the playoffs, never finished more than fourth in the central NL and have never been particularly close to finishing .500.
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But pinning all the misfortune on Shelton is unfair.
He is only the autumn guy, the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb of an organization poisoned by decades of institutional rot. The pirates have won 80 games in only a season since 1992. Only the Kansas City Royals compiled more defeats in the 21st century. The owner Bob Nutting has not signed a free agent for a multi -year contract since December 2017, almost two years before hiring Shelton and Cherington.
So, even if Shelton was perhaps not the magic solution for the pirates, he was certainly not the problem.
Here is the real problem: the 2025 pirates do not have enough good baseball players. The same goes for all the other season of the Shelton era. His clubs have never underreveled, disappointed or embarrassing. They were simply UndeMated.
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And it all starts at the top, with the property. More specifically, the problems are rooted in the tolerance of the mediocrity of nuts. He is happy to transport a small payroll, to build bad ball clubs, to undergo in every corner of the organization and to make a profit. And pirates fans, like their team, lose.
Perhaps Kelly, the new responsible man, can inject a refreshing and invigorating perspective in the current club. Maybe not. But that doesn't really matter because there is nothing that he can say or do to transform this calamity of an organization into a true winner. Cherington, who is under contract until next season, has failed to build a competitor but remains looking for his bosses. Nothing will change until the property does it.
For the moment, however, Derek Shelton can live peacefully, knowing that Moses himself could not have passed his lists of desolate pirates to the glory of the playoffs.
