{"id":100105,"date":"2025-05-08T16:25:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T20:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=100105"},"modified":"2025-05-08T16:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T20:25:15","slug":"pirates-fire-manager-derek-shelton-don-kelly-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/08\/pirates-fire-manager-derek-shelton-don-kelly-replacement\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Fire Manager Derek Shelton, Name Don Kelly as Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates announced Thursday the dismissal of manager <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/04\/29\/pirates-derek-shelton-on-hot-seat\/\" target=\"_self\">Derek Shelton<\/a>, promoting bench coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kellydo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-08_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Don Kelly<\/a> to the managerial role. The decision follows a more-than-disappointing start to the 2025 season, epitomized by a 5-0 loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/03\/power-hitting-catcher-return-cardinals\/\" target=\"_self\">St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> on Wednesday, which capped a sweep and a disastrous 12-26 record, good for the third-worst record in baseball.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sheltde99.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-08_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derek Shelton<\/a> has been relieved of his duties as Pirates Manager.<\/p>\n<p>Pirates Bench Coach, Don Kelly, has been named manager. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dOO9dDwf5t\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dOO9dDwf5t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates\/status\/1920519001555263852?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 8, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><b>Derek Shelton Fired as Pirates Manager<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shelton, hired in November 2019, compiled a 256-403 record, a .389 winning percentage, second worst in franchise history (min. 500 games managed). Despite a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/04\/23\/derek-shelton-extension-pirates\/\" target=\"_self\">contract extension<\/a> in 2023, the Pirates struggled with consistency, often failing to play above expectations. General manager Ben Cherington acknowledged Shelton\u2019s efforts, saying, \u201cHe\u2019s an incredibly smart, curious, and driven baseball leader,\u201d but emphasized the need for change, per the team\u2019s statement. Owner Bob Nutting added, \u201cThe first quarter of the season has been frustrating and painful for all of us. We have to do better.\u201d Reports of player discontent occasionally surfaced, with some unnamed sources in 2023 noting Shelton\u2019s communication style clashed with younger players, though veterans like <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccutan01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew McCutchen<\/a> publicly praised his leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Don Kelly Steps Into Managerial Role<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Don Kelly, named the 42nd manager in Pirates history, brings a wealth of experience. The 45-year-old Pittsburgh native played 585 MLB games across the Pirates, Detroit Tigers, and Miami Marlins from 2007-16, notably contributing to Detroit\u2019s 2012 World Series run under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/leylaji99.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jim Leyland<\/a>. A versatile utility player, Kelly batted .230 with 23 home runs, playing every position, including pitcher. Since retiring, he served as the Houston Astros&#8217; first base coach in 2019 before joining Pittsburgh as bench coach in 2020. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nutting expressed Kelly\u2019s connection with Pittsburgh, saying, \u201cHe is a Pirate. He bleeds black and gold,\u201d while Cherington highlighted his skills and care for the team, \u201cI believe strongly Donnie is the right person to manage the team right now\u2026 He has the skills and experience needed to do this job really well and deeply cares about the Pirates and Pittsburgh. I look forward to working with him even more closely.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Pirates owner Bob Nutting on Pittsburgh native Don Kelly becoming new manager: \u201cDonnie is as respected as any person in our clubhouse and throughout our organization. He is a Pirate. He bleeds black and gold. No one is more committed, and no one loves this team or city more\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BNightengale\/status\/1920520694171120034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 8, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates announced Thursday the dismissal of manager Derek Shelton, promoting bench coach Don Kelly to the managerial role. The decision follows a more-than-disappointing start to the 2025 season, epitomized by a 5-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday, which capped a sweep and a disastrous 12-26 record, good for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5310,"featured_media":100108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071,35],"tags":[610,3160,28961,941],"class_list":["post-100105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-andrew-mccutchen","tag-derek-shelton","tag-don-kelly","tag-latest-mlb-news"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100109,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100105\/revisions\/100109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}