Derek Shelton is 291-411 as Pirates manager since the 2020 season.
Baseball can be an unforgiving business full of ups and downs and change in a heartbeat during a 162-game season. Change is constant, and what’s constant is changes to teams who fail to reach the postseason on a consistent basis.
On Monday, the Cincinnati Reds fired manager David Bell after six seasons. The Reds are 76-81 and in fourth place of the NL Central. The final bell rang following a 2-0 shutout loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday. Paul Skenes delivered five scoreless innings and nine strikeouts to earn his 11th career win.
Bell finished his Reds career 409-456, only reaching the playoffs in 2020. MLB only played 60 games. The Reds entered the playoffs 31-29 and were swept by the Atlanta Braves. He signed an extension last season that carried Bell through the 2026 season. Cincinnati elected to rip up the deal and start over. They decided to be aggressive, admit they were wrong, do something about it, and look to start fresh with a good young core group of talent.
Could the same happen in Pittsburgh? Manager Derek Shelton has one of the worst winning percentages of active managers and is 291-411 (.415) and sat below .400 (218-328: .399) during his first four campaigns. Shelton has never had a winning season, let alone made the playoffs.
To be fair to Shelton, the Pirates were not playing competitive baseball in 2021 and 2022. Their intention was seemingly to develop young players and earn high draft picks, which have become Henry Davis, Termarr Johnson, Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, and others. The 2020 season was a fluke for everyone and not a true representation of a full baseball season.
That doesn’t mean Shelton should be excused for poor records leading into last season, but the talent at the Major League level wasn’t nearly the caliber as it is now. The Pirates closed 2023 76-86, a 14-game improvement from the year before. Pittsburgh is on pace for the same record. We also don’t know how long Shelton is under contract after signing an extension last April. The fans deserve to know that, but no public report has confirmed anything in the last two years.
It’s not good enough. I’m sure everyone in the building would admit that. The Pirates aren’t marginally better with Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz healthy and performing at a high level, plus the debut of Jared Jones and also Bryan Reynolds for a large portion of games.
If Shelton returns in 2025, he will become the fourth-longest tenured Pirates manager in club history since Danny Murtaugh’s 15 seasons spanning four separate stints. Only Chuck Tanner (1977-85), Jim Leyland (1986-1996), and Clint Hurdle (2011-2019) have managed more since the 70s.
What does the Reds moving on from Bell say about a potential dismissal of Shelton? Only time will tell. Shelton’s a good person, and I’ve had nothing but good interactions with him. I think his heart is in the right place. I do wonder if things have gotten stale and at a breaking point.
The Pirates need to identify if Shelton will push the team over the finish line in 2025 to clinch a playoff birth. They need to check off the 82-win box before the playoffs can be considered.
Even though Cincinnati fired Bell, it won’t change the Pirates’ minds about Shelton one iota. They know what they want to do, but we’ll have to wait and see how the final week progresses.
It’s one of the most critical times in franchise history sine the turn of the century to optimize Skenes, Jones, Mitch Keller, Cruz, Reynolds, and more.
General manager Ben Cherington said earlier this month that he ‘fully expects’ Shelton to return in 2025. Actions speak louder than words. Shelton’s fate will be sealed and likely finalized by the second week of October. Until then, we wait. One way or another, the future of the Pirates depends on it, and one side of the coin is destined to be mad.