Why Pirates fans should believe in new manager Don Kelly's leadership

With the horrific start that the Pirates put together, changes had to be made. In attempt to salvage this season, Pittsburgh decided to fire Derek Shelton, the first of potentially multiple changes to the organization's management.

To fill Shelton's role as manager, Don Kelly was promoted. He had been serving as the Pirates' bench coach for as long as Shelton was in charge. This is his sixth season with the Pirates, so now he will get his opportunity to manage the team for 2025 and possibly longer. He was named the manager, not an interim, so if all goes well and he doesn't get fired, Kelly could be the manager of the Pirates beyond this season.

Shelton finished his Pirates tenure with a record of 306-440 (.410) and no playoff appearances. Kelly spent time around all of that failure too, of course, so it will be very interesting to see how he manages this team differently. There is some reasoning to believe in him as the next manager of Pittsburgh.

Pirates fans need to believe in new manager Don Kelly following Derek Shelton's firing.

Kelly has been in baseball for many years as a player and a coach. He debuted with the Pirates back in 2007, then went to the Tigers to play for another six seasons. He finished his career with the Marlins for another two.

Not only did he play in Pittsburgh professionally, but he attended Mount Lebanon High School outside of Butler, Pennsylvania and attended Point Park University.

He finished his professional career with a .628 OPS, 72 wRC+, and belted 23 homers. He was no All-Star, but he did hang around for 585 career games.

After his last season with Miami, Kelly served as a scout for Detroit for two seasons, then was the Astros first base coach for a year before making his way to Pittsburgh as the bench coach.

The only times he has gotten to manage a ball club were during games in which Shelton was ejected, which totaled 16 times with the Pirates. He may not be as experienced as a manager, but he has coached within the game for a chunk of time. Although fans will likely take this with a grain of salt,Bob Nutting believes in Kelly to save this team.

“Donnie is as respected as any person in our clubhouse and throughout our organization,” said Nutting via X. “He is a Pirate. He bleeds black and gold. No one is more committed, and no one loves this team or city more than Donnie. He is the right person to manage our team and help get us back on track.”

Kelly could very well be the long term solution in Pittsburgh at manager. Maybe the team he will be working with is not the greatest, but if he plays the cards differently than Shelton did, results could be different.

Shelton consistently put out different lineups daily, which does happen when players need off days, but the amount of times he switched things up after the team would begin to have success was just unnecessary. It threw off any momentum these guys had started to generate. Additionally, his bullpen management was questionable. Keeping David Bednar in as the closer and Colin Holderman as the setup man for as long as he did in 2024 and to begin 2025 was truly a mistake, and has cost the Pirates many games.

As stated before, Kelly is not an interim manager. The organization clearly believes in him to take care of this team for potentially longer than 2025. If the Pirates continue to struggle, then his future is questionable. If there is success from this team and they get hot, getting back to .500, then he may stay and be back again in 2026.

Reporters have noted that Kelly works very hard and is deserving of this position. He cares about the team a lot, and that means a lot to the players. If he was not a hard worker for the position that he previously held as bench coach, then he would not have been hired in this role. Hopefully his dedication translates towards a success on the field.

This needs to be the spark the team needs to be better. Pittsburgh has missed out on competitive baseball for way too long. Ben Cherington needs to take this firing into his own hands, too, because he may be next if there are not positive results moving forward.

After all, this firing was made to fix things now, so if it is not fixed, that does not leave much wiggle room for Cherington.