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Derek Shelton

Twins Hire Derek Shelton As Manager

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October 30: The Twins officially announced Shelton as their new manager this morning. The team will introduce Shelton at a press conference on November 4.

“Derek brings a tremendous amount of experience from his many years coaching and managing at the Major League level,” Derek Falvey, Twins president of baseball operations, said in a statement. “He cares deeply about this community and our fans, and he’s genuinely driven to take on the challenge of bringing winning baseball back to Minnesota.

“We’ve seen firsthand the trust and respect he earns from players and how he helps them reach their best,” Falvey’s statement reads. “His journey, through both the successes and the tough stretches, has given him real perspective as a leader. That balance and his connection to what this place means to people will serve our players and staff well as we work to build something lasting for our fans and for Minnesota.”

October 29: The Twins are hiring Derek Shelton as their new manager, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The team will not announce the hire tonight, as MLB discourages clubs from revealing personnel news on playoff game days. Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that Shelton will be officially introduced sometime next week.

Shelton returns to the Twin Cities, where he previously spent two seasons as bench coach. He held that role between 2018-19, working one season apiece under Paul Molitor and Rocco Baldelli. His familiarity with the front office surely gave him a boost in the managerial search. Shelton was a finalist during the 2018 hiring process that led to Baldelli. While he didn’t get the job at that point, he only needed to wait one more year before he got a managerial opportunity. Shelton landed the top job with the Pirates going into 2020.

Pittsburgh was coming off a 69-93 season that had led ownership to fire manager Clint Hurdle and GM Neal Huntington. They brought in Ben Cherington to run the front office and Shelton to oversee a rebuilding roster. Pittsburgh went 19-41 in the shortened season, then posted consecutive 100-loss records in 2021-22.

Things appeared to be trending up by 2023. The Bucs improved to a 76-86 record. The next season, they hovered around .500 for a while and were very soft deadline buyers. Pittsburgh finished with a 21-33 performance in the final two months, leaving them 10 games under .500 for the second straight year.

The poor finish carried into the ’25 season. The Bucs began the year with a 12-26 record and were more or less locks for another last place showing when they fired Shelton in the second week of May. Pittsburgh played .500 ball under Don Kelly the rest of the way, so they’re sticking with a Cherington/Kelly tandem going into 2026.

Overall, Shelton holds a 306-440 career record. That’s heavily weighed down by the first three seasons in which no manager stood a chance of posting good results with such a poor roster. The Bucs stalled before they ever pulled out of the rebuild, however.

Pittsburgh especially struggled to develop young hitters. Highly-touted talents like Ke’Bryan Hayes, Henry Davis, Endy Rodríguez, Nick Gonzales and to a lesser extent Oneil Cruz did not click the way the organization needed. That’s not entirely the fault of any one coach or manager, of course, but Shelton came up as a hitting coordinator in Cleveland and spent parts of seven seasons as an MLB hitting coach with the Rays before getting the bench coach position in Minnesota.

Shelton’s experience working with a rebuilding roster should come in handy with the Twins. They’re amidst at least a retooling effort after trading Carlos Correa and essentially their entire bullpen at the deadline. The Pohlad family ownership group has pulled back spending since the Twins won 87 games and an AL Central title in 2023. They’re coming off a 70-92 showing that had them above only the White Sox in the American League. That resulted in them firing Baldelli after seven seasons. Any or all of Joe Ryan, Pablo López and Ryan Jeffers could be traded this offseason.

The Twins landed a couple upper level starting pitchers (Taj Bradley and Mick Abel) at the deadline, and they have some interesting young hitters to build around Byron Buxton. Maybe there’s a path back to competitiveness by 2027, but this is likely to be one of the worst teams in the AL next year. They need to overhaul the bullpen and have too many holes in the bottom half of the lineup to fix in an offseason that is likely to be more about which players they trade away than the ones they bring in.

Shelton was reportedly one of four finalists for the Minnesota job. Yankees hitting coach James Rowson (another former Twins staffer), Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty, and Padres special assistant Scott Servais were the others. There are now four teams still searching for a new skipper: the Padres, Braves, Rockies and Nationals.

Flaherty and Servais have each been floated as potential candidates for the San Diego position, which is expected to be filled by the end of the week. Rowson has only publicly been linked to the Twins position. Atlanta and Washington have played their searches close to the vest. (Baldelli is reportedly of interest to the Nats.) Colorado has yet to even get the process underway as they focus on hiring a new GM. It’s possible that any of the three other finalists gets a look from one of those teams.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.

Twins Narrow Managerial Search To Top Four Candidates

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The Twins seem to have winnowed down their candidates for manager to a group of four. Dan Hayes and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic report that they’re still considering Derek Shelton, James Rowson, Ryan Flaherty, and Scott Servais. While Hayes and Ghiroli leave open the possibility the Twins could broaden the field, that seems to be a long shot.

All four of those coaches had been tied to the Twins’ search, though it hadn’t been previously reported that Servais and Flaherty had formally interviewed. Shelton and Servais have previous MLB managerial experience. Shelton led the Pirates for five-plus seasons. Pittsburgh never won more than 76 games and posted a 41% win percentage over his tenure. Shelton wasn’t working with the most talented rosters, of course, but the Bucs fired him in May after beginning this past season with a 12-26 record. They went 59-65 under Don Kelly the rest of the way.

Before moving to Pittsburgh, Shelton spent two seasons as Minnesota’s bench coach under Paul Molitor and Rocco Baldelli. The Twins interviewed him during the 2018 process that led to the Baldelli hiring. Rowson, who was Minnesota’s hitting coach at the time, also interviewed in 2018. He spent one season on Baldelli’s staff before departing to become bench coach in Miami. He also spent a season in Detroit and has worked as the Yankees’ hitting coach for the last two years. Hayes and Ghiroli write that Shelton and Rowson could be the frontrunners because of their previous ties to the Minnesota organization.

Servais managed the Mariners for parts of nine seasons. Seattle won 51.4% of their games and had five seasons with at least 86 wins during his tenure. The M’s stalled out in the second half of the ’24 campaign, leading them to fire Servais and hire Dan Wilson that August. The Mariners advanced to the ALCS in Wilson’s first full season at the helm. Servais worked as a special assistant for the Padres this year and has also gotten attention from the Orioles for their managerial opening.

Flaherty has worked as Craig Counsell’s bench coach with the Cubs for the last two years. He has also been mentioned as a candidate for the Baltimore and San Diego openings. Royals’ third base coach Vance Wilson, Red Sox’s bench coach Ramón Vázquez, and Padres’ coach Nick Punto had interviewed with the Twins but are now out of the running.

Twins To Interview James Rowson, Derek Shelton In Managerial Search

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8:40pm: Rowson, Shelton and Vázquez will all indeed get interviews, according to a Minnesota Star-Tribune report.

3:37pm: The Twins are looking for a new manager and are considering a current Yankee coach. According to reporting from Greg Joyce, Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of The New York Post, the Twins are interested in Yankees hitting coach James Rowson. Clubs generally don’t stand in the way of their staff members seeking promotions with other clubs and the report notes that the Yanks have already given the Twins permission to speak with Rowson about the gig. The report also mentions Derek Shelton and Ramon Vazquez as potential candidates. MLBTR covered Vazquez earlier today.

Rowson, 49, has no managerial experience but has a long track record as a hitting coach. The Twins are surely familiar with his coaching abilities, as he was their hitting coach from 2017 to 2019. Minnesota’s bats fared well during that time, putting up a collective .260/.330/.445 line over those three campaigns. That translates to a 105 wRC+, which trailed only four clubs for that span. The 2019 club was particularly successful, hitting 307 home runs. That was the juiced-ball season but the Twins still led the league in putting that ball over the fence.

Going into 2020, he jumped to the Marlins with the titles of bench coach and offensive coordinator. Miami didn’t have especially strong offense during his time there but the club wasn’t trying especially hard to win, playoff appearance in the shortened 2020 season notwithstanding. Rowson then spent 2023 with the Tigers as assistant hitting coach before getting his current gig as the Yankees hitting coach.

Separating the contributions of the players versus a coach is always difficult but the Yanks have performed well under Rowson. The Yanks had a .248/.333/.429 line last year, translating to a league-leading 118 wRC+. This year, it was a .251/.332/.455 slash, again topping the league with a 119 wRC+.

Obviously, having a slugger like Aaron Judge on the roster helps but Rowson appears to be respected around the game, based on his continued employment. Whether his experience with hitters can translate to the larger role of manager is something the Twins will have to debate as they pursue various candidates to replace Rocco Baldelli, who was fired last month. For the Yankees, they will have to find a new hitting coach if Rowson ends up getting the gig in Minnesota.

Shelton brings more managerial experience, though without much success in the role. He managed the Pirates from 2020 to 2025, getting fired in May of this year. He produced a 306-440 record while at the helm of the Pirates. That’s obviously a poor mark but Pittsburgh has been rebuilding for that stretch, so it’s debatable how much of that record should be attributed to Shelton’s managerial abilities.

Photo courtesy of John Meore, Imagn Images

David Ross Hoping For Another Managerial Opportunity

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Former Cubs manager David Ross is interested in a return to managing, the ex-skipper told Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. “It’s an itch that hasn’t gone away.” Ross has been out of baseball for the past two years after getting fired by Chicago following the 2023 campaign.

Ross spent four seasons at the helm in Chicago. He had no previous managing experience prior to taking over for Joe Maddon after the 2019 season. Ross led the Cubs to an NL Central title in the shortened 2020 season, but the squad was dispatched by the Marlins in the Wild Card round. Chicago failed to reach the playoffs for the final three years under Ross. After back-to-back seasons well below .500, Ross led the team to 83 wins in 2023, but they fell a game short of a Wild Card berth. The Cubs moved on that offseason, choosing to hand Craig Counsell a record five-year, $40MM deal.

The jump from player to manager without a previous coaching gig was a bit surprising, but Ross was a familiar face in Chicago. He spent his final two seasons as a player with the Cubs, winning a World Series in 2016. The photo of Ross being carried off the field by his teammates was an iconic image following the curse-breaking victory.

Ross relayed to Rosenthal that he was not interviewed by the Reds, Marlins, or White Sox during their managerial searches ahead of the 2025 season. He added that there were conversations about bench coach positions, but nothing came to fruition. The Athletic had previously reported that the Yankees and Orioles had shown interest in Ross for bench coach roles since he’d been fired by the Cubs, but the former catcher preferred a managerial position if he were to return to the dugout.

This offseason presents plenty of opportunities. With Brian Snitker stepping down this week, there are now a staggering eight managerial openings around the league. The Twins and Giants fired their managers at the end of the regular season. The Nationals, Orioles, and Rockies did so during the season (though none of those teams have firmly declared that their interim skipper won’t be back). The Rangers and Bruce Bochy are parting ways. The Angels chose not to retain Ron Washington, who stepped away midseason due to heart surgery. The team also announced that interim manager Ray Montgomery, who took over for Washington, will not be back.

Ross isn’t the only former manager in search of a new home. Bob Nightengale of USA Today wrote last month that Brandon Hyde, Derek Shelton, Bud Black, and Davey Martinez are all looking to land skipper positions after getting fired during this past season. Rocco Baldelli, Bob Melvin, Bochy and Washington were all let go at the end of the year.

MLBTR Podcast: Devers Drama, Managerial Firings, And Jordan Lawlar

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Should the Orioles try to extend Cedric Mullins or Tomoyuki Sugano (35:05)
  • How real are the Twins and the Tigers? (39:00)
  • What should the Cardinals do in right field if Jordan Walker doesn’t get going? (44:50)
  • Why do the Mets seemingly do better with external pitching additions than their homegrown arms? (49:25)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images

Poll: In-Season Managerial Changes

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The Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton yesterday, bringing his five-plus year tenure as the organization’s manager to an end. That tenure didn’t exactly have many highlights, as the Pirates never won more than 76 games in a season under his guidance and he leaves the manager’s chair with a 306-440 record overall. For a job as nebulous and difficult to evaluate from the outside as that of a big league manager, there are few options other than viewing a club’s record as a reflection of the manager’s job performance.

All of that is to say that replacing Shelton with Don Kelly in the dugout is not necessarily a shocking or controversial decision for the Pirates. After years of failure including a disappointing 2024 season where they finished with an identical record to 2023 despite adding Paul Skenes and Jared Jones to the rotation, Pittsburgh was surely hoping for a big year in 2025. It’s a long season, but things haven’t worked out that way so far: the club has gone 12-26 so far and is currently riding a seven-game losing streak with just three series wins total this year.

With that being said, it’s difficult to argue that even a Hall of Fame-caliber manager would be able to turn this club around. The Pirates had an extremely quiet offseason that saw them enter the season having spread just $22MM in spending across seven free agents this winter. Perhaps if Skenes was being complemented with above average regulars like Teoscar Hernandez and Gleyber Torres instead of role players Tommy Pham and Adam Frazier, the team would be in a better position and Shelton would still be employed.

Zooming out from Shelton’s specific situation, in-season firings for managers have become increasingly rare over the years. Rather famously, the 2022 season saw four managers get fired with more than a month of baseball left to play. The Rangers fired Chris Woodward in mid-August. The Blue Jays fired Charlie Montoyo in mid-July. The Phillies and Angels both fired their managers (Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon, respectively) by the end of the first week of June. Two of those four teams went on to make the postseason, although it should be noted that Toronto had a winning record and was in playoff position when Montoyo was dismissed.

For every firing like that of Girardi, which occurred when the Phils were just 10-18 before they eventually turned things around and made it to the World Series under Rob Thomson, there’s several that do not change the outcome of the season. Prior to the successes of Thomson and John Schneider in 2022, the last team to make the playoffs after firing their manager was the 2009 Rockies. On the other hand, the Orioles and Royals in 2010 both improved significantly after hiring Ned Yost and Buck Showalter midseason. Though neither of those teams made the playoffs, Showalter led Baltimore to the postseason in his second year as manager while Yost eventually led the Royals to back-to-back World Series appearances in 2014 and ’15. The Mariners’ season turned around last year following Scott Servais’ dismissal in favor of Dan Wilson, and Seattle currently holds the second-best record in the American League.

Perhaps, then, the argument for making an in-season managerial change is that it offers your new manager an opportunity to get comfortable in the role in a season that’s already had its expectations diminished by a poor start under the previous manager. There could certainly be value in that, as well as the opportunity to give an internal candidate a sort of trial run in the dugout before weighing external candidates during the offseason.

On the other hand, one could argue that if a club lacks the confidence in their manager to stick with them for more than a month of poor performance from the team, then that club should have simply made a managerial change the prior offseason so that the team would be led by the organization’s ideal person for the job from the very start of the season.

Where do MLBTR readers fall when it comes to this debate? Are in-season managerial changes a good practice that brings about positive change within the organization and can spur teams to success, or are they largely meaningless moves meant to demonstrate urgency that would have been better demonstrated during the previous offseason? Have your say in the poll below:

Does it make sense to fire the manager during the season when a team underperforms?
Yes, it lets try to shake things up and get the team going or make decisions with an eye towards the future. 79.88% (2,184 votes)
No, if you believed in your manager on Opening Day you should trust them to finish 162. 20.12% (550 votes)
Total Votes: 2,734

Pirates Fire Manager Derek Shelton

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The Pirates announced Thursday that they’ve fired manager Derek Shelton, who’d been in his position for the past five-plus seasons. Bench coach Don Kelly has been elevated to the managerial position.

“Derek worked incredibly hard and sacrificed a lot over five-plus years. His family became a big part of the Pirates family, and we will miss that,” general manager Ben Cherington said in a statement within today’s press release. “He’s an incredibly smart, curious, and driven baseball leader. I believe he was the right person for the job when he was hired. I also believe that a change is now necessary. I wish Derek and his family all the best in their next chapter.”

Shelton, 54, was hired by the Pirates in the 2019-20 offseason, replacing longtime skipper Clint Hurdle. He’d served as the bench coach in Minnesota prior to his hiring and has also had a long run as a big league hitting coach, spending 2005-09 in Cleveland and 2010-16 in Tampa Bay. The Jays hired Shelton as a quality control coach for the 2017 season, after which he spent two years in Minnesota.

Shelton was the first major hire under Cherington, though he’d been under consideration for the managerial vacancy in Pittsburgh even before the Pirates fired former GM Neal Huntington (a curiously timed move, given that he’d been leading the early stages of said managerial search). In parts of six seasons under Shelton, the Bucs have posted a 306-440 record, topping out at 76 wins in a given season (a mark they reached twice). Pittsburgh is out to a 12-26 start on the season, effectively tanking any faint trace of playoff hopes they had coming into the season. Owner Bob Nutting referenced that grim start to the season in his own statement.

“Derek is a good man who did a lot for the Pirates and Pittsburgh, but it was time for a change,” said Nutting. “The first quarter of the season has been frustrating and painful for all of us. We have to do better. I know that. Ben knows that. Our coaches know that. Our players know that. There is a lot of baseball left to be played. We need to act with a sense of urgency and take the steps necessary to fix this now to get back on track as a team and organization.”

There’s no denying the Pirates’ poor performance under Shelton, but it’s also hard to pin that performance on a skipper who was never handed much to work with. Nutting’s mention of acting with “urgency” feels borderline farcical at a time when, for the second straight year, the Pirates have baseball’s top pitching prospect obliterating Triple-A lineups as the back end of the major league staff flounders.

Last year, it was Paul Skenes, who didn’t make his MLB debut until May 6 and promptly took baseball by storm. Skenes started the All-Star Game, won NL Rookie of the Year and finished third in Cy Young voting. This year, Bubba Chandler is sitting on a 2.25 ERA and 38.3% strikeout rate in seven Triple-A starts. The Pirates’ fourth and fifth starters, Bailey Falter and Carmen Mlodzinski, have ERAs of 5.06 and 6.16, respectively. Jared Jones, their second- or third-best starter, has been on the injured list all season. It’s impossible not to wonder if Nutting feels burned by Skenes earning a full year of service by virtue of that Rookie of the Year win and is thus waiting even longer to pull the trigger on Chandler’s promotion.

Beyond the contradictory nature of those “urgency” comments and the Pirates’ actions with Chandler, Nutting has flatly refused to invest in the team via free agency. The Pirates have never signed a free agent to a larger contract than the three-year, $39MM deal signed by Francisco Liriano more than a decade ago.

As shown in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, they haven’t signed a single free agent to a multi-year deal since their nearly decade-old signing of righty Ivan Nova on a three-year, $26MM contract. Not only that, the Pirates have only once topped $8MM on a one-year free agent deal in that same span — Aroldis Chapman’s $10.5MM contract in the 2023-24 offseason. Using that same data from our Contract Tracker, the Pirates have spent a total of $173.65MM on free agents since their last playoff appearance a decade ago.

Certainly, free agency isn’t a cure-all that’s bound to fix everything that ails an organization. Major free agent signings can often be a setback, in fact. But completely eschewing even the middle tiers of the open market and steadfastly avoiding any kind of mid-range spending to complement the roster does not put the baseball operations or dugout staffs in position to succeed.

That’s not to say Shelton and the front office are without fault, but the margin for error for those key decisionmakers is rendered razor-thin when ownership is content to average the $69.4MM payroll (excluding the shortened 2020 season) that’s been trotted out in the five 162-game seasons under Shelton. Pittsburgh was 55-52 at last year’s trade deadline. Shelton and his staff clearly bear some responsibility for the team’s post-deadline struggles. However, critics would be remiss not to point out that ownership’s tight budget, which led Cherington & Co. to pursue cost-effective deadline acquisitions like Bryan De La Cruz and Isiah Kiner-Falefa (while subtracting Martin Perez), didn’t put give them the best chance to capitalize on their strong play through the first two-thirds of the season.

The Pirates’ player development — or the lack thereof — over the past several seasons also surely factors into the decisions. Skenes has been a roaring success. Jones looked the part of a potential high-end starter prior to his injury. Mitch Keller, Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz are all quality big leaguers — the latter standing as a potential star. However, the majority of the organization’s top prospects over the years, particularly the hitters, simply haven’t panned out. Injuries have impacted some of them, most notably including Ke’Bryan Hayes and Endy Rodriguez. But prospects like Nick Gonzales, Liover Peguero and Henry Davis have all struggled upon reaching the majors. Other young hitters (e.g. Jack Suwinski) looked to be on the cusp of breaking out before taking significant steps back in their second and third looks at big league pitching.

With Shelton being shown the door, Kelly will now be tasked with the unenviable goal of trying to right this ship. The former big league utilityman retired after the 2016 season and took a role in the Tigers’ player development department for the 2017 season. He then spent a year in Detroit’s scouting ranks before being hired by the Astros as their first base coach. Shelton tabbed Kelly as his bench coach just weeks after being hired, and Kelly has been his right-hand man for the pair’s nearly six years in Pittsburgh.

There’s no “interim” tag in today’s press release from the Pirates. Cherington told the Pirates beat today that Kelly’s appointment is “permanent for 2025” (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). He could end up being considered for 2026 and beyond, but for the time being, the team is only committing to the remainder of the current season. That seems to set the stage for a broad-reaching managerial search this winter.

“Donnie is as respected as any person in our clubhouse and throughout our organization,” Nutting said of Kelly in today’s press release. “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.”

Cherington: Derek Shelton Expected To Return As Pirates’ Manager In 2025

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The Pirates’ fall both in the NL Central and the NL Wild Card hunt has prompted plenty of speculation about the job security of manager Derek Shelton, but general manager Ben Cherington told the team’s beat today that he feels Shelton is the “right person to manage this team in 2025” and said he expects Shelton will return next season (X link via Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). Shelton initially signed a four-year deal spanning the 2020-23 seasons and was extended early in the ’23 campaign.

It’s the second straight year in which the Pirates have shown signs of getting back into contention in the NL Central, only to fade in significant fashion. The ’23 Pirates got out to one of the hottest starts of any club in baseball but wilted as the season wore on. This year’s club rebounded from a slow start with a hot summer showing, going 29-22 in June and July to position themselves as a Wild Card contender. Cherington added Bryan De La Cruz, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Jalen Beeks at the deadline in hopes of sparking a postseason push for his club, but the Bucs responded with a disastrous 8-19 record in August, tanking their playoff hopes. They’re currently 69-76, sitting last place in the division.

Shelton, 54, is in his fifth season managing the Pirates. They’ve yet to produce a winning record or finish better than fourth in the division under his watch, although as is the case with any manager of a rebuilding club, that’s hardly a reflection of his effectiveness. The Pirates tore down much of the roster and embarked on a lengthy rebuilding effort when Cherington was hired, and Shelton has rarely been given the makings of a competitive big league roster. That said, the Buccos have had a better foundation recently — certainly this season, with Paul Skenes and Jared Jones arriving on the scene — but have yet to consistently look like a well-rounded club.

Starting pitching is the organization’s strength, with Skenes, Jones and Mitch Keller comprising a strong trio atop the rotation. But many of the Pirates’ most touted young hitters have failed to progress as hoped — whether that be third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, who’s declined at the plate amid a series of back injuries, or former No. 1 overall pick Henry Davis, who’s mashed in Triple-A but has yet to carry that production to the majors. Pittsburgh’s bullpen was also touted by Cherington as a potential strength heading into the season but has generally floundered this season, thanks in large part to a surprising step back from former All-Star closer and Pittsburgh native David Bednar.

Bolstering the lineup and improving the bullpen figure to be focal points for the front office this offseason, although perennially frugal owner Bob Nutting isn’t likely to give Cherington & Co. much to work with in terms of financial resources. That’ll only increase the importance of extracting the most from their in-house young talents. Given some of the myriad struggles up and down the roster, it’s plenty feasible that there’ll be changes made to Shelton’s coaching staff. Barring a turnaround next season, it also stands to reason that Shelton himself could be on thin ice sooner than later.

It’s at least anecdotally notable that Shelton’s predecessor, Clint Hurdle, publicly stated late in the 2019 season that he’d been told he’d return for the 2020 season — only to be fired a matter of days later. This situation isn’t exactly analogous, as it’s the general manager and not Shelton himself making this statement. Cherington’s comment does stop short of firmly declaring that Shelton will be retained, which technically leaves the door cracked for owner Bob Nutting to step in and make a change, but the overwhelming likelihood is now that Shelton will get a sixth go at helming the ship and trying to steer the Pirates into a legitimate postseason contender.

Jared Jones Makes Pirates’ Roster; Jared Triolo Likely To Be Named Second Baseman

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Top pitching prospect Jared Jones has won a spot on the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, the club announced to its beat writers this morning (X link via Alex Stumpf of MLB.com). He’ll likely slot into the team’s rotation. The Bucs will select the contracts of Jones and of right-handers Hunter Stratton and Ryder Ryan (X thread via Stumpf). Pittsburgh will place catcher Yasmani Grandal and infielder/outfielder Ji Hwan Bae on the 10-day injured list to begin the season. Relievers Colin Holderman and Carmen Mlodzinski will open the season on the 15-day IL.

Also making the roster are out-of-options pitchers Bailey Falter, Josh Fleming and Roansy Contreras, as well as outfielder Edward Olivares and righty Luis Ortiz. The Bucs will not carry non-roster invitees Brent Honeywell Jr. and Billy McKinney on the roster to begin the season. Those aren’t the only key roster decisions Pittsburgh has faced this spring; Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that manager Derek Shelton last night called it a “very safe assumption” that Jared Triolo will be the Pirates’ starting second baseman to begin the season.

Jones, 22, was the Pirates’ second-round pick back in 2020 and entered spring training ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects at each of Baseball America (No. 74), MLB.com (No. 62), The Athletic (No. 39), FanGraphs (No. 62) and ESPN (No. 53).

Those rankings come on the heels of a strong 2023 season split between Double-A Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis, wherein Jones logged a combined 126 1/3 innings of 3.85 ERA ball with a 27.6% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate. The right-hander’s dominant spring showing surely didn’t hurt his chances of making the Opening Day roster; Jones pitched 16 1/3 innings without an earned run during Grapefruit League play, yielding just nine hits against eight walks with 15 punchouts.

The Athletic’s Keith Law writes that Jones has made huge gains with both his heater and his slider since being drafted and now has the potential for three plus pitches. The former two-way standout is an excellent athlete and, as noted by Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin at FanGraphs, has also improved his strike-throwing as he’s shifted his focus solely to pitching. Scouting reports on Jones generally agree that there’d mid-rotation potential, and further improvements to any of his command, curveball or changeup could further boost his upside.

Jones tossed 122 2/3 innings in 2022 and 126 1/3 innings last season. That should set the stage for a decent uptick in his workload this season. The Bucs might still be cautious with him on a start-by-start basis, particularly early in the year, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if a healthy Jones approached or exceeded 150 frames this year. Since he’s a consensus top-100 prospect who’s making the Opening Day roster, his performance this season will particularly important for the Bucs. If Jones wins Rookie of the Year this season or finishes top three in National League Cy Young voting, he could net the Pirates an extra pick in the 2025 draft under the 2022-26 CBA’s newly implemented prospect promotion incentives.

Triolo, 26, made his big league debut in 2023 and spent the bulk of his time at third base, filling in for an injured Ke’Bryan Hayes. That’s Triolo’s natural position, but Hayes is one of MLB’s best defensive players at any position, so Triolo will slide over to second base in what could be his first full big league season. The writing for him winning the second base job was on the wall after the Bucs optioned Liover Peguero and Nick Gonzales — particularly with Bae also banged up (and now headed to the injured list).

In 209 plate appearances last season, Triolo batted .298/.388/.398 — production that was buoyed by an enormous .440 average on balls in play and came in  spite of a grisly 30.1% strikeout rate. The punchouts and good fortune on balls in play have both continued this spring. Triolo has taken 45 plate appearances and batted .325/.400/.525 — excellent surface-level numbers that are propped up by a more suspect .458 BABIP. Couple that with a 31.1% strikeout rate, and his production looks similar to his 2023 output — though this year’s pair of homers in his limited spring playing time is a good sign, as Triolo hit just three long balls in last year’s 209 trips to the plate.

Triolo is a strong defender who draws plenty of walks, which should help set a decent floor for him, but he’ll need to cut down on the strikeouts and/or significantly improve his quality of contact (86.6 mph average exit velocity; 32.8% hard-hit rate) if he’s to sustain much in the way of success at the plate in the majors. Strikeouts were an issue in his first taste of Triple-A work last year (26.5%) but weren’t a problem for him in the lower and mid-minor league levels, so perhaps he’ll drop that rate over a larger sample as he gains more experience. If nothing else, a plus defender at multiple positions with a keen eye at the plate has the makings of a useful utility option, but Triolo will get the opportunity to show he can be more than that right out of the gate in 2024.

The 27-year-old Stratton made his MLB debut with the Bucs in 2023 and pitched 12 innings with three runs on nine hits and three walks. He fanned 10 of his 47 opponents (21.3%) and kept the ball on the ground at a hearty 51.5% rate. He was non-tendered in November but returned on a minors deal two months later. Stratton will now get a second big league look after firing seven shutout frames with a 7-to-2 K/BB ratio this spring.

Ryan, 29 in May, pitched a scoreless frame with the Mariners in 2023. That represents the entirety of his MLB experience. He’s fanned 28.6% of his opponents in 7 2/3 innings for Pittsburgh this spring and done so with a staggering 73.7% ground-ball rate. Ryan has pitched to a sub-4.00 ERA with a strikeout rate north of 24% in each of the past two Triple-A seasons (one with the Mariners and one with the Rangers). The Pirates will give him his first real look in the majors to see if he can carry any of that success over to the game’s top level.

Pirates Extend Contract Of Manager Derek Shelton

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The Pirates have extended the contract of manager Derek Shelton, reports Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic. The terms of the deal are not yet known.

The Bucs are off to a hot start to the season, sitting at 14-7 entering play Saturday, good for second place in the NL Central as they look to emerge from a lengthy rebuild. The 52-year-old skipper has overseen plenty of lean years in Pittsburgh, and so his career managerial record of 156-249 with the Pirates is not necessarily a reflection on his management.

It’s always challenging to assess the performance of a manager when the team is deep in a rebuild and focused more on the prospects in its minor league system than the big league roster. As such, the back-to-back 100-loss seasons Shelton oversaw likely wouldn’t have been much different with another manager at the helm. Evidently, the franchise is comfortable with the direction they’re in with Shelton at the helm.  While 21 games is a small sample size, the Pirates were more aggressive than the past in free agency this winter and it won’t hurt that Shelton’s team is getting results. Here’s what GM Ben Cherington had to say to The Athletic last year on Shelton:

“I love working with Shelty and this staff. They work their tails off every day and care so much about getting this right. I’m so confident at the level of effort this staff puts in and I’m looking forward to this group benefiting from the fruits of their labor. I think they will as our roster matures and gets stronger.”

Shelton was hired by the Pirates after a tumultuous 2019 season which saw the team lose 93 games, deal with clubhouse problems and ultimately dismiss general manager Neal Huntington and manager Clint Hurdle. Cherington and Shelton were brought in to oversee bringing the club back to relevance, and while the past three seasons have been a difficult watch, it does appear that the team is close to turning a corner.

Prior to joining the Pirates, Shelton had served as the Twins’ bench coach. He had interviewed for a number of other managerial openings, but the Pirates were the first to hand him the top job.

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