The Pirates fired Derek Shelton.
It changes nothing.
Relieving Shelton of his managerial duties is just appeasing the mob. A head on a pike. A perceived fresh start. All PR, nothing practical.
Not that Shelton didn’t deserve the ax. His .410 winning percentage is third-worst among managers with at least five seasons of tenure. (That’s since MLB integrated.)
You can’t polish excrement. The Pirates have an awful roster. Half their players aren’t legit big-leaguers.
But Shelton’s Pirates looked unmotivated for much of this season, even more so during the seven-game losing streak that preceded his dismissal. Some of their numbers are shockingly bad, like being shut out eight times in 38 games.
Shelton will never manage another game in MLB, and shouldn’t.
By the end, Shelton looked like a wartime president. Like Harry Truman explaining the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A disturbing shade of gray.
That’s going to happen to Donnie Kelly, too.
Kelly, Mt. Lebanon’s own, is the new skipper. You feel bad when a local kid gets subjected to torture. This is like Marc Fogel being imprisoned in Russia.
If Kelly had any long-term managerial ambition, this job will exterminate that. It’s a suicide mission.
Kelly will manage the same way as Shelton. He was sitting next to Shelton for the entirety of Shelton’s failure. Kelly will have to use the same analytical data that got jammed down Shelton’s throat.
Kelly won’t come up with some revolutionary method that turns bums into talent.
Kelly won’t magically imbue Ke’Bryan Hayes with the power a corner infielder should have. Oneil Cruz won’t suddenly start throwing to the right base. Tommy Pham will still be Tommy Pham.
Kelly played for Jim Leyland in Detroit and doubtless has Leyland’s endorsement.
Kelly is a good baseball mind. He was a fringe talent during his nine-year MLB career. He had to think and work to stay in the big leagues. Players like that often make good managers.
But Kelly isn’t a miracle worker.
GM Ben Cherington should have been fired, too, and probably will be after the MLB Draft takes place July 13-15. It’s difficult to fire a GM so close to the draft.
Cherington has been in charge since 2019 and the Pirates are arguably worse than ever. It’s year six of his reign and there is zero hope.
The problem is owner Bob Nutting. Obviously. But no matter how loud you chant, he won’t sell the team. He runs it for profit, not to win and certainly not for you.
Nutting spoke about “urgency” when Shelton got sacked. The hillbilly thief has brass. I’ll give him that.
Shelton got fired. Cherington will get canned soon.
But Nutting will always hire low-budget hacks to fill those jobs. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
The usual suspects still think that the Pirates could have hired Terry Francona this past offseason if they had fired Shelton.
Francona is one of the best managers ever. He’d want no part of this dumpster fire.
Now the usual suspects say the Pirates should bring back Leyland.
Leyland is 80. A recently-minted Hall-of-Famer. An all-time great. Like he’d want to be tangled in Nutting’s miserly web and manage this terrible group. Why not just hit Leyland in the head with a hammer and toss him down a mine shaft?
