Cherington 'fully expects' Shelton to manage Pirates in 2025

PITTSBURGH -- Despite the Pirates almost surely falling short of the playoffs and likely finishing with a similar record as they did in 2023, general manager Ben Cherington said Wednesday that he fully expects Derek Shelton will return as the club’s manager in ‘25.

“I think there’s a lot to the job I believe he does really, really well, and I also believe he works his tail off to continue to improve in a number of ways,” Cherington said. “Seeing that, I believe he’s the right person to manage this team in 2025, so I fully expect that will happen.”

"It's very, very important to me, and I appreciate that,” Shelton said. “I think I'll be the first one to tell you that there are still things I need to be better at, we need to be better at and we need to continue to improve. But the fact that Ben said that is very important to me.

“I think the most important thing for us is that we need to focus on winning games and getting better to get to where we want to be. Because we're not where we want to be. We just came off of a sweep. We're playing better baseball. We played better baseball during the Washington series. But ultimately, I realize that I have to get better and I realize that we have to get better."

Shelton and Cherington were both hired during the 2019 offseason, teaming together through a rebuild of the organization. In that time, Shelton has gone 288-404 as the Pirates’ skipper, including a 70-76 mark in ‘24 after completing a sweep of the Marlins with a 3-1 win on Wednesday afternoon.

• Falter carries no-no into 7th as Bucs sweep season series vs. Marlins

The team’s win percentage has improved in each of Shelton’s five years under the helm, but there was speculation that his job was in jeopardy after the Pirates struggled mightily in August, going from buying at the Trade Deadline and being in the thick of the National League Wild Card race to falling to last place in the NL Central, going 8-19 over the month with a 10-game losing streak effectively ending their postseason aspirations.

However, it’s without question that Pittsburgh’s roster has drastically improved over the past few years, boasting one of the best young rotations in baseball with Mitch Keller, Paul Skenes and Jared Jones leading the way. With that core in place, Cherington is opting to stick with his manager.

Cherington was candid that the team’s gradual improvement is not enough, though.

“I believe we’re improving, just not as fast as we want to and need to,” Cherington said. “We’re accountable for that. Ultimately, I’m accountable for that. Need to do all the work every day to figure out how do we speed that improvement up. … [I] believe the team is better than it was last year and not good enough. We need to make it better. There’s no one thing that’s going to do that -- there are lots of things that are going to do that. We’re responsible for delivering, and we’ll keep focused on that.”

There’s also a case to be made for continuity. A good portion of this roster consists of players who came up through the Pirates’ system and have only had Shelton as their big league manager. The team has continued to play hard through September, despite having little to play for outside of pride.

“If you believe strongly and you have evidence that an individual person or as a group there is improvement happening and there is competency and care level and work ethic and values are in place, then absolutely, continuity has real value,” Cherington said. “If you make changes, then there is some opportunity cost with that. You've got to kind of get up to speed again with whatever that change is. So I think if all those other things are in place, then continuity has real value. And at times, continuity is not the right choice. It's case by case.”

Changes could come to the Pirates’ coaching staff this winter still, though Cherington said those discussions will happen at the end of the season.

“We will get to the end of the season and have an opportunity to look at the entire group and decide -- again consistent with the point about faster improvement and more improvement -- if any adjustments are necessary to give ourselves a better chance to do that,” Cherington said. “This staff works as hard as any in baseball and I know cares as much as any in baseball. Really love working with them, and we all know we need to get better. We’ll get to the end of the season and spend more time on that.”