Pictured: the entire city of Pittsburgh yelling at Derek Shelton (left)

At 12:40PM on Wednesday, May 8th, it was reported that the Pittsburgh Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton. As many of you know, I was (and still am) ecstatic. One head of the Cerberus that has ruined baseball in Pittsburgh recently—the three-headed beast on the leash held by owner Bob Nutting—was decapitated. 

Now, two heads remain: general manager Ben Cherington and president Travis Williams (for the purpose of this entry, we will assume Bob Nutting is untouchable, which he likely is). Those guys need to be canned, too, and Nutting needs to be…well. 

For now, though, let’s focus on Derek Shelton’s legacy (or lack thereof). As the Pirates’ manager, Shelton coached 749 games. He led the team (if you can call it that) to a 306-440 record, which amounts to a .411 win percentage. His highest win total in a season was 76, which occurred in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024. 

He never made the playoffs once in his five-plus seasons at the helm—he did not even come close. He refused to demote David Bednar to a lower leverage role last season when it became clear that he had the yips. He became physically incapable of putting out the same lineup two games in a row. 

Worst of all, he refused to take blame for anything that went wrong. It was always “we need to locate our pitches better” or “we need to put together better at-bats”. While those statements were clearly true during his tenure, he never once said “I made a mistake removing Jared Jones from the game after 59 pitches of shutout baseball” or “I gave Jack Suwinski far too many at-bats at the major league level”. 

This is not to say that Shelty is solely responsible for the dumpster fire of an organization that exists at 115 Federal Street. Ben Cherington has made maybe two positive moves in his five-plus year tenure as general manager of the Buccos. Travis Williams has not yet distinguished his head from his ass as team president. And Bob Nutting has not opened his wallet since he signed the papers to make his purchase of the team official. 

With that being said, I cannot say much in the way of positives as Derek Shelton leaves. The only good thing for him is that he is not stuck managing such a terrible team anymore. Good riddance to him.