Pittsburgh Pirates News

Home

Quizzes

Watch

Newsletter

Jun 5, 2025; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates manager Don Kelly (12) looks on during batting practice before the game against the Houston Astros at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Pirates GM Praises Manager After Contract Extension

Originally posted on Pittsburgh Pirates on SI
By Dominic Campbell | Last updated Oct 1, 2025 11:00 AM ET

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates put their faith behind manager Don Kelly for the future, which included most importantly, general manager Ben Cherington.

The Pirates announced that they signed Kelly to an extension, for an undisclosed length and salary, making him their manager for the foreseeable future.

Kelly took over after the Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton on May 8, following a 12-26 start to the season, ending his sixth season in charge of the franchise.

The Pirates made Kelly the manager, after he worked as the bench coach under Shelton's entire tenure, doing so without the "interim" tag.

Kelly led the Pirates to a 59-65 record, which also included a 37-25 record at PNC Park, with his .597 winning percentage at home the ninth best record in the MLB at the time. That also included home sweeps of the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, plus series wins over the Toronto Blue Jays and Cincinnati Reds, all postseason teams.

He returns in 2026 with a strong pitching staff, led by All-Star Paul Skenes, along with veteran Mitch Keller, Johan Oviedo, plus rookies in Braxton Ashcraft, Hunter Barco, Mike Burrows and Bubba Chandler.

It also features a strong bullpen with Justin Lawrence , Isaac Mattson, Carmen Mlodzinski and Dennis Santana.

Cherington spoke at the press conference where they announced they were extending Kelly and spoke on why and when he knew to make the decision.

He said that his relationship with Kelly played a role, but most importantly, seeing how Kelly performed over his time as Pirates manager this season, not just on the field, but also how he handled the responsibilities of the job.

Cherington praised Kelly for his leadership and has faith in Kelly making the Pirates into a winning baseball team in the near future.

“Well I think it builds over time, certainly, I think back to, we’ve worked together for six years," Cherington said. "We’re always thinking about well, ‘What’s is next or someone?, ‘What could someone do?’, ‘How could we help them develop to get there’, and we’re all a part of that and helping each other do that.

"So I’ve been probably thinking about it a long time. We faced a difficult choice, obviously, earlier this year, we felt that we needed to make a change. It was obvious at that point Donnie was the right person to manage and at that time, we made the choice, ‘Let’s commit to 2025 and let’s see where we are’, and reserve the right to make a choice at that point.

"So I think really over the course of the last five months, it’s just become very clear. I can’t speak to a specific day or moment, but it has built to be very clear for all of us that this is the right choice and I think one thing that stands out, it’s a lot that’s led us to that clarity, but one that thing stood out, clearly to me, is that he was so willing to go after the hardest stuff and he was effective going after the hardest stuff and I’m talking about standards and holding the team to a standard, holding me to a standard, holding individual people and players to a standard, holding the culture to a standard.

"The difficult conversations that you have to have to do that, he was so willing to go after that stuff. ‘A’ it was only effective because of the trust he had built prior to that, but ‘B’, that’s not easy to do when you don’t yet have the permanency of the job. He did it anyway and among a lot of other things, that stood out to me as great examples of strong leadership.”