DETROIT - Ben Cherington made it clear where the Pirates stand on Don Kelly: they want him steering the ship going forward.
That message comes after a season that never quite got where Pittsburgh wanted it to go, even if it did avoid the kind of collapse that has haunted the franchise in recent years. The Pirates finished without a losing record for the first time since 2018, snapping a seven-year run of futility, but the late-summer slide from Wild Card contention still left plenty of frustration behind.
Cherington pointed to Kelly’s day-to-day impact as the reason the organization believes he’s the right manager for what comes next. The Pirates’ general manager said Kelly has built a standard the club believes can translate into wins, and he credited him for the way the team has responded.
"You see it in the way the team competes and fights together," Cherington said. "And really starting last year.
He’s tireless in his pursuit of holding a cultural standard of behavior that we believe leads to winning. He doesn’t run out of energy on leading that.
He’s willing to have every conversation - easy conversation, hard conversation, everything in between - toward that.
"I believe we see that playing out in the way the team has responded in the behavior. Just as importantly, we know for us to win, we have to be a team that beats expectations, which means we have to play really smart baseball, too. And be really well prepared and execute during games.
"He’s also, every day, been totally committed to improving that. We see our performance in close games improving over the course of the season.
We’re finishing a lot of one-run games and doing small things. And we can still get better at that.
"He’s clearly the right person to manage this team. He’s someone I love coming to work with every day.
Our goals are the same. Do the work necessary to play games in October.
Kelly’s path to this point has been a steady climb. He came to Pittsburgh ahead of the 2020 season as bench coach under Derek Shelton, then took over as manager on May 8, 2025, after Shelton was dismissed following a 12-26 start.
The change sparked a better run. Kelly guided the Pirates to a 57-65 mark after taking over, and the team finished 44-37 at PNC Park, which earned him a contract extension.
This season, Pittsburgh spent most of the year hanging around before the bottom dropped out in late July and into mid-August, when a team that had been in the Wild Card race quickly slipped away. Even so, the Pirates recovered enough to finish strong. They were as far back as 63-69 on Aug. 23, six games under .500, but have gone 18-10 since then, including 14-8 in September, to ensure at least a .500 season.
Kelly’s fire has shown up in other ways, too. He led the Pirates with six ejections in 2026, a number that underscored how willing he is to go to bat for his players and challenge an umpire when he thinks it’s necessary.
Looking ahead, Cherington believes the pieces are there for next season, with a core that includes a lineup and starting rotation expected to be better than this year’s group, along with an improved bullpen. The Pirates’ big offseason looms, especially with the possibility of a lockout, and how they navigate it will matter. But for Cherington, the manager part of the equation is already settled.
Kelly is expected to remain in place, and the Pirates are convinced he can deliver winning baseball in 2027.
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