Derek Shelton, a former Twins bench coach under Paul Molitor and Rocco Baldelli who later went on to guide the Pittsburgh Pirates for six seasons, is back in the fold as the new manager of the Twins, the team recently announced.
Is he the right guy for the job? Well, he certainly knows the team, the players and the community and perhaps he understands the position of the team as well. After all, he didn’t have much to work with in the Steel City and he’s bound to find the same with the Twins if ownership is dead set on cutting even more payroll.
Shelton didn’t win with the Bucs. I guess the best you could say is that over time they lost less often. His first three seasons in Pittsburgh were a disaster, including consecutive 100-loss seasons, but in 2023 and 2024 they improved to 76-86. In fact, the team raced out of the gates in ’23 with a 20-9 record, good enough to earn Shelton a contract extension.
“He’s the right guy to lead us,” said Bucs outfielder Bryan Reynolds to MLB.com. “He was the same guy even though we were losing 100 games a year. There was no panic. There was no personality switch, which can’t be easy. I know that as a player, it’s hard to show up and be the same guy, but he did it.”
But Shelton never did better than 76 wins in a season, and after the team started slowly in 2025 with a 12-26 record, he was shown the door.
“There’s no one thing,” said GM Ben Cherington to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the decision to fire Shelton. “We aren’t performing the way we need to. We’re not performing in a way our fans deserve. We know we need to be better. … It just became clear that a change was necessary and that we were not in a position to wait any longer.”
Shelton was 306-440 in six seasons in Pittsburgh.
What does he have to work with in Minnesota?
Frankly, as all Twins fans know, he has quite a bit of talent in the lineup and in the rotation, particularly if they can find a way to retain Pablo Lopez and Joe Ryan.
But this team desperately needs a bullpen after they traded away all their best reliever arms at the trade deadline. If they don’t figure out how to address the relief corps it’s not going to matter who manages this team because it will get very ugly, very fast.
Extra innings…
–Speaking of former Twins relievers, the artist formerly known as Louie Varland, now with the Blue Jays, has set a major league record with 15 appearances in the postseason.
–The start of Game 7 of the World Series was an all Twins affair as ex-Twins Paul Molitor and Jack Morris threw out first pitches. Both are also former Blue Jays.
Molitor spent three seasons in Toronto and won the 1993 World Series with the club before he came to Minnesota. Morris departed the Twins in 1991, and then won 21 games and another World Series with the Blue Jays in 1992.
–Shelton is the 15th manager in Twins history. The others, since 1961: Cookie Lavagetto, Sam Mele, Cal Ermer, Billy Martin, Bill Rigney, Frank Quilici, Gene Mauch, Johnny Goryl, Billy Gardner, Ray Miller, Tom Kelly, Ron Gardenhire, Paul Molitor, Rocco Baldelli and Derek.
Source: Newspapers.com