New Pirates GM Cherington, manager Shelton confident in Kelly's ability as bench coach

SAN DIEGO — Don Kelly won’t be the prototypical bench coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The former Mt. Lebanon and Point Park standout, who was hired last Saturday, has only one year of coaching experience at any level of baseball. He was the Houston Astros first-base coach last season.

However, that did not deter Derek Shelton from wanting Kelly next to him in the dugout during his first season as the Pirates’ manager. Shelton spent the past two seasons as the Minnesota Twins’ bench coach and knows the importance of the job.

“It was more the fact of who he is as a person and how bright he is and the fact that he wants to learn, and he wants to grow,” Shelton said Wednesday during the winter meetings. “To his credit, I told him, like I’m coming out here this week, and we’re going to talk every day, and I’ve talked to him probably three of the four days. He’s sending me texts.

“He’s helping me vet guys for staff positions, and he’s just a very good person, and I think that even stands above it.”

General manager Ben Cherington ticked off a long list of attributes when asked why Kelly was hired. First among them are his upbeat attitude and outgoing nature.

“He just really exudes a level of positivity,” Cherington said. “He has a belief in players and belief in the organization that we are going to get better, and that feels infectious. He loves Pittsburgh, too, and that helps.”

Cherington believes Kelly’s experience as a utility player has given him a head start on being a bench coach. Kelly spent nine seasons in the major leagues and 16 years overall as a player before retiring after the 2016 season and becoming a scout with the Detroit Tigers.

“He played in the big leagues for a long time for a lot of different managers in a lot of different environments,” Cherington said. “He played a role where he was thinking about game strategy for 15 years.”

As expected, Cherington did is due diligence on Kelly, talking with former employers, coaches and teammates. Cherington was impressed by how well-respected Kelly is throughout the game.

“The feedback was overwhelming as to who he is a person, as a thinker, just as someone who wants to get better each day,” Cherington said. “So it felt like a good match, even though he doesn’t have much coaching experience.”

Last season was Rocco Baldelli’s first as a manager at any level, and he led the Twins to a 101-61 record and the American League Central title. Baldelli won AL Manager of the Year and gave Shelton so much credited he called him his “co-manager.”

Shelton believes he will develop the same type of partnership with Kelly.

“I expect it to be the same way,” Shelton said. “I want to hear his voice. I want to hear his thoughts. I want him to be part of conversations we have with our informatics team and with our development team and with our medical team. Because if we can do that, and he’s included, it takes away from 15 minutes of the day of me having to run him through what’s going on, and he may have different thoughts than I do.

“He’s four years away or three years removed from playing. He’s going to have some thoughts on rest and recovery that I don’t have. So anything that he’s part of that we can save time in the day, it’s going to be helpful.”