Last season, Don Kelly saw the Pirates at their very best.
In late June, the Pirates and Astros played a three game series in Houston, and Kelly was coaching first base for Houston. The Astros took the series opener but were blown out the other two games. On June 26, the Pirates won game two, 14-2. The next day, they were victorious in the rubber match, 10-0. It was arguably the best series the Pirates played all season, considering the competition.
“They kicked our butts, man,” Kelly was telling me.
The Pirates hit a wall shortly after, and their second half collapse warranted a massive shakeup of the front office and coaching staff. That created an opportunity for Kelly, a Mount Lebanon high school and Point Park product, the chance to come home and become the Pirates' bench coach.
“It’s awesome to come home and be part of building this up," Kelly said. "The energy has been great so far. Being form here, you take pride in the city and in the teams.”
Kelly retired after a nine year playing career after the 2016 season, with his claim to fame being one of only a handful of individuals to play all nine positions and DH in the majors. 2018 was his first season as a big league coach, serving as the first base coach for the Astros. Before then, he spent two seasons in the Tigers' player development and scouting departments.
While player development is most associated with helping minor-league players get better, Kelly saw how it can continue in the majors.
“The one thing that you realize, being with such a great team in Houston, is that player development doesn’t stop at the big leagues," Kelly said. "It’s always evolving. And players are always trying to make adjustments to get better. The other guys are adjusting to them, so there’s always a development that’s going on, so that player development doesn’t stop when you get to the big leagues."
Over the past few years, it seemed the Pirates were defined more by the players they used to have rather than the ones on the roster. Gerrit Cole and Charlie Morton finished in second and third in Cy Young voting in 2019. Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows look like cornerstone pieces for the Rays. Jordan Lyles and Daniel Hudson were key pitchers for their teams down the stretch, and the latter recorded the final outs of the World Series for the Nationals. All of those players came through Pittsburgh, but only broke out once they left.
Manager Derek Shelton and general manager Ben Cherington have talked about making the Pirates a "player-centric" team. Making sure player development continues into the majors is a big part of that. The Pirates have been adding coaches with development backgrounds to the staff to try to prevent the next Cole or Glasnow from happening. In addition to Kelly, new pitching coach Oscar Marin was the Mariners minor league pitching coordinator from 2017-2018, and new first base coach Tarrik Brock spent the past three seasons as the Dodgers minor league outfield and baserunning coordinator.
“It’s such a hard game to play," Kelly said. "To be able to communicate with guys and be able to relate to highs and lows that they’re going through throughout the season and try to keep them in the middle somewhere… I think, for me, that’s what I’m really looking forward to.”
Kelly has been helping to fill the Pirates' coaching staff, trading names with Shelton of people who should be considered for certain roles and vetting candidates to see if they would be a good fit.
“You can see some guys that have had some success, but you want to find out who they are," Kelly said. "How they are going to relate to guys. I think that’s something Ben and Derek have really stressed is that relationship part and that communication part.”
Helping to vet candidates is not exactly a normal task for a bench coach, but Kelly's role will likely be different than his peers. Shelton had more responsibilities than just about any bench coach last year with the Twins, and he wants Kelly to be very involved as well.
“I probably had as much, if not more, leeway than most major league bench coaches at the time, and I told Donnie and I told Ben when he talked about him, that I expect it to be the same way [for Kelly],” Shelton said during the MLB Winter Meetings. “I want to hear his voice. I want to hear his thoughts. I want him to be part of conversations that we have with our informatics team, with our development team and with our medical team, because if we can do that and he’s included, it takes away 15 minutes of the day of me having to run him through what’s going on."
Though they have not talked specifics on what all his job will entail, Kelly is ready for whatever Shelton has in mind.
Kelly was one of the first people Shelton considered for his coaching staff, thanks to Jim Leyland. Kelly was one of the former skipper's favorite players in his time in Detroit, and he was sure to talk up his former utilityman to Shelton during a breakfast they had shortly after Shelton was announced as the next manager.
Kelly played for Leyland from 2009-2013. In that time, he learned a lot about coaching by watching him, and he hopes to bring some of that back to the Pirates dugout.
“He was so consistent. I learned a ton about managing by playing for him," Kelly said. "How he handled things, how he handled me as a bench guy. Just being able to be ready for the situations that come up. It was something that I took pride in myself. To be prepared and ready for those [situations]. And he was really consistent in how he used me.”
He was consistent in how he use you? You played all nine positions for him.
"I know," he responded, laughing.
But Leyland was consistent in how he communicated with him and the other bench guys. They were not put in situations they were not prepared for.
"When you’re a bench guy, sometimes you don’t know where you’re going to play, when you’re going to play," Kelly said. "Using me in situations for pinch-hitting, or... for defense late in the game. How you get in the flow with your manager with that stuff is nice because then I can be prepared. I didn’t need him to come tell me, ‘Hey, get ready. You’re going in.’ I could already be ready.”
Shelton has preached communication as well. He and Kelly have talked nearly every day since Kelly's hire. They know they will need to have open lines of communication with the team in order to build that player-centric culture of learning.
Kelly is confident that culture change will happen.
“What I saw and the way they competed [in June], they’re in on that learning thing. They’ll buy in.”