Ben Cherington met with reporters at PNC Park this afternoon following the decision to fire Derek Shelton as Pirates' manager following a five-plus year span in which he amassed a record of 306-440. Bob Nutting was not in attendance. Here is the full transcript from the session: 

Question: "How did you get to this decision and why is now the time to make it?"

Cherington: "Let me first start by saying thank you to Shelty. He worked his tail off for five-plus years here. Gave everything he possibly had. Confident in saying that. Always available year-round. Put his whole life into it. His family, certainly Ali, his kids and parents became part of the organization and we're gonna miss that. There's no one thing. We aren't performing the way we need to. We're not performing in a way that our fans deserve. We know we need to be better. I guess I looked at the end of last year, August and September, and how April and the first few days of May played out. It just became clear that a change was necessary and that we were not in a position to wait any longer." 

Question: "Do you think he lost some of the players, or the clubhouse, at all?" 

Cherington: "I don't have any evidence of that. I think we look at the total performance and we're all responsible for that. This certainly isn't all on Shelty. We're all responsible, it certainly starts with me. I'm more responsible than anyone. We need to perform better. That's the bottom line. This wasn't about any single player, any single event, any single day. An accumulation over the last part of last year and early part of this year. It just became clear to me that in order to move forward and get the Pirates back moving in the direction we need to move, that a change was necessary to give ourselves the best chance to do that."

Question: "Why do you think Don Kelly is the guy to get this thing turned around?" 

Cherington: "There's a lot of reasons. Start with who he is as a person. This is someone who cares way more about the Pirates, the city, cares way more about the people in that clubhouse than he does about himself. He's just an elite human being and teammate. He comes to the ballpark every day focused on only one thing -- how to help this team get better. It's truly not about him because it never has been. It will have to be a little bit more now as a manager, and I think he understands that. I have so much faith in the combination of the human he is and the skills that he has, and the reasons he does the job. He does it for only one reason -- to help the Pirates because he believes in the Pirates and wants to deliver for Pittsburgh." 

Question: "There as no interim tag on this, is this a permanent move, or is there another corresponding move to replace him on the bench?" 

Cherington: "It's permanent for 2025, and we're focused on 2025 and not getting past 2025. Because it became clear it was permanent for 2025, we chose not to use any other words to describe it. I have a lot of confidence in him doing that job for 2025. This just happened really quickly. My first conversation with Donnie about it was this morning, so we haven't really gotten time yet to get to all the other potential adjustments. I wouldn't be surprised if we have some adjustments to make sure we're supporting Donnie and the entire team as best we possibly can for the remainder of 2025. It's very important to me and very important to Donnie that he's in a position to actually do the manager's job and not do the job he was just doing. So we need to make sure we're reallocating all of the bench coach duties, somehow, in another direction. I expect we'll have more clarity on that in the coming days." 

Question: "You talk about the urgency to turn things around and, obviously, the manager is just one part of that, what other solutions are you looking at to turn around the on-field product specifically? 

Cherington: "It’s on all of us. It’s on every person in the organization, but certainly from a baseball perspective, it starts with me. Everybody in our clubhouse is responsible. I believe we all need to do our jobs better, can do our jobs better. I believe we will. I don’t think you have to squint too hard to see a stronger team on the field in 2025. I believe we have the players in the organization that will help us do that. I also believe we have players currently on the team who are capable of providing more. Also believe I certainly have to find ways to continue to make the roster better and support the team in different ways. It’s gotta be all in. It’s not on one person. It’s on everybody, but it certainly starts with me."

Question: "I know the release said the 'Pittsburgh Pirates announced,' but was this your decision, was this from above?" 

Cherington: "Ultimately, I made a recommendation to Bob (Nutting) and Travis Williams that we make this change. Bob supported that recommendation. That all happened over the course of the latter part of yesterday. I met with Derek this morning."

Question: "You brought him back last year when probably a lot of people thought you shouldn't, and you had a reason for that. What was your reason for bringing him back and then making the change so quickly?" 

Cherington: "I think back to last year, and as of the beginning of August, we believed that we were headed in a positive direction. We believed we were making progress. Not enough. Not fast enough. But we believed we were making progress, and we thought there was evidence for that. Then we had a very difficult August. That led to a difficult end of the season last year. But as I look back at that, I felt like, for most of 2024, we were seeing that progress. Then we got punched in the face over the last two months. We all were learning from that. We all did learn a lot from that. I believed at the time that we were capable of continuing the progress from July and that we could overcome the difficult thing that happened in August and keep this thing going forward. I believed that Shelty had the will to do that and was going to continue to do all the work that he needed to do to be a part of that. So that was the recommendation I made. What’s happened now is we’ve now had a little bit more of a month of very difficult performance that adds on top of the difficult ending from 2024. I think it’s the combination of those two things that ultimately brought us to today."

Question: "You talked about everyone needing to do their jobs better to get to the product you guys want to get to. Do you feel you're still the right person for your job?"

Cherington: "Yeah. I feel just as much energy and commitment to this job as I have from the day I got it. I do this job only to serve the Pirates, only because I want to be part of delivering a team that our fans are proud of. That’s it. Period. That’s the reason to get up. That’s the reason to come in here, do the work to do that. I believe that’s gonna happen. I know that there’s frustration -- and maybe anger -- that it hasn’t happened yet. I believe it’s gonna happen. I believe, strongly, I’m going to be a part of making it happen. I have a lot of confidence in our baseball operations group. We have to get better. I know that. Period.

Question: "At the end of last year, you said that you and Derek Shelton would be accountable together coming into this season. Was there anything that changed between then and 38 games into this year when the product hasn't been exactly what you've wanted?" 

Cherington: "No, we’re both accountable. I am still accountable right now. We were in this together every minute up until this morning. It makes it a very difficult conversation. It makes it a very difficult choice. Certainly not lost on me that my part of that accountability, if I had done my job perfectly for five years, might not be meeting with you today. That’s certainly possible. I own that completely. This is not all on Shelty. And, I believe that it became clear to me that this was a choice, however difficult, that we needed to make. I certainly feel accountable going forward." 

Question: "How did that conversation go with Shelty?" 

Cherington: “As you’d expect from Shelty, he’s a pro. Obviously, we’ve gotten to know each other really well. It was a somber moment. He handled it like a pro. I don’t think he was completely shocked. He’s a grown-up. He’s been in the game a long time. He knows what can happen when the performance is the way it has been recently. It was a relatively short conversation. I’m sure I’ll follow up with him again at some point.”

Question: "You guys talked in spring training leading up to the season on winning on the margins. You could probably argue that hasn't happened to anybody's satisfaction so far. Why not? What has led to this issues that have been pervasive?"

Cherington: “It’s an interesting question because I do believe that certainly is part of what has to happen in Pittsburgh -- it’s not the only thing -- but it’s certainly part of what has to happen. When I think about that statement, where I first go is, ‘OK, are we playing defense? Are we running the bases?’ By and large, we have done those things. Our team defense has been good, at least as far as our measurements are concerned. Our baserunning largely has been good. We haven’t executed perfectly in every situation. We’ve had some combination of some difficult bullpen moments or bad-luck bullpen moments or maybe occasions when we didn't have our best guys, or our best guys were unavailable for whatever reason and it cost us. So that could be winning on the margins, I suppose. The biggest thing is just run-scoring. We’ve got to score more runs. Some of that is winning on the margins. Some of that is executing in certain offensive situations and doing that consistently, and I agree with that. But some of that is just players getting to career norms. Some of that’s just young players leveling up and finding another level. Some of that’s the roster just getting stronger, and that’s on me. I agree that we need to win on the margins. I don’t personally believe that that’s the reason that we are where we are. We have been doing some of winning on the margins -- probably not enough -- and there’s other reasons why we’re losing games.”

Question: "What are those reasons?"

Cherington: “The biggest thing is we’re not scoring enough runs. I understand you can say, if you don’t get a runner in from third base with less than two outs, I suppose you can call that a fundamental or situation to execute on and maybe that’s winning on the margins. But it’s also part of the overall offense. It’s been a bit of a perfect storm. We have some players who are not performing to their standard. We also have a number of players who are, at least based on our measurements, hitting into a lot of bad luck and are hitting below what their expected should be. We’ve had injuries, no doubt, that have made it harder to keep a full complement of players and the deepest lineups we can out there. There’s still opportunity over time -- and this is on me -- to just make the roster better, period. The combination of all those things adds up to not scoring enough runs and that’s been the biggest culprit. It’s not a lack of effort. It’s not a lack of effort from the hitting group or individual players. We’ve just got to get to better run scoring.”

Question: "When you make a decision like this, do you take the temperature of any guys in the clubhouse, any of the assistant coaches, or is this strictly performance-based?" 

Cherington: “Look, in this position you get all kinds of feedback from all kinds of people. Some of that’s direct, some of it is indirect. It’s my job to process all of that the best I can and try to put it into context and make recommendations. Feedback comes from a lot of places, including players. That comes over time. I haven’t had any individual conversations with players recently about that. We’re observing. We’re observing the team and how we’re performing. The player group, from everything I can see and tell is really trying together, to stay together and stay in it and be accountable. That gives me some confidence that we can get, and will get, to a better team in 2025.”

Question: "What is it about Don's personality that you think he can get the best out of everybody? Can you kind of explain why he's in the role that he's in? What makes you think he's the type of guy that can get the best out of these guys and get them to perform the way they want?" 

Cherington: “He’s got certainly a calm about him. He’s played in Pittsburgh and he’s of Pittsburgh and understands the uniqueness of the place and he cares about it a lot. He’s got a teacher’s heart. He wakes up thinking about how to help someone else. That does not mean that it’s going to miraculously turn into massively different results right away. That’s not how the game works. We know that, right? Over time, I believe that his approach, personality and style can have a positive effect on our players. But just as importantly, we’ve got to support him. I’ve got to do my job better. We’ve all got to do our jobs better so that he can do his, as well.”

Question: "You guys talked about last season that you needed to score more runs, but the decisions in the offseason were making changes on the coaching staff. Outside of trading for Spencer (Horwitz), and getting Tommy (Pham) and Adam (Frazier) at the end  of free agency, you didn't do too much to upgrade the major-league roster. Have you done enough to improve the personnel on this team to be competitive to where you want to go?" 

Cherington: "Well there’s certainly more that we wanted to do. There’s always more in an offseason that you want to do and, for whatever reason, can’t get to, can’t execute on, whatever -- there can be different reasons for that. I think we came off of last year, yeah, certainly knowing that offensive production was going to be important and we needed to take a step forward. We wanted to add to the offensive group, add meaningfully if we could. There was a few spots on the roster that it made sense to do that in. We re-signed Cutch as a first step, and that was probably somewhat expected, and then after, once Cutch was in place, then you sort of look at the rest of the team, what your resources are, and what can the targets be, and you go after those targets the best we can. At that point, we look at, 'OK, we know (Oneil) Cruz has moved to center field and we know (Bryan) Reynolds is going to play in one of the corner spots, if we look back to that last offseason. Well, alright, then we want to add to a different corner spot. We know we've got guys like (Jack) Suwinski and others who are capable of stepping up and producing in those spots, but we want to add to the corner spot. We have pursued a number of things on that front and ultimately signed Tommy, and felt like his track record of performance and the mentality and toughness he would bring to our team made sense. It's been a rough start. He's working his tail off and doing everything he can to get on track. He hasn't gotten to the level that he expects of himself yet. Elsewhere, look around the infield, obviously we knew Ke'Bryan (Hayes) coming back was going to be important. There was a ton of effort by him in the offseason and by our staff to make sure he's coming into spring training in a good spot physically. That's mostly held up. We know the defense is going to be there. We're hoping for him to be physically in a spot where he can take another step offensively. And he's had his moments. Still see potential there offensively. We haven't seen that next level out of him yet. It could still be there. We had traded for (Isiah Kiner-Falefa) to solidify the shortstop position. Feel like he mostly has done that. Second base. We come into spring training feeling like between the two Nicks -- Nick Gonzales and Nick Yorke -- and (Jared Triolo) and Frazier, we have enough quality and enough competition there that we can have a good second base solution. A lot of those guys have been hurt or held up by something. And then yeah, we traded for Spencer knowing that first base was a hole last year and wanting to upgrade. Unfortunately, we had a tough setback in January with the injury. He's on his way back now. We've tried to supplement that with Endy (Rodriguez) playing there and then he got hurt, and (Enmanuel Valdez) playing there and he's fighting through something now. That’s why I mentioned a lot of things happening that have made it harder to get to that deepest roster we can, deepest lineup. And at the catching position, we felt like between (Joey) Bart and Henry (Davis) and Endy, we have three really talented guys there and that there's going to be a good solution out of that group. Still feel there can be. That's a long-winded explanation to why we felt some optimism that we would have a stronger group. Some things have gotten in the way of that. Injuries, under-performance. It's also early May. We may still have a much stronger position group in 2025. I think we can." 

Question: "Did you say at the beginning of that that there was more you wanted to do?"

Cherington: "Trades, free agency. Sure, there's always more that you chase down in the offseason than you do. That would be true in every offseason. There's always more things you chase down than you actually do. Specifically on the offensive side, yeah, there were corner offensive targets that we chased down that we didn't get. That kind of thing is going to happen in any offseason." 

Question: "Is the negativity off the field impacting the clubhouse?"

Cherington: “I don't know. I think the losing is what people care about inside the clubhouse. I think that the results on the field are generally, mostly, what people care about in the clubhouse. I believe there's a high level of accountability for that. That's what's weighing on people more than anything else. I believe that, number one, we just want to win. All of us, we want to win. We're competitive, and it's not happening as much as we need it to and want to. But I do believe, I certainly speak for myself, that this group wants to do it for Pittsburgh. I believe that. I believe we want to deliver to our fans what they want. I understand there's a lot of frustration and anger out there right now.” 

Question: "What’s your message to the fans?" 

Cherington: “Just that I believe we have the will to make this better, and I believe we will. Again, I don't believe you have to squint too hard to see a better team in 2025, I really don't. I'm not blind to the fact that we’ve ourselves in a hole and we got to climb out of that. No way to do it but a pitch at the time. We all have that goal.” 

Question: "What does a successful season look like for the Pirates from this point forward?"

Cherington: “I'm just focused on right now and tomorrow. I think that will become more clear as we get deeper into the season. I think our focus right now is, I want to support Donnie in any way we can. I want to support this team in any way we can. I want to hunt the things that will make us incrementally better, certainly do everything we can there. I want to help our injured players get back, I want to do everything we can to give ourselves a better chance to play better on the field. Let's focus on that for a while, and we'll get back to the season question a little bit later.” 

Question: "How concerned are you about your own job security at this point?"

Cherington: “I think I sort of referenced it before, but I understand. It’s part of the deal, right? Like, if you accept this job, you're in it for this long and the results aren't there yet, that’s going to be part of it. In simple terms, it's just about winning more games. We got to find a way to win more games. You can do the forensic thing on every front office in baseball and find things that go well and find things that don't go well. We’ve got to improve. We’ve got to improve our results. I do this job because I love the work, and I love the opportunity to help the Pirates in a way that serves our fans, that delivers to our fans. I don't do it for any other reason.”