PITTSBURGH — Ben Cherington said Wednesday morning he expects Derek Shelton to manage the Pirates in 2025. However, it's hard to believe what the Pirates general manager said was fact.

For a few reasons, obviously.

But the biggest one might be this: It's not entirely his call.

Cherington might want to bring Shelton back. We'd also all like to hit the lottery. Doesn't mean it happens, especially when considering how much the Pirates have underachieved in 2024.

I'm also not sure — barring some sort of late-season flourish — that it should happen. The results simply haven't been good enough for where the Pirates sit in their rebuild.

Back in January, owner Bob Nutting described his expectations for this season as "another meaningful step forward" and "contention throughout the season."

"That's a minimum expectation we should have and that we should be building on," Nutting said.

The Pirates have not been in meaningful contention since late July — or early August at best, though that was in the middle of a stretch where they lost 12 of 13.

Furthermore, the Pirates were 14-14 on April 27. They didn't get back to .500 until the day before the All-Star break (July 14 at 48-48) — more than 2 1/2 months later. All told, the Pirates will have been at or above .500 for about seven of 26 1/2 weeks (little over 26% of the time).

That's not contention throughout the season.

It also doesn't square with recent Pirates precedent when it comes to doing something like this now.

Remember what happened five years ago?

On Sept. 25, 2019, former manager Clint Hurdle told The Athletic's Stephen Nesbitt that he "recently received assurance from the organization" that he'd be back in 2020. That led to one of the crazier nights at PNC Park.

In the middle of a game, general manager Neal Huntington issued a short statement through a team spokesman that read, "As we have in the past, we will publicly address any personnel decisions at the end of the season."

When asked about his job status for 2020 following the game, Hurdle mostly declined comment ... but also alluded to his conversations having only involved Huntington, not Nutting.

"My intent, my desire, is to manage this team next year," Hurdle said. "I don't want anybody to misread, or I don't want to misrepresent. I plan on being back. The conversations we've had, Neal and I, have been about planning for the future. That's what I got for you."

So, the general manager and manager were planning for the future, with the intent of being back ... only to be fired later amid a clunky succession of events and a second-half collapse?

OK, got it.

I also remember that time and chasing the theoretical news about Hurdle's future. One of the things heard then was that Nutting was still very much evaluating the season and seeing where things land.

Not sure his process wold change this time around, when the Pirates have again failed to meet expectations.

It's also nothing personal with Shelton, who has some good qualities as a manager.

But think about what has happened here: In a season where the owner wanted contention, the Pirates are on pace to go 77-85, a one-win improvement over 2023.

They've gotten better in some areas, sure. But also think about where they'd be had Paul Skenes not been available last summer or Jared Jones didn't surpass their expectations this spring. It's great they did, obviously. But those are outliers more than indicators that the process has taken giants steps forward.

This also might be a good time to point out that Cherington not long ago said Oneil Cruz was the Pirates shortstop ... before the club moved him to center field (on a permanent basis) just nine days later. There was also Henry Davis going from unfit to catch in the major leagues to opening day starter inside of a year, with a trip to right field mixed in.

It's why it was surprising to see Cherington make what sounded like a definitive statement about Shelton's future, when there's likely nothing that has been approved by ownership.

There's also more that's concerning with the Pirates right now than the manager — and Nutting would be well within his rights to sit down and review it all after the season, when the dust on this lost season settles.

The Pirates seemingly aren't happy with their international, research and development and pro scouting departments, as there are now openings atop all three with Junior Vizcaino and Sean Ahmed fired and Will Lawton re-assigned.

I don't expect Nutting to get down in the weeds there. But I do expect him to judge whether the major league team has met expectations — which, again, it has not.

Trades Cherington has made have been lopsided, the Pirates sending out more than four times as many wins above replacement (per Baseball Reference) than they've returned when giving up big-league players.

We've seen incomplete development with young players such as Davis, Jack Suwinski, Jared Triolo (offensively), Liover Peguero and the since-traded Quinn Priester.

While Joey Bart and Dennis Santana have been wins for Cherington, he also spent basically $36 million this offseason for around 2 bWAR — and 1.3 of it belongs to Andrew McCutchen.

(For context, FanGraphs values 1.0 WAR around $8 million.)

Meanwhile, strong fundamental play has been an issue with the big club, and the offense has been inconsistent at best. (The Pirates have quietly moved into a tie for 17th in runs with 617, but they still have a .676 team OPS that ranks 26th.)

What does any of that mean?

That the GM shouldn't be rubber-stamping the manager's return in September, if at all.

And as much as it's been enjoyable being around Shelton and there are genuinely some things he does well, it's hard to see how Nutting can justify doing this all over again in 2025.

(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.