From Don Kelly’s point of view, there has to be something fitting about Derek Shelton coming back to Pittsburgh on Friday with starting pitcher Jared Jones making his long-awaited return from injury.

And not just because Jones will be wearing Shelton’s former uniform No. 17.

It’s been a little more than a year since Kelly took over for Shelton as the Pittsburgh Pirates manager. From 2020-25, Kelly was one seat down from Shelton in the dugout as his bench coach. Then, on May 8, Shelton was fired as the Bucs manager with a 12-26 record (333-469 career).

Now Shelton is returning to PNC Park as manager of the Minnesota Twins (27-30) for the first time since his tour of duty with the Pirates ended after more than five years of managerial service.

Kelly is 88-93 since he took over, and he’s had to make a lot of the tough decisions and hold the difficult conversations you need to endure as a manager — but not as a bench coach.

One of them happened this week when he had to tell Carmen Mlodzinski that Jones was taking his spot in the rotation despite Mlodzinski’s strong month of May.

“He’s such a fierce competitor,” Kelly said Thursday. “Obviously (he is) disappointed. He’s worked hard in a starting pitcher’s role and has done a nice job. … Extremely difficult decision and conversation. When we sit here, what is going to give us the best chance to win every single day? Having as many options as we can in different areas. We’re going to have tough decisions to make, trying to keep winning at the core of all of it.”

How to handle those conversations is something Kelly learned from Shelton.

“Shelty is very direct and taught me a lot about communication and tackling things head-on,” Kelly said. “He was really good at that — having those direct conversations. Something he really taught me a lot in the communication aspect was getting ahead of things and dealing with them up front.”

Some of the Pirates who played under both Shelton and Kelly claim that Kelly is becoming his own manager, but not by forcing himself to be entirely different.

“They’re pretty similar, I’d say,” infielder Jared Triolo said Thursday afternoon. “They are the only two big league managers I’ve ever had. And they were here together. So I feel like there are some similarities that DK learned from (Shelton). He and Shelty would do the same thing. Mess around during (batting practice). It’ll be good to see him again.”

Starting pitcher Mitch Keller is one of the few Pirates who predate both Shelton and Kelly in Pittsburgh. The 30-year-old made his Pirates debut in 2019, the final year that the team was under Clint Hurdle’s stewardship.

During his 181 games managing the Bucs, Keller can see how Kelly is growing into the role.

“I think Donnie stepped up and took control,” Keller said. “He’s just more comfortable talking to the guys (this year). He probably didn’t have to get up and command a room in his past as a coach. That transition there for him, just being more comfortable talking to people. Nothing crazy. He’s always been the light-hearted, go-with-the-flow guy. He knows how hard this game is. I think he’s just done a really good job.”

One similarity between the two men is that neither is afraid to get ejected for arguing with umpires. Kelly and Shelton have both been tossed from three games already, tied for the lead in Major League Baseball.

Kelly was thrown out four times last year as well, and Shelton has been shown the gate 19 timesin his career.

“Yeah,” Nick Gonzales said with a smile. “They’re fighting for respect out there, sticking up for us. That’s just kind of the reality of the game sometimes. You get against a bunch of guys competing out there, and stuff happens like that.”

In a painful turn of events for Shelton, the thrifty Pirates front office finally spent a little bit of money this offseason, just a few months after he had been fired. Then Shelton took the Twins job, only to see that franchise cut its 2025 Opening Day payroll of 142,812,022 (17th in MLB according to the Associated Press), to $96,54,540 (24th in MLB via the AP).

Featured Local Businesses

More local businesses

In the short term, things have been better under Kelly. His record — while far from spotless — shows that.

But anyone who watches the games regularly has been right to complain about Kelly’s Shelton-esque traits of occasionally rolling out non-competitive “Sunday lineups” and of often managing as if hypnotized by Pirates analytics (pinch-hitting Nick Yorke for Brandon Lowe). Yet he’s also prone to randomly departing and going completely by feel (like putting Braxton Ashcraft back out for the seventh inning in a 9-1 game Tuesday while the team is hoping to conserve his innings count).

Is that the residue of Kelly having Shelton’s managerial DNA? Or the Pirates front office pushing a data-based, pre-arranged, paint-by-numbers approach to in-game managing and lineup decisions?

The answer to that either/or question is obviously …”Yes.”

In the end, though, Shelton could’ve been Chuck Tanner dipped in Jim Leyland and rolled in Danny Murtaugh and he was never going to be an above .500 manager with the talent he was given. And some traits he did seem to pass on to Kelly were patience and a likable demeanor that makes it easy for fans to root for them and players to keep playing for them.

That happened with Shelton until things really went south after the All-Star break in 2024.

There’s no reason to wish anything but the best for Shelton’s Twins once they leave PNC Park on Sunday evening. Hopefully, things go well for him in Minnesota.

But hopefully things continue to be better here with Kelly — and the comparisons to Shelton’s tenure get harder and harder to make.

LISTEN: Tim Benz and Jeff Erickson of RotoWire host their weekly Fantasy Sports podcast.