Almost Everyone is Right About Mitch Keller … at Least a Little

4-4-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

The Pirates did something they simply haven’t in their past. They extended Mitch Keller with a 5 year 77 million dollar deal.

Again, they don’t ever do this, so of course fans took it as a clear indication that Keller is supposed to be the “Ace” or at least part of a two headed monster type situation.

Here’s the truth about Mitch though, he’s a guy who had that in him, but he hasn’t shown it consistently. He’s a starting pitcher who has handled a volume of innings and managed to keep his arm healthy enough to do so. And eventually he’ll serve as a homegrown veteran member of a young rotation.

Signing Keller to this extension is an effort to ensure this rotation isn’t expected to come exclusively from guys Cherington brought in and developed. His AAV of 15.4 Million is easy to swallow especially when measured against contemporaries.

In many ways, Mitch Keller is a parallel player to Bryan Reynolds.

Both have All Star in them, neither will play that way every year. Both are capable of dominating for a season, neither should be expected to do it for half a decade. Both important feet in the ground for this entire effort.

That mix and match of things they both are help them share another characteristic or two. One, it made them both affordable, while both are big commitments for this franchise, and to many fans, in relation to MLB, these are fairly standard fare. And second, they both preferred signing and trying to win here instead of chasing what they probably could have gotten by waiting for free agency.

I don’t say that to say they were mistakes, or hey Pirates fans, this is the best you can expect, I’m simply saying, they extended good players here and I think that’s the type of thing we’ll continue to see them do.

In other words, if you thought signing Keller or Hayes or Reynolds was the Pirates saying these guys are Hall of Famers, well, I’d suggest it was more about their extremely high floors.

The assumption is that Cherington is trying to open a window, load up and then blow it up again after it closes, AKA when these contracts start to run out or reach maturity. I’d suggest Cherington doesn’t think he has to be resigned to that next down turn.

I’ll get into that more some other time, but it feeds into my overall point.

Mitch Keller is a solid member of this rotation, he’ll be surpassed by higher end talent shortly, and it’ll make him no less important when it happens.

Eduardo Rodriguez is a really good comp for Mitch. He’s had some really good seasons, some struggles, but one thing he’s done above all is pitch, well, not this year yet, but he just signed a 4 year 80 million dollar contract entering his age 31 season. Most of us would be plenty happy if he was brought in here and considered the 3rd best starter I’d imagine.

If that’s what Keller is on this team, it’s a huge win for the organization.

Bluntly, he’s got some work to do to get there.

To fill this role he’ll need to be consistently 170-200 Inning pitched when healthy of course. He’ll need to get his ERA ideally under 4.00 but it’s a must it’s under 4.50. And at some point, he needs to have a season where everything comes together, the proverbially career year.

To allow him to walk after 2025 would immediately put this team on a collision course with having to spend in free agency, where even placing a bet like this would surpass 15 M AAV in a blink of an eye.

Keller’s issue doesn’t take some brilliant baseball mind, his Cutter is an issue. The velocity of it isn’t different enough from the other breaking pitches he throws aside from the Curveball and the spin difference is so thick hitters smell it coming.

And then you have the placement of the Cutter.

That isn’t going to get hitters out from either side of the plate. On top of that, for some reason, he’s decided to throw it more than any of his other pitches.

Last year he got into trouble with the same pitch, during his rough second half. In the first half when he earned an All Star bid he focused on the 4-Seam Fastball.

His overall numbers from last year show at the very least, he allowed these two pitches to dominate his repertoire.

It also shows the velocity is plenty good. Now, this season he’s on average down about .5-1 MPH on just about everything.

The thing is, if you want to throw three pitches 75% of the time, they better have a separation in velocity of greater than 5-6 MPH, and they should probably have actions that at least cause confusion.

His 4 seam has a very slight natural tail, his 2-seam has more tail and some sink. The cutter moves away from right handers, and if effective only when he’s got it darting off the edge of the plate or painting it. The sweeper really moves, but rarely takes the same plane as the cutter. Curve has been reintroduced this year more but he’s hanging it and the change is a show me pitch, and here’s why.

Look, the components are there, but for whatever reason half of last season and to begin this one it seems the love affair with the cutter continues.

It’s not a bad pitch, it’s just not a good fit with the complimentary pitches he’s choosing to throw. It almost feels like he’d love to have the cutter be a pitch to contact pitch instead of the sinker but it just isn’t working.

I’m not a pitching coach, but it’s pretty clear this isn’t working, and stretching all the way back to last season post All Star Break, I think we’ve seen enough to at least wonder aloud how the hell they aren’t seeing or forcing some kind of action to change it.

There’s a good pitcher in there, but I have no idea when they’ll figure out what he’s doing or if he’ll accept it when they do.

Again, his floor is relatively high, and that’ll make him a good signing, but if he’s to ever hit his ceiling, even if only for a season or two, he needs to conquer this pitch mix. I wish to god it was as simple as he has too many pitches to choose from, instead I’m afraid he’s chosen to rely on the wrong ones to be his work horse.

Flip his cutter and 2-seam usage and I bet he’s a lot closer to what the Pirates need him to be than he is now, but again, I’m no pitching coach.

He’s no Ace! – No, right now he certainly isn’t pitching like one, but I wouldn’t be a bit shocked to see him pitch like one either. You’re right! Check

He might be our number 3 or 4! – Absolutely, which I’m here to tell you would be a pretty good outcome, cause that 1 and 2 would be pretty damn good. You’re right! Check

Pick your poison, you’re probably right, but don’t let your Pirates Fan glasses fool you into thinking this is a player they should have let walk away, he’s fortification of a rotation that will be driven by youth and prevents the team from feeling they need 2 free agents every year to acquire some experience.