{"id":24874,"date":"2025-07-26T06:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T06:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/24874\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T06:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T06:22:07","slug":"pirates-not-committed-to-trading-mitch-keller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/24874\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Not Committed To Trading Mitch Keller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitch Keller<\/a> is one of the top names on the pitching market. The Pirates have generally been expected to deal him to clear payroll space and bring back controllable hitting talent. While that\u2019s seemingly the likeliest outcome, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a> writes that the Pirates remain unsure of whether to trade Keller with six days before the deadline.<\/p>\n

Keller is essentially in the first season of a four-year contract. He signed an extension in February 2024, though that left his already agreed upon salary for last year unchanged. Keller is playing on a $15MM salary this year. That\u2019ll climb to $16.5MM, $18MM, and $20MM for the next three seasons. It takes him through his age-32 campaign.<\/p>\n

That makes Keller the highest-paid player on the roster. It\u2019s nevertheless quite a bit less than he\u2019d command if he were on the open market. There\u2019s \u00a0surplus value that\u2019d allow the Pirates to land a significant return. Keller is amidst the best season of his career. He owns a personal-low 3.53 earned run average in 125 innings. He\u2019s only striking out 18.7% of batters faced, but he is walking fewer than 6% of opposing hitters. Keller has taken a step forward in handling left-handed hitters after struggling in that regard earlier in his career.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a rock-solid #3 starter profile. Keller has been exceptionally durable and has a six-pitch arsenal that\u2019s headlined by a 94 MPH fastball. The Bucs have reportedly gotten calls from the Yankees, Blue Jays, Cubs and Mets \u2014 presumably among others that haven\u2019t been reported. Noah Hiles of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a> has suggested the Cubs view Keller as something of a fallback target. The Mets are involved in the rotation market but presently more focused on the bullpen. Toronto and the Yankees still appear strongly involved in the rotation market. Teams like the Giants, Red Sox and Tigers could also pursue controllable starting pitching.<\/p>\n

The Pirates are weighing that against the possibility of keeping Keller behind\u00a0Paul Skenes<\/a> in the rotation. Top prospect Bubba Chandler<\/a> should be up before the end of the season. Jared Jones<\/a> could return midway through the \u201926 campaign. That\u2019d be a potentially elite top four if they were all healthy. Pitcher injuries are always a concern, though, and the Pirates have run out unplayable lineups year after year. They\u2019re unlikely to spend their way out of that problem. Even with star shortstop prospect\u00a0Konnor Griffin<\/a> coming through the pipeline, there\u2019s not enough hitting talent in the organization.<\/p>\n

Trading Keller is probably their best path to acquiring young offensive upside. Pittsburgh should also get a notable return for closer David Bednar<\/a>, who is under arbitration control for another season after this one. Setup man\u00a0Dennis Santana<\/a> has built a decent amount of value as well. The Bucs aren\u2019t expected<\/a> to move\u00a0Oneil Cruz<\/a> unless they\u2019re completely blown away by an offer. None of their impending free agents are going to bring much back.<\/p>\n

General manager Ben Cherington was hired over the 2019-20 offseason. The Pirates haven\u2019t come especially close to making the playoffs in that time. They already replaced skipper Derek Shelton earlier in the season. It stands to reason Cherington is motivated to demonstrate a path to the playoffs for the 2026 club. Trading Keller for low minors prospects wouldn\u2019t do much to that end, so it\u2019d make sense for them to demand high minors and\/or young MLB talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitch Keller is one of the top names on the pitching market. The Pirates have generally been expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,13945,462,82],"class_list":["post-24874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mitch-keller","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}