{"id":35934,"date":"2025-07-31T03:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T03:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/35934\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T03:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T03:20:10","slug":"pirates-likely-to-keep-mitch-keller-beyond-trade-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/35934\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Likely To Keep Mitch Keller Beyond Trade Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite weeks of rumors, it looks as though the Pirates won\u2019t be trading Mitch Keller<\/a> before tomorrow\u2019s trade deadline, The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal<\/a> writes.\u00a0 It would take \u201ca dramatic shift\u201d in the team\u2019s thinking for Keller to be moved at this point.<\/p>\n

Several contenders (including the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Mets, Yankees, and Cubs) were publicly linked to Keller in recent days, yet it appears as though none of these suitors or others were able to meet what was known to be a very high asking price for the right-hander\u2019s services.\u00a0 One rival executive told Rosenthal that it didn\u2019t seem like the Pirates were willing to explore a Keller deal too deeply, and thus ceased talks.<\/p>\n

This stance from the Bucs front office tracks with the most recent reporting<\/a> on Keller, as Rosenthal and Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a> each wrote within the last few days that the Pirates were becoming increasingly disinclined to trade the starter.\u00a0 Pirates GM Ben Cherington told Hiles and other reporters last weekend that the team valued Keller\u2019s \u201cleadership\u201d and \u201cproven performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to be better in 2026, we need more of that, not less.\u00a0 We would only contemplate giving up something that\u2019s seemingly more proven if we really believe that they give us a better chance to be better by next year,\u201d Cherington said.<\/p>\n

Now in his seventh MLB season, Keller has a 3.69 ERA and 6.2% walk rate over 127 innings and 22 starts for Pittsburgh.\u00a0 His 18.8% strikeout rate is his lowest over a full season and he has correspondingly low chase and whiff rates, plus Keller\u2019s fastball averages a modest 94mph.\u00a0 His heater does have plenty of spin on it, however, and Keller\u2019s combination of good control, durability, and non-quantitative value as a veteran leader in a young clubhouse makes him a logical player to keep as the Bucs try to break out of their lengthy rebuilding phase.<\/p>\n

The club invested in Keller as a face of its next phase of contention by signing him to a multi-year extension prior to the 2024 season.\u00a0 Keller still has $54.5MM owed to him from 2026-28, as well as the rest of his $15MM salary for the remainder of the 2025 campaign.\u00a0 This is very pricey commitment by the Pirates\u2019 standards, and since the team is staring at another losing season, there was some thought that the Bucs could trim salary by moving Keller elsewhere.\u00a0 The team did move one significant contract off the books when Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes was dealt<\/a> to the Reds earlier today, which indirectly makes Keller more affordable with more room now in the Pirates\u2019 limited budget.<\/p>\n

More to come\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite weeks of rumors, it looks as though the Pirates won\u2019t be trading Mitch Keller before tomorrow\u2019s trade…\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-35934","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\/35934","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=35934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35934\/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=35934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}