Barring a dramatic shift on Thursday, the Pittsburgh Pirates are likely to keep right-hander Mitch Keller, according to major-league sources briefed on their discussions.<\/p>\n
A trade of Keller represents perhaps the Pirates\u2019 best chance to acquire impact offensive talent. But The Athletic reported last Friday that the Pirates were torn on moving Keller, who is in the second year of a five-year, $77 million contract.<\/p>\n
An executive from a team interested in Keller, granted anonymity for his candor, said his team has not \u201ceven bothered\u201d continuing its pursuit of the pitcher, citing the Pirates\u2019 reluctance to seriously engage.<\/p>\n
There are multiple reasons the Pirates might balk at trading Keller, 29. The difficulty of replacing his performance could be one. The lack of quality offers from teams that perceive him as nothing more than a mid-rotation starter might be another.<\/p>\n
Moving Keller would clear his salaries of $16.5 million, $18 million and $20 million the next three seasons. But the Pirates also could seek to fill their offensive void by moving left-hander Bailey Falter, 28, or Braxton Ashcraft, 25, and others.<\/p>\n
None of the Pirates on expiring contracts \u2014 outfielder Tommy Pham, infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa and left-hander Andrew Heaney \u2014 are likely to bring back hitters who would bolster the 2026 roster. Closer David Bednar and setup man Dennis Santana, both of whom are under club control for an additional season, carry greater value, but perhaps not enough to land a difference-maker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barring a dramatic shift on Thursday, the Pittsburgh Pirates are likely to keep right-hander Mitch Keller, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-49910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}