It’s been a quiet winter in Pittsburgh. The Pirates misplaced virtually nobody from final 12 months’s 76-86 crew, however they didn’t add many gamers both. Their greatest acquisition might be Aroldis Chapman. After that, it’s Marco Gonzales, Rowdy Tellez, Yasmani Grandal, or Martín Pérez. They’re competent main leaguers all, however hardly thrilling additions. However because it seems, the Pirates had one other transfer to make, and it’s a welcome one:
BREAKING: Proper-hander Mitch Keller and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in settlement on a five-year contract extension, sources inform me and @kileymcd. After a breakout season through which he struck out 210, the 27-year-old Keller will anchor the rotation for the crew that drafted him.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 22, 2024
That is each thrilling and mandatory, not less than for my part. The Pirates haven’t developed many efficient beginning pitchers within the final, properly, ever. Just one Pirates starter prior to now decade has eclipsed 10 WAR with the crew: Gerrit Cole with 13. After that, their success tales are Jameson Taillon, Joe Musgrove, and, properly… Iván Nova is sixth on the listing, and that got here in 2.5 years after the Yankees traded him to Pittsburgh. As Stephen Nesbitt and Ken Rosenthal not too long ago chronicled in The Athletic, it’s been an unpleasant decade for baseball within the Metal Metropolis.
Mitch Keller has already accrued the third-most beginning pitching WAR prior to now decade with 7.5. He’s getting into his sixth large league season this 12 months, although ups and downs early in his profession imply that it’s solely his fifth 12 months of service time. The highway to success has been bumpy — from 2019 by 2021, he compiled a 6.02 ERA and solely racked up 170 innings of main league work. Issues have gotten higher since then, although. He threw 159 strong innings in 2022 after which made 32 begins in 2023, each instances trying like a constantly efficient starter relatively than the curler coaster journey of earlier years.
Although it didn’t fairly present up in his ERA, Keller’s 2023 was a breakout season. His strikeout charge spiked from a profession charge beneath league common to a mouth-watering 25.5%. He reduce his walks by a 3rd, going from a 9.7% mark to six.7%. Beneath the hood, none of that gave the impression to be a fluke; he simply regarded higher than he had in earlier years. He garnered extra swinging strikes. He bought extra referred to as strikes. Batters chased extra often than they’d in his profession earlier than 2023 and swung at pitches within the strike zone much less often. Throughout the board, his pitches merely befuddled hitters greater than they used to.
How’d he do it? As Alex Eisert might inform you, he added a cutter. Properly, that’s not fairly proper; it could be extra correct to say that he diversified his mixture of sliders to enhance a tough and quick one and a sweepy one. Keller used to throw a mid-80s slider round 25% of the time. In 2023, he threw a low-80s sweeper 16% of the time and an upper-80s cutter 25% of the time. In different phrases, he cranked up his general cutter/slider utilization by creating two distinctly completely different variations.
Right here’s the bizarre half: Neither of these pitches carried out significantly properly, not less than based on our run values. As a substitute, the actual achieve in utilizing them was in ditching different pitches to take action. In his profession earlier than 2023, Keller had thrown his changeup and curveball round 20% of the time. Extra particularly, he threw these two pitches 30% of the time in opposition to lefties, and it didn’t go very properly. In 2023, he reduce that all the way down to 18%. He additionally mothballed these pitches utterly in opposition to righties, throwing them simply 1.9% of the time after doing so roughly 10% of the time earlier than 2023.
It was a basic case of addition by subtraction. Keller has lengthy been fastball-dominant, and significantly so after breaking the pitch out into sinker and four-seam varieties in 2022. He solely bought himself into hassle along with his secondaries, of which his slider was simply the most effective one. So he bought good by increasing the slider’s function, breaking it out right into a cutter that will get 30% utilization in opposition to lefties and a sweeper that he largely reserves for righties.
This can be a nice instance of working inside a pitcher’s capabilities to get higher outcomes. Regardless of some poor dwelling run luck, Keller regarded like a strong quantity two starter or thereabouts after years of trying like he won’t pan out. Each projection system has him down for an above-average 2024, and it’s simple to see why. In truth, Dan Szymborski projected an extension for Keller final June based mostly on simply this sort of breakout.
Dan’s projection had the extension at six years and $116 million. To be honest, that article was written in June, and Keller had a rotten second half of the season (5.59 ERA, 4.52 FIP). To be honest, that article was written in June, and Keller had a rotten second half of the season (5.59 ERA, 4.52 FIP). The precise extension was decrease than ZiPS’s estimate by roughly the quantity that Keller’s projection has modified (ZiPS already features a low cost from what he’d get as a free agent as a result of remaining years of crew management the extension buys out). The cash is correct throughout the margin of error; this deal feels cheap for either side from a wage perspective. 5 years additionally feels about proper for Keller to get a chunk on the free company apple if he excels on this deal.
Talking of the open market: Earlier than this extension, Keller was as a result of attain free company after the 2025 season, when the Pirates are theoretically going to be hitting their stride. Lately, the crew has prolonged some key offensive contributors; Ke’Bryan Hayes is below crew management by 2030 at a cut price charge and Bryan Reynolds might be a Pirate till as late as 2031. A couple of former high prospects have already cracked the most important league roster, and extra are on the way in which. However the crew is inarguably brief on pitching, and dropping Keller in a 12 months or two as the remainder of the core hopefully begins to coalesce would undermine loads of the nice issues about Pittsburgh’s rebuild.
To the Pirates’ credit score, they’re spending cash to brighten their future. Keller agreed to a one-year, $5.4 million deal to keep away from arbitration this 12 months, however his new contract pays him $15.4 million yearly. That brings our estimate of their spending up practically $20 million from 2023, and $40 million from 2022. They’re nonetheless spending within the backside half of the league, to make certain, and their possession places a fairly agency ceiling on the trajectory of their payroll, however the arc of competitiveness is headed the precise approach: higher younger core, extra spending to enhance it.
I’m nonetheless undecided as as to if Keller is an integral piece of that younger core or only a good ancillary choice. Definitely, a contract that pays $15 million a 12 months for a starter projected for a bit of 3-WAR seasons is an effective deal for Pittsburgh no matter whether or not we name him an ace. We now have him projected because the Twenty ninth-best starter in baseball this 12 months, proper on the borderline of fine and nice, however we challenge him for the Eightieth-best ERA, so he’s attending to loads of his worth through quantity.
The subsequent step ahead in Keller’s profession trajectory – or non-step, if that is so far as he goes – might be all about how he adapts to his new streamlined pitch combine. He’s all the time displayed a big platoon cut up, and that didn’t change in any respect in 2023; in truth, it bought worse as lefties clobbered 16 homers in opposition to him. However he made up for it by ditching all these curveballs and changeups to righties, pitches he in all probability by no means ought to have thrown within the first place. His new sweeper is a a lot better match.
It nonetheless appears like there’s one thing lacking; perhaps a splitter or a revamped changeup to present lefties not less than one downward-breaking look. Fastball/slider pitchers will be efficient starters, however I don’t suppose Keller’s uncooked stuff is adequate to get away with it with out not less than a bit tweaking elsewhere. However Keller’s contract is paying him for what he’s now, and the upside of unlocking his greatest pitches is simply that: upside. He doesn’t have to get any higher to be an efficient main league starter, and that’s one thing that’s been in vanishingly brief provide in Pittsburgh of late.
There’s an opportunity that Paul Skenes has overtaken Keller as the most effective pitcher on the Pirates by midseason. There’s an opportunity that he’s already higher, in truth. However that’s an excellent factor for the crew, not a nasty one; whereas they’ve loads of attention-grabbing gamers on the roster, that is nonetheless a crew with loads of holes. This season is unlikely to be the most effective this crew will get on this aggressive cycle. Subsequent 12 months is perhaps, however 2026 is a robust contender as properly. Heck, 2027 and 2028 additionally seem to be cheap bets. Now that Keller goes to be round for all of these years, there’s no roster-driven cliff arising that can pressure the Pirates to be good by a given 12 months or have their aggressive window vanish.
That’s what the most effective contract extensions do: give each participant and crew certainty. Keller is ready for all times financially, and he didn’t take an outrageous haircut to change into so. The Pirates gave up a little bit of payroll flexibility, however they gained roster stability to make up for it. It’s an excellent deal for everybody concerned. Now if the Pirates might solely add, oh, three good hitters and two good starters, they may actually be cooking in 2024.