The Rockies have acquired minor-league righty Jon Keller from the Orioles, per an official announcement. He’ll become the player to be named later in the April swap that sent right-hander Miguel Castro to Baltimore.
Keller, 25, has yet to move past the Double-A level through five seasons in the minors. Though he has had some intriguing moments at times in the lower minors, he has stalled out with command issues at Bowie. Over 53 total frames there since 2015, Keller owns a 7.13 ERA with 41 strikeouts and 51 walks.
Meanwhile, Castro — once seen as an intriguing prospect — has produced for the O’s this year. The 22-year-old carries a 2.65 ERA through 54 1/3 innings spread over 33 appearances. Those innings alone make the deal worthwhile and Castro won’t reach arbitration eligibility until at least 2020.
Of course, while he’s averaging 96 mph with his fastball and generating swings and misses at a solid 10.1% rate, Castro is also averaging just 4.8 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9 on the year. There’s little chance that he will sustain his current .201 BABIP moving forward, so he’ll need to find a way to put away big league hitters to keep his earned run average anywhere near its current levels.
Wow, this is the human equivalent of a bag of balls. 51 walks in 53 innings surely won’t doom him in Coors Field.
He won’t even sniff the majors at this rate, he’ll be lucky to even debut at 30.
They gave up on castro way too quick. He was a big piece of the tulo trade too
While it’s not Phelps-Buhner bad it is one of the worst trades I’ve seen in a long time
This has a chance to eclipse the Kimera Bartee for Chone Figgins deal as the worst in Rockies history if Castro has a good career.
He’s due to regress. If trading Miguel Castro is your teams worst move, you should be ecstatic
Yeah I mean the orioles will win the trade by default but Castro isn’t very good. You’ll most likely see him starting games next year and that’ll really show the kind of pitcher he is.
Actually I take that back. The worst trade in Rockies history was Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom for Jeremy Guthrie. Maybe they should just stop trading with Baltimore altogether.