TODAY: Kela is day-to-day after being examined by the team’s medical staff today, and he will be re-assessed by the club early next week, the Pirates announced.
AUGUST 21: Pirates closer Keone Kela threw five pitches in the team’s win over the Brewers on Friday before exiting with a trainer. Manager Derek Shelton revealed afterward that Kela departed because of right forearm tightness, though he said removing the hurler was just a precautionary measure on the team’s part (via Adam Berry of MLB.com).
This is undoubtedly an injury situation for the Pirates and several other teams around the league to monitor as the Aug. 31 trade deadline nears. As a pending free agent on the worst team in baseball, the 27-year-old Kela stands out as one of the game’s most obvious trade chips. If healthy, it would be a surprise to see him in a Pirates uniform once September comes, as a variety of clubs figure to have interest in a hard thrower who owns a 3.24 ERA/3.30 FIP with 11.05 K/9 against 3.45 BB/9 in his 216 1/3-inning big league career.
Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, Kela hasn’t been available enough to up his trade value this season. A positive coronavirus test prevented him from making his season debut until Aug. 13, and he has totaled just three appearances since then.
I hope pirates resign him. 2/$10 with an option. He’s got real potential and is young
Assuming he doesn’t need TJ and finished the season healthy, he is going to get offers alot better than 2/10.
$10 bucks? Nutting might approve that signing.
It’s always something with this damn guy
That Rangers trade still boggles my mind. Gave him up for nothing.
That was a awful trade.
Great trade for both teams. Rangers got 2 raw high upside prospects and the pirates got somebody that was developed already.
He hasn’t exactly done much in Pittsburgh, sooo
He had talent but had locker room and injury problems. They gave up nothing though, they werent going to develop those prospects.
A players first ability is availability. The only consistent part of Kela’s game is his unavailability. Between Archer and Kela trades, former Pirates GM, Huntington, set this franchise back to a place worse than it was when he was hired. Pretty impressive in a bad way.
Yeh,that Cutch for Reynolds trade was a bad one too.
Little set back at all. Those players were never going to be developed by the pirates. Not good trades but they didn’t set back the team. They never would of traded them if they had any hopes of developing them.
Meadows was actually good for us, and lord knows we could use his bat right now.
He was amazing for a few weeks then awful after that. Didn’t he get sent back to minors? He was disappointing all through the minors. Rays made him a way better hitter and fielder. Pittsburgh he would of just been a guy. They gave up on him and glasnow. Glasnow had unreal stuff. Pittsburgh couldn’t reach him to control it. Something isn’t right when another team can unlock a players potential so quickly. I hope cherington fired and replaced a lot of the developing staff. NH had a eye for talent.
Lov-NH had grown to be very good at trades including for Kela but he went against his normal routine when he traded for Archer.
You are correct in your assessment of Meadows and Glasgow although it remains to be seen how good they will be and how healthy.
NH had fired the minor league managers and probably some of the coaches before he was fired.
It remains to be seen how Cherington will do.That Panda signing may haunt him for a while,and the Marte trade is in limbo until the two young players flash or pan out.Dyson is certainly in no way any sort of even short term replacement.
Glasnow they absolutely mishandled, but Meadows was a different story. It doesn’t matter that he struggled for a bit, he showed that he had the potential to be a good to great player for us. When a top prospect shows that he is capable in the big leagues in any capacity, you don’t just give up on him after a few bad weeks. Do you want them to trade Reynolds now that he’s struggled thus far this season?
The Pirates have definitely had their fair share of botched developments, but Meadows was not an example of that.
Jkuch-If your question regarding Reynolds was directed to me you evidently missed my sarcasm in making that statement in a previous email.
For the record I hated the trade. Archer was done just like Pham. Downside of career. Never a good sign when a contending team offers to send away one of their starters. But the trade didn’t set back the pirates. Keep meadows marte glasnow on that team and they still stink. Meadows was on track to be a .270 20 hr guy. Maybe he would of developed more on his own or pirates years later would of found the coach to do it, but the rays unlocked his talent. Nice piece for sure, but hardly set the team back years.
Oh and I would want to trade Reynolds. Unless able to sign him cheap. Not enough power to give big $ to. He will be traded anyways at arb 2. Pirates aren’t contending till 2023 24. Don’t make it a priority but for the right price anyone is tradable.
Mendoza you are my fav commentor on here. We disagree on some things but you are always open minded and give solid input. Didn’t know what they did with minors, good to hear people are gone. NH was one of my favorite GM’s. King of trades. Had one terrible trade and got fired. Not good in the draft either, guy loved light hitting short shops. But who knows. Worst development of any organization. I hated Cole trade, it wasn’t terrible but I am a fan of talent, not roster filler. NH left one last golden nuget though. The Indian trade where the pirates sent a couple of scrubs to get a cheap ss Gonzalez. It also brought back a pitcher who is in my top 100 Tahnaj Thomas. He will be in these websites top 100 eventually, they are always a year or 2 behind me.
@Mendoza. Still loving the Marte trade, he can hit .700 for all I care. He wouldn’t of done that for the pirates. He would of been miserable and going through the motions. All you guys should get out of Pittsburgh, it will do wonders for you as well. Totally kidding, good town. I know you don’t live there either.
But 2 kids in Marte deal are in my top 70. Malone is in top 50. Again don’t take my word for, these lil website guys will have them in their top 100 shortly soon as their overrated prospects graduate to the show and go on to have mediocre careers. And if they don’t pan out doesn’t make me wrong. Kids have mass talent but somebody has to develop it. Dunno about Panda either, did Ben want him or ownership? Red Sox have half a team full of bad contracts. I don’t think you have to worry about Ben giving out a bad hundred million dollar contact. Or him even giving out a good one. Is it more likely the Yankees pay a guy a billion dollars or pirates pay someone a hundred million? 500 million for sure I am taking Yankees.
Lov-You seem to know a lot about young players so I will keep my fingers crossed as I did not like the Marte trade but I know nothing about young players.Although I think that the DBacks have a deep minor league roster these guys were no better than I think 6 and 12 for them.
You may be right about Panda and I understand ownership is the boss but I think that a signing like that can really hurt a GM’s career.
I think that your comments on NH are very accurate.He May have jumped the gun too soon with Cole but I think that he was afraid that an injury would scuttle any real return.I knew how good Cole was but evidently the other GM’s did not.
You are right about Reynolds but he is a solid player.Even Willie Mays was traded.
I think that it is fairly clear in hindsight that Archer though skilled was overrated by the Pirates.Was this like Cherington in that it was pushed by ownership on the heels of a 13 game win streak?
I think that you are correct on Meadows that the Pirates thought that he was another Mark Kotsay and he still might be.
You seem to be a young guy in that you have much enthusiasm and knowledge of minor league players and not just the best ones.If so,your depth and expression are both very good.
I appreciate your nice comment about me although there really are a number of fine posters on here that negate the knuckleheads.
Disagreement is always a good thing in that it can provide discourse to reach the best conclusion.
I had severe questions about this year in general but it is still the game that we all love.
Wish I was young. Middle age. I just like the front office stuff better then the actual game. Rather be gm then manager. I am no hard core scout. I enjoy watching baseball so will go to more minor league games then mlb. Watch some online. Watch spring training games. College baseball. High school kids all I have to go by is online video. Really that is good enough on a lot of things. See one amazing throw you know they have arm strength. Defense takes a little more. But if you don’t have talent it’s not a fluke. You don’t just amazingly make a back hand grab deep at short and throw a rocket to first. Hitting I need to watch a lot more. A lot of scouts fall in love, see the raw potential, and what it can be. And it does happen, just not enough. Yeah a 6 3 180 pound kid can put on some weight and hit for power. I consider that upside but don’t count on it. I never played in the show but the best guys in college were the best kids in highschool pony and little as well. I don’t remember any of them coming out of nowhere. Guy hits 4 home runs in college with a metal bat and these scouts give him a 60 rating in power. It is developable and I factor that in but I will bet against it developing every time if I had to put $ on it.
I absolutely hated the way NH handled prospects, he kept them in the minors for too long. I don’t think prospects need to play much in AAA, that’s for fringe players and roster fodder. They are keeping guys down their until they’re nearly in the mid 20’s and instead of letting them work out their problems in the majors, they struggle then never get another chance. You generally know early whether a player has it or not, bring them up at 22 or so, 25 year olds are barely prospects.
*Pivetta and Hembree both suck. Sox break tie by saving cash, even with the cash sent over.
*Workman was decent enough, though now on the down slope. Seabold a lottery ticket. 3.5m off the books for BoSox, and Workman can help Phillies if he’s dealing. Fair trade, IMHO.
As a Sox fan, I’m not losing sleep or taking a ‘sick day’ to celebrate.
Wrong comments thread…
You seem lost…
Pirates 2020? Can’t help but think of the old Hee Haw song, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all…”
SW-Up through 2018 the Pirates were not hard hit by injuries.
Since then you are correct.
oh no! another POS bites the dust…
“It’s just F-ing baseball. This is how we play play f-ing baseball.”
K. Kola July 30, 2019
The timing of this injury practically ensures he’ll be untradeable at the deadline. It’s always easy to speculate about the “what ifs”, but PIT could have gotten a quality return for him last week. Just seems this organization has been snakebit in terms of trades in the past few years (aside from the Reynolds acquisition).