Archives for May 2023

The Pirates and representatives for right-hander Mitch Keller have been in talks about a contract extension, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports.  There isn’t any sense whether or not the two sides are particularly close to an agreement, though Pirates owner Bob Nutting suggested last month that the club was looking to extend more core players now that Bryan Reynolds had completed his own long-term deal.

MLBTR’s Steve Adams cited Keller as a logical extension candidate at the time, and he further described Keller’s breakout over the last two seasons in a recent piece for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.  Since cutting back on the usage of his four-seam fastball in 2021, Keller has blossomed, with Steve observing that “fast forward to 2023, and Keller’s pitch arsenal is even more diverse thanks to a revamped cutter.  He’s throwing his four-seamer, sinker and cutter all at a 21-24% clip, mixing in a sweeper and curve that he uses about equally…It’s a much different arsenal than in 2021, when Keller was throwing 57% four-seamers, 24% cutters, 14% curveballs and mixing in a show-me changeup.”

It wasn’t like Keller’s emergence came out of nowhere, as he was a second-round pick in the 2014 draft and a regular on top-50 prospect lists during his climb up Pittsburgh’s minor league ladder.  His first few shots at the majors didn’t go well, however, as Keller posted a 6.02 ERA over 170 1/3 innings from 2019-21.

After a promising step forward in 2022, Keller has now looked more like a front-of-the-rotation arm during his excellent start to the 2023 campaign.  Today’s outing against the Orioles was the latest example, as Keller allowed just four hits and no walks while recording 13 strikeouts over seven shutout innings.  This gem improved Keller’s ERA to 2.38 over 56 2/3 IP, and just about all of his Statcast numbers are well above the league average.

Keller just turned 27 last month, and he is earning $2,437,500 this season in his first of three arbitration-eligible years.  This means Keller will be entering his age-30 season when he enters free agency during the 2025-26 offseason, unless the Pirates lock him up beforehand on an extension.

Keller’s agents at Tidal Sports Group might logically point to Logan Webb’s recent five-year, $90MM extension with the Giants as a comp for a potential deal for their client.  Webb is seven months younger than Keller, but the two have comparable big league service times and somewhat similar resumes as pitchers who went through a rough beginning to their MLB careers before posting consecutive quality seasons.

Of course, Webb had fully completed his second good year at the time of his extension while Keller only really started to pitch well midway through the 2022 campaign and his 2023 success does represent only nine starts.  That said, Keller’s price tag is only rising as he continues to post great results, so he could choose to bet on himself and wait until after the season to pursue an extension.

The fact that the perennially low-payroll Pirates are even engaged in long-term contract talks represents a turning point for the club, as while a brutal slump in May has curbed the enthusiasm of the team’s 20-9 start to the season, Pittsburgh still has a 22-19 record.  The Bucs have just one winning record in the previous seven seasons, as the team’s previous contending roster ran out of steam, and the club then engaged in a lengthy rebuilding process.

The early results have indicated that the Pirates’ rebuild may be wrapping up, and to that end, Nutting has authorized the two biggest contracts in franchise history.  While still smaller than the priciest contracts of most other teams around the majors, the Pirates signed Ke’Bryan Hayes to an eight-year, $70MM extension in April 2022, and then extended Reynolds with seven years and $100MM of new money last month.  The Pirates aren’t likely to ever become truly big spenders, yet locking up certain cornerstone talents is a proven method for smaller-market teams to gain some cost certainty over premium talent.