Veteran left-hander Dallas Keuchel cleared waivers and elected free agency after being designated for assignment by the Brewers, Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. He’s now free to sign with any club.
Keuchel, 36, signed a minor league deal with the Mariners over the winter but was acquired by Milwaukee for cash last month. He’d gotten out to a nice start with the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma (71 innings, 3.93 ERA, 15.6% strikeout rate, 7.6% walk rate, 59.5% grounder rate), and a Brewers club in dire need of rotation innings turned to the former Cy Young winner to help patch their injury-ravaged staff. Keuchel had two tough starts and two solid ones for the Brew Crew, pitching a total of 16 2/3 innings with an 11-to-8 K/BB ratio and 52.5% ground-ball rate before being designated.
Keuchel had a similar but lengthier stint as a depth starter with the Twins down the stretch in 2023, appearing in 10 games (six of them starts) and posting a 5.97 ERA in 37 2/3 frames. As with Milwaukee, he had his share of solid appearances in the Twin Cities but was also hit quite hard on a few occasions.
It’s been years since Keuchel, the 2015 American League Cy Young winner, was a solid member of a big league rotation. He made 11 starts and tossed 63 1/3 innings of sparkling 1.99 ERA ball with the White Sox in the shortened 2020 season, but the final two seasons of his three-year, $55.5MM deal in Chicago was a disaster. Dating back to 2021, Keuchel has pitched to a grisly 6.24 ERA in 277 innings — a far cry from the 1126 innings of 3.25 ERA ball he compiled in his 2014-20 peak.
Rough as Keuchel’s recent results have been, the veteran southpaw has pitched quite well in Triple-A over the past few seasons. This year’s 88.1 mph average velocity on his sinker obviously sits well below the league average but is also his best mark since a strong 2019 season with the Braves, when he averaged 88.3 mph. Keuchel worked with Driveline Baseball during the early part of the ’23 season to restore some of his dwindling velocity and parlayed that into his deal with the Twins. He’s now added a bit more life to the sinker and still looked sharp in two of his four Milwaukee appearances. A club in need of some rotation depth figures to scoop him up on a minor league pact in the coming weeks.
Future Cardinal.
No, go with the young guys.
Exactly! Bring up Hence, Matthews,and Hjerke, and put them in the pen!
But it still wouldn’t hurt to have him in Memphis just in case.
This is exactly what Kyle Hendricks future looks like. Soft tossing Pitcher who’s trying to hang on that teams think can still pitch.
Got it!
He’ll be in Stl in the next few hours if not so already lol
Brodie and Don,
As a White Sox fan having to suffer through Keuchel’s pitiful starts, I really don’t recommend him, he is a bottom of the barrel kind of guy at this point. He’s awful, just awful…
Last season we were running Casey Lawrence out there after the deadline. At least Keuchel had a prime. If things go south and we don’t want to prematurely expose our young pitchers, a guy like Keuchel serves a purpose. Sometimes you have to lose a game to save the staff.
If he’s there to just save your bullpen for a few games in a losing effort, than he’s going to be the perfect fit. So long as you understand that his once elite ability to induce weak grounders is completely gone, your expectations will be met. Sorry, he was absolutely terrible for the White Sox when we expected good results, still salty about it…
@warden
I was being sarcastic and taking a shot at mo because he loves the retirement homes
Brodie,
Gotcha not a problem lol
Keuchel is…a body to throw out on the mound at this point…
@warden
If he does actually wind up on the cards it’s going to be like you said just a body to throw into the meat grinder
Dear Don: You are often right. However, He does not eat any innings. He never went more than 41/3 innings. He aggravates a tired bull pen!
Does not pitch hardly any innings before being pulled!
This has Andrew Friedman written all over it.
It actually says Steve Adams.
Has anyone ever seen Andrew F. and Steve A. in the same room?
He should elect retirement.
No.
Yes!
MAYBE, he doesn’t want to go home to Kelly afterall??
Maybe she doesn’t want him home.
How unique is Kelly? I am not familiar with Her!
I’m sure a hot woman like that enjoys a boyfriend who looks like he wants to be in ZZ Top.
Not really unique for this day and age. However, if you want to look her up her name is Kelly Nash. She sometimes subsitutes as the eye candy of the day on MLB Quick Pitch.
He’s done but instead, he’s working on setting the career record for being dfa’d from the most teams. The only reason teams will keep signing him is because he’s a lefty.
Last good season 2020
Yeah and 2020 wasn’t even a real season……broke down around 45 game mark and bad in his “playoff” start.
Worth a minor league flier for the Padres, no?
Maybe the Dbacks with Strom.
Come back to Houston. Could use a lefty reliever.
ckc: Why would you want to do that to the Astros?
we need pitching
He will knock you out of contention!
Don’t sign anyone 30 years old or older! Their bodies are wearing out from all the hard work a playing ….. most players go down quickly to injuries.
We need Steroid era back so our beloved stars can play a few more years at their top level!
Hmm…ageism.
Nothing is more disgusting.
Dallas Keuchel, thank you for your service to Immaculate Grid.
Reggie Sanders, Bruce Chen and LaTroy Hawkins are Grid HOF
Bruce Chen, that’s a good one. I wonder if anyone else has ever posted negative WAR for six different teams.
Edwin Jackson also
Dude, give it up already. Retire.
Yea, Dallas. Forget the Cy Young, World Series, super hot wife. Listen to Mongo Wango instead.
But it’s not his fault. His teammates fault for not catching the ball
I’m thinking about making a comeback. I only retired from baseball about 35 years ago, and I can still hit 88 on the radar gun, 53 on the knuckleball. Hey I’m 60qe
Sorry, had a small seizure and accidentally pushed the post comment button.
Did the same thing happen when you where typing your user name?
No, I’ve just had a traumatic brain injury and sometimes I have seizures. Unless you were trying to be funny. (The sound of one hand clapping in an empty theater follows) Never listened to Jerry Clower? I was a running back in college,hence the user name.
Go fer it!… hit the strike zone and yer already better than many….with age comes wisdom and mental toughness!
Just read that Bartolo Colon is still pitching at 50 or 51 in the United Baseball league in the Middle East, so you never know. LOL I was going to finish by saying I’m 60, but I could still go once a week. LOL
Yeah, the catchers need to snatch those meatballs out of the zone before the hitters have a chance to hammer them. William C could have had his brother show him how to do that.
Willson Contreras’s forearm has entered the chat.
In Milwaukee, you don’t elect free agency. Free agency elects you.
If LOOGY was still a think he could play another 10 years.
Welcome (back) to the White Sox
Stay away from Boston lol….just no
Orioles depth.
Draften in the 7th round in houston
lousy rookie year(s).
‘all of a sudden ‘ front line type starter the rest of the time in houston
a bummer year in Atlanta but still rotation worthy
Great in a short sample season of 2020.
2021 his arm fell off. I wonder what changed between 2020 and 2021.
Players have been known to fall off the map in a short period but it is worth noting the rule checks and accusations of cheating in Houston. Probably nothing there just makes me go “wait, what?”