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Brad Keller

The Cubs’ Bullpen Outlook

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The Cubs entered spring training this year with their bullpen largely set. Offseason trade acquisitions of Ryan Pressly and Ryan Brasier added a pair of veteran righties — including a closer, Pressly — to the late-inning mix. Chicago signed lefty Caleb Thielbar to a one-year, $2.75MM deal. That trio joined Porter Hodge, Tyson Miller and Keegan Thompson as virtual locks. All three holdovers pitched very well in 2024, and the latter two are out of minor league options.

There are plenty of candidates for the remaining spots, the bulk of whom are on the 40-man roster already. Righty Julian Merryweather is coming off a poor showing in an injury-marred season that included an April rib fracture and season-ending knee surgery in September. He yielded 11 runs in 15 innings (6.60 ERA), but Merryweather was excellent in 2023, logging a 3.38 ERA and 32.3% strikeout rate in 72 innings for the Cubs. He’s also out of minor league options, which surely gives him a leg up on others. (Four scoreless spring innings with a 5-to-1 K/BB ratio so far isn’t hurting his cause, either.)

Others on the 40-man roster include righties Nate Pearson, Eli Morgan, Jack Neely, Daniel Palencia, Ethan Roberts and Gavin Hollowell. All have at least one minor league option remaining. However, the Cubs have at least one non-roster invitee who’s making a push for a spot: veteran righty Brad Keller.

Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote yesterday that Keller’s average fastball is up more than three miles per hour this spring, sitting 96.3 mph and topping out at 98 mph. Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and manager Craig Counsell both spoke highly of Keller’s stuff this spring, with the skipper noting to Lee that Keller has been “more than we expected” so far in camp. Keller’s four runs in seven innings of work don’t stand out, but teams are far more focused on raw stuff, velocity and command when looking at such a small sample. Keller has allowed only seven hits and a walk while punching out six hitters and inducing grounders at a 48% clip so far.

Patrick Mooney of The Athletic reports that Keller’s velocity jump and smoother mechanics have not only made him a legitimate consideration to break camp but made it “likely” that the team will add Keller to the roster. The veteran righty has a looming opt-out opportunity in his deal, so the Cubs will either have to select his contract to the big league roster or risk him landing with another team. His minor league pact comes with a $1.5MM base salary, per Mooney, making Keller an affordable addition to the relief corps if the team sees fit.

Adding Keller to the mix, however, comes with complications. Right now, the Cubs have six relievers who cannot be optioned to the minors in the running for bullpen spots: Pressly, Brasier, Thielbar, Miller, Thompson and Merryweather. Hodge has a full slate of minor league options remaining, but coming off a 1.88 ERA and 31.7% strikeout rate in 43 rookie innings, he’s not going anywhere. He’s locked into a seventh spot in the ’pen.

Effectively, unless the Cubs are willing to move on from Merryweather, they only have one bullpen spot available. Plugging Keller into that spot would render their bullpen largely static, barring injury. Keller has more than five years of MLB service (6.062, to be more specific). He can’t be optioned without his consent.

That level of bullpen inflexibility is tough for any team to manage. Early off-days in the season would help, but if the Cubs needed to call up a fresh arm at any point, they’d be left choosing between optioning Hodge or designating someone for assignment. It’s not an ideal setup.  (The Mets faced a similar situation with their bench when weighing whether to re-sign Jose Iglesias, which is largely why he ended up with the Padres.)

The situation would only grow murkier when righty Javier Assad is healed up from an oblique injury. Assad has been ruled out for Opening Day and is presumably IL-bound to begin the year. If he returns in April, however, he’d likely push righty Colin Rea from the fifth starter’s spot to a long relief role. Rea, like many of his teammates on the staff, can’t be optioned. The Cubs could technically option Assad, but he pitched 147 innings of 3.73 ERA ball out of the rotation last year; his strikeout, walk an home run rates all point to some regression, but Assad has still pitched well enough to this point in his career (3.40 ERA in 294 innings) that he can be considered a lock when healthy.

It’s always possible that further injuries sort the situation out organically. Injuries, particularly on the pitching side of things, are an inevitability for any team over the course of a six-week spring training and 162-game season. But with the bulk of the pitching staff healthy right now and minimal flexibility due to their lack of optionable arms, the Cubs seem like they’ll be forced into some decisions on those out-of-options arms sooner than later.

Javier Assad Ruled Out For Opening Day

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Cubs right-hander Javier Assad has been sidelined this spring due to oblique soreness, and 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine relays this afternoon that the righty won’t be ready to pitch in time for either the Tokyo Series on March 18 or the club’s stateside opener against the Diamondbacks on March 27. Presumably, the Cubs will place him on the injured list to open the season, leaving him out of action for at least the beginning of April.

Assad, 27, has found plenty of success over three seasons in the majors with Chicago despite questionable peripherals. The right-hander served in a part-time swing role for the Cubs in both the 2022 and ’23 seasons, posting a 3.06 ERA (139 ERA+) in 147 innings of work across 41 appearances (18 starts) during that two-year stretch. That excellent production came in spite of underlying numbers that were far less impressive. Assad walked 9.9% of his opponents while striking out just 20.2% of them over those first two seasons, and his 44.7% groundball rate was strong but not outstanding. That left him with a 4.34 FIP and a 4.59 SIERA over those two years, both of which painted him as a below average pitcher despite his above-average results.

When the right-hander was handed an Opening Day rotation spot by the Cubs last year, it was fair to wonder whether those lackluster peripherals would come back to bite him. He once again managed to defy the underlying metrics in 2024, however, posting a 3.73 ERA (107 ERA+) despite a 4.64 FIP and 4.72 SIERA. His strikeout, walk, and groundball rates were largely unchanged from the prior two seasons, but despite that he still posted the numbers of a solid back-end start across 147 innings and 29 starts. His 4.38 ERA and 4.80 FIP after the All-Star break last year stuck out as a potential cause for concern, but after an offseason that saw the club focus more on upgrading its lineup and bullpen rather than the rotation Assad once again figured to feature in the club’s starting five to open the 2025 season.

Those plans will have to be put on hold for now, however, as Assad is only just beginning to work his way back to the mound after being sidelined for all of last month by an oblique strain. Levine writes that the Cubs hope he’ll be able to proceed to throwing a bullpen session next week, but even that seems up in the air. Given the uncertainty surrounding Assad’s status, it’s hardly a surprise that the Cubs decided to formally pull the plug on him as an Opening Day possibility and begin exploring other options to fill out the rotation in earnest.

Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele front Chicago’s rotation and are slated to start the club’s two-game series against the Dodgers in Tokyo. Meanwhile, veterans Jameson Taillon and Matthew Boyd make up the middle of the Cubs’ rotation after Chicago added Boyd on a two-year deal back in December. With Assad no longer an option for the fifth starter job, it seems likely that the gig could fall to veteran swing man Colin Rea. Rea, 34, posted a 4.40 ERA (96 ERA+) and 4.82 FIP in 58 appearances (49 starts) with Milwaukee over the past two years. He figures to be on the Opening Day roster so long as he’s healthy, though he does have ample experience pitching in relief as well.

The possibility that Rea could be used as a long reliever rather than a starter leaves the door open for one of the Cubs’ other potential starting options to grab the fifth starter job. Right-hander Ben Brown dazzled in his rookie season with a 3.58 ERA and 3.11 FIP in 55 1/3 innings of work, and while he was sidelined by an osteoma on his neck for the entire second half last year he now appears to be fully healthy. Jordan Wicks struggled through an injury-marred campaign in 2024 but is a recent top-100 prospect with plenty of upside.

Veteran rotation arms Chris Flexen and Brad Keller are both in camp as non-roster invitees, and it’s possible either could factor into the competition for the fifth starter job alongside Rea, Brown, and Wicks. One player who is unlikely to compete for the job is top pitching prospect Cade Horton, who is healthy this spring after what amounted to a lost season in 2024 but still has minimal experience at the Triple-A level under his belt. Whoever earns the fifth starter job could theoretically pitch themselves into a more permanent job that lasts even beyond Assad’s upcoming IL stint, given that the 27-year-old has both ample bullpen experience and minor league options remaining.

Cubs Agree To Minor League Deal With Brad Keller, Finalizing Deal With Brandon Hughes

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The Cubs have agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Brad Keller, as first reported by Cubs Insider’s Jacob Zanolla. He’ll be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee next month. They’re also finalizing a minor league pact to bring left-handed reliever Brandon Hughes back to the organization, per Patrick Mooney of The Athletic.

Keller, 29, quickly emerged as one of the better Rule 5 picks in recent memory when the Royals plucked him out of the D-backs’ system back in 2017. From 2018-20, he was a productive fixture on Kansas City’s staff, eventually sliding in as a set member of the rotation. In those three seasons, he logged 360 1/3 innings of 3.50 ERA ball with a 16.8% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. Both those marks were worse than league-average, but Keller posted a strong 52.1% grounder rate and proved adept at dodging hard contact and keeping the ball in the park.

In 2021, Keller’s results deteriorated in a hurry. He still made 26 starts and ate up 133 1/3 innings, but his walk and ground-ball rates checked in at career-worst levels as his ERA spiked to 5.39. His ERA in 2022 was again north of 5.00 in a similar sample of innings. By 2023, Keller’s command issues had elevated to calamitous levels. He issued 45 free passes in 45 1/3 innings, doling out a base on balls to 21.3% of his opponents. He was eventually diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome and underwent season-ending surgery.

In 2024, Keller split the year between the White Sox and Red Sox. He spent the bulk of his season in Triple-A, where he logged a combined 3.28 earned run average, 21.1% strikeout rate, 8.1% walk rate and 54.5% grounder rate between the two organizations. His big league work was much rougher. In 41 1/3 frames, Keller was tagged for a 5.44 ERA with a 16.7% strikeout rate. His walk and ground-ball rates were strong, however, respectively landing at 7.6% and 50%.

Hughes, 29, looked on the cusp of breaking out with the 2022 Cubs. He pitched 16 2/3 shutout innings between Double-A and Triple-A before being called to the majors for 57 2/3 innings of 3.12 ERA ball as a rookie. He was too homer-prone, averaging 1.72 round-trippers per nine frames, but by season’s end he was closing down games for the Cubs, tallying eight saves. He fanned a strong 28.5% of opponents against a solid 8.8% walk rate.

Knee troubles tanked Hughes’ 2023 season, as he pitched only 13 2/3 innings with an ERA north of 7.00. His minor league work was no better, as opponents tagged him for 11 runs in just 11 innings. He underwent a debridement procedure in his left knee that June and was on the injured list until September. The Cubs non-tendered him in November, and he signed a minor league deal in Arizona. Hughes made it back to the majors with the Diamondbacks but clearly wasn’t right. He posted an 8.15 ERA in 17 2/3 big league frames, though his 2.03 earned run average in 48 Triple-A innings creates some more reason for optimism.

Both Keller and Hughes will be in the mix as bullpen depth this spring, though Keller could also serve as depth for the starting staff. The Cubs have added Ryan Pressly and Eli Morgan to the ’pen by way of the trade market this winter and also inked free agent southpaw Caleb Thielbar to a big league deal. That trio will join Porter Hodge, Tyson Miller, Nate Pearson, Julian Merryweather and Keegan Thompson as relief candidates. Each of Miller, Merryweather and Thompson is out of minor league options, so they’ll need to make the Opening Day roster or else be traded or designated for assignment (ultimately passing through waivers if they’re to have any chance of being sent to Triple-A). Trevor Richards, Phil Bickford, Ben Heller and Brooks Kriske are among the other veteran arms who’ll be in camp on non-roster deals.

12 Players Elect Free Agency

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As the offseason nears, a number of players elect minor league free agency each week. These players are separate from six-year MLB free agents, who’ll reach the open market five days after the conclusion of the World Series. Eligible minor leaguers can begin electing free agency as soon as the regular season wraps up. These players were all outrighted off a team’s 40-man roster during the year and have the requisite service time and/or multiple career outrights necessary to reach free agency since they weren’t added back to teams’ rosters.

Electing free agency is the anticipated outcome for these players. There’ll surely be more to test the market in the coming weeks. We’ll offer periodic updates at MLBTR. These transactions are all reflected on the MiLB.com or MLB.com logs unless otherwise stated.

Infielders

Pitchers

* Chris Cotillo of MassLive reported that Dalbec, Westbrook, and Keller have elected free agency. Francys Romero reported that Barrero has elected free agency.

Red Sox Re-Sign Brad Keller To Minor League Deal

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The Red Sox and Brad Keller have evidently reunited on another minor league deal, as he started for Triple-A Worcester yesterday. He had elected free agency last week after being designated for assignment but seems to have signed a fresh pact. If the deal was formalized prior to September 1, he will be postseason eligible with the Sox.

Keller, 29, has been on and off the Boston roster for the past few months. He actually started the season with the White Sox on a minor league deal. He was added to that club’s roster in late April but lasted about three weeks before being designated for assignment, clearing waivers and electing free agency.

He then signed with the Sox and was on their 40-man roster for a few months but elected free agency in mid-August when they attempted to option him to the minors. As a veteran with more than five years of service time, he can’t be optioned without his consent. He went to the open market but quickly re-signed on a new minor league deal. He was added back to the roster last week but designated for assignment one day later, which led to another trip to free agency and this new minor league deal.

Around all of those transactions, Keller has managed to throw 41 1/3 innings over 16 appearances on the year, allowing 5.44 earned runs per nine. His 16.7% strikeout rate is below average but he has limited walks to a 7.8% clip while getting grounders on 50% of balls in play. He’s also logged 51 Triple-A innings on the year with a 4.06 ERA and similar peripherals.

Keller was once a strong rotation member with the Royals but his recent years have been fairly similar to his 2024 campaign. By the end of 2020, he had a 3.50 ERA in 360 1/3 innings but he has a 5.18 ERA in 360 frames from 2021 to the present.

The Red Sox recently lost James Paxton to the injured list for the rest of the year, putting him on the list of guys who won’t return to the club this season, next to Lucas Giolito, Garrett Whitlock and others. They currently have a rotation of Tanner Houck, Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and Cooper Criswell. There are some workload concerns in there, as Houck, Crawford and Criswell have already set personal highs in terms of innings pitched in a season. Quinn Priester is another option on the 40-man roster but he has an 8.10 ERA in five Triple-A starts since being acquired from the Pirates.

If they need a spot start at some point this month or someone in that group needs to go on the injured list, Keller should be good to go since he pitched five innings yesterday. The Sox also have Josh Winckowski and Rich Hill on the roster but Hill hasn’t gone more than an inning and a third with the club so far. Winckowski has had plenty of multi-inning outings but hasn’t gotten into a game since August 23, so it might be hard for him to suddenly throw five or six innings on demand.

Brad Keller Elects Free Agency

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Righty Brad Keller elected free agency after being waived by the Red Sox, tweets Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Boston designated Keller for assignment on Tuesday when they called up Rich Hill.

It’s a repeat of the process that played out two weeks ago. Keller elected free agency on August 13 rather than accept an optional assignment to Triple-A, the right of any player with at least five years of service time. He very quickly re-signed with Boston on a minor league contract and was called back up on Monday. Keller logged four innings of relief that night, allowing five runs on seven hits and a pair of walks. Boston swapped him out for Hill the next day.

The 29-year-old Keller has split this season between the White Sox and Red Sox. He has absorbed 41 1/3 innings over 16 appearances, generally working in low-leverage relief. Opponents have tagged him for a 5.44 ERA behind nearly two home runs per nine innings. Keller’s 16.7% strikeout rate is well below average. He’s getting grounders at a strong 50% clip, but opponents have done a lot of damage when they’ve gotten the ball elevated.

Keller has never had a strong strikeout and walk profile. His calling card has been his ability to keep the ball on the ground. That translated into serviceable back-of-the-rotation numbers for the Royals, for whom he posted a 4.27 ERA over six seasons. Keller’s final season in K.C. was a disaster, as he walked a staggering 21.3% of batters faced. The Royals eventually announced that he’d been diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome.

The Sox could again try to bring Keller back on a non-roster deal. He’s had some success this year in Triple-A, combining for a 3.52 ERA over 46 innings between Chicago’s and Boston’s affiliates. Keller has started nine of 12 appearances in the minors and can serve as rotation or long relief depth wherever he lands.

Red Sox Designate Brad Keller; Place Lucas Sims, Luis García On Injured List

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4:50pm: The Sox have also placed right-hander Luis García on the injured list, with righty Josh Winckowski recalled in a corresponding move. Chris Cotillo of MassLive was among those to relay that swap on X.

3:42pm: The Red Sox have designated right-hander Brad Keller for assignment and placed righty Lucas Sims on the 15-day injured list due to a right lat strain, per a team announcement. Keller’s DFA paves the way for lefty Rich Hill to be selected from Triple-A Worcester — a move that was originally reported earlier this morning. Right-hander Greg Weissert is up from Worcester to take Sims’ spot in the bullpen.

Keller, 29, has been up and down with the Red Sox several times this season. The longtime Royals hurler originally inked a minor league deal with the White Sox over the winter but latched on with Boston after being quickly cut loose in Chicago. Keller was summoned to the majors for a third stint with the Red Sox earlier this week and allowed three runs in four innings of long relief during yesterday’s doubleheader. He’s posted a 5.84 ERA with the Red Sox and an overall 5.44 mark in 41 1/3 innings between Chicago and Boston this year.

It’s been a rough decline for Keller, who from 2018-20 was a regular in the Kansas City rotation. He pitched 360 1/3 innings of 3.50 ERA ball for the Royals and looked to be settling in as a solid mid-rotation arm. His production dwindled in 2021-22, however, and in 2023 he walked 45 batters in 45 1/3 innings of work. That alarming deterioration of his command led to an IL trip, and imaging/testing eventually revealed symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome. Keller underwent surgery last summer, and while he’s pitched well in Triple-A recently, he’s yet to rediscover his form at the big league level.

The Red Sox will place Keller on release waivers or outright waivers shortly. He’s already cleared a couple of times this season and figures to do so again. Once he clears, he can become a free agent and sign with any team, although last time he was in that spot, he simply re-signed with the Red Sox on a new minor league pact. A similar series of events this time around would come as little surprise.

Sims, 30, was a trade deadline pickup for the Sox but has been torched for nine runs in 10 innings since coming over from the Reds. That’s a far cry from the 3.57 mark he notched in 35 1/3 innings prior to the swap, which sent minor leaguer Ovis Portes to Cincinnati. Whether his rocky performance was due to injury or a change in pitch selection — Boston significantly scaled back the usage of his four-seamer in favor of a cutter — isn’t clear. Most lat strains require an absence of some note, however, and if Sims is out for any substantial period of time, that could spell the end of his time in Boston entirely. He’s slated to become a free agent at season’s end.

Red Sox Designate Joely Rodriguez For Assignment

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The Red Sox announced Monday that they’ve designated left-handed reliever Joely Rodriguez for assignment and selected the contract of righty Brad Keller from Triple-A Worcester in his place.

Rodriguez was selected to the 40-man roster himself on Friday, and the Sox used him heavily over the weekend. The 32-year-old southpaw pitched in three straight games from Friday through Sunday, logging 2 2/3 innings and allowing a run on four hits and no walks with one strikeout. Rodriguez was surely unavailable today for what’s effectively a doubleheader — the Sox will finish their suspended game against the Blue Jays and then play a second game versus the Jays this evening — and will be jettisoned from the roster for a fresh arm in Keller.

This weekend’s stretch of three solid appearances from Rodriguez helped to pare down a rough earned run average that now sits at a still-unsightly 5.93 on the season — albeit in just 13 2/3 innings. Rodriguez’s under-the-hood numbers are far, far better. He’s fanned a below-average 18.8% of his opponents but also sports a pristine 3.1% walk rate and a massive 59.2% ground-ball rate in this season’s 14 appearances. Metrics like xFIP (3.07) and SIERA (2.87) are much more bullish on his performance than his ERA.

That’s nothing new for Rodriguez, who sports a roughly average 22.5% strikeout rate in his career, a higher-than-average 10% walk rate and a terrific 56% ground-ball rate. In 170 2/3 innings, he’s posted a 4.80 ERA, but his respectable ability to miss bats and huge ground-ball tendencies have long led ERA alternatives to forecast better bottom-line results. Rodriguez has at times had success in the majors, but his whiffs and grounders have been undercut by persistent struggles with men on base; his career 64% strand rate is about eight percentage points worse than average.

Now that Rodriguez has been designated for assignment, he’ll be placed on waivers and made available to the other 29 clubs. A new team would owe him a prorated $2MM base salary for any time spent on the big league roster or injured list (about $344K for the remainder of the season). If he goes unclaimed, he can reject his outright assignment, become a free agent, and hope to latch on with a new club as a depth option prior to the Aug. 31 postseason eligibility deadline.

Today’s move is a swap of one veteran for another. Keller will rejoin the team after being previously designated for assignment himself, electing free agency, and returning on a minor league deal. He’s appeared in 15 games for Boston this season and pitched 37 2/3 innings of 5.30 ERA ball with a 17.8% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 49.3% ground-ball rate. He’s been working primarily as a starter in Worcester and is stretched out for long relief if needed. In 30 innings with the WooSox this season, Keller has a 3.00 ERA.

Keller is in his first season with the Red Sox organization but spent six years as a fixture on the Royals’ pitching staff. From 2018-20, he was a regular in the rotation and a steady source of quality innings. His results dipped in 2021, and by 2023 his command had deteriorated to the point where he walked a stunning 45 batters in 45 1/3 innings. Keller eventually hit the injured list and was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, which required season-ending surgery. He’s yet to rediscover his 2018-20 form (360 1/3 innings, 3.50 ERA, 16.8% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate, 52.1% grounder rate), but he’s still relatively young at 29 and has been outstanding in the minors recently. Over his past 22 innings in Triple-A, Keller sports a 0.82 ERA and 15-to-1 K/BB ratio.

Red Sox Re-Sign Brad Keller To Minor League Deal

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The Red Sox have re-signed right-hander Brad Keller to a minor league deal, per Chris Hatfield of SoxProspects.com on X. The veteran elected free agency earlier today but has quickly returned to Boston on a non-roster pact.

Keller, 29, is a veteran with more than five years of service time. That gives him the right to reject optional assignments to the minor leagues. Earlier in the year, he did consent to be optioned by Boston, getting recalled a few days ago. The Sox optioned him a second time but he decided to exercise his right to explore the open market. It seems he didn’t find much to his liking and quickly reunited with the Sox on this minor league deal.

The righty had a nice run with the Royals earlier in his career but he has hit a few bumps in more recent seasons. In the 2018-2020 seasons, Keller logged 360 1/3 innings with Kansas City, allowing 3.50 earned runs per nine in that stretch. His 16.8% strikeout rate was below par but his 9.1% walk rate was around average and his 52.1% ground ball rate was quite strong.

But his ERA crept north of 5.00 in both 2021 and 2022. Last year, he was only able to make 11 appearances before requiring surgery to address thoracic outlet syndrome. This year, he has split his time between the White Sox and the Red Sox, tossing 37 1/3 innings with a 5.30 ERA, 17.8% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 49.6% ground ball rate.

The Sox bolstered their rotation prior to the deadline by acquiring James Paxton from the Dodgers but he recently suffered a torn calf after just three appearances with Boston. Cooper Criswell is currently on the injured list with COVID but the club is planning on slotting him into the rotation when he’s healthy. Whenever that happens, he’ll join Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta and Kutter Crawford.

The club has Quinn Priester on the 40-man roster as depth but he has allowed 11 earned runs in 6 1/3 Triple-A innings since being acquired from the Pirates. Wikelman Gonzalez is also on the 40-man but he has a 5.93 ERA at Double-A this year and would have to skip Triple-A completely to help the big league club at this point. The club has Naoyuki Uwasawa and Jason Alexander on hand as non-roster depth but Keller has far more major league experience than those two and could be ahead of them in line to get the call whenever a fresh arm is needed next.

Brad Keller Elects Free Agency

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Red Sox right-hander Brad Keller has elected to become a free agent, reports Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. As a player with five-plus years of big league service, Keller must consent to being optioned to the minors. He agreed to be optioned once earlier this season, but when the Red Sox sought to option him earlier this week, he instead exercised his right to become a free agent and seek a new opportunity.

Keller, 29, was a fixture in the Royals’ rotation from 2018-23. One of the more successful Rule 5 picks in recent memory — Kansas City plucked him out of the D-backs’ organization in the 2017 Rule 5 Draft — he enjoyed three sharp seasons as a starter for the Royals before struggling repeatedly from 2021-23, often due to injuries. After logging a 3.50 ERA in 360 1/3 innings for K.C. from 2018-20, Keller was roughed up for a 5.14 mark in the three subsequent seasons. Things went way off the rails in 2023, when he walked 45 hitters in 45 1/3 innings before going on the injured list and eventually undergoing thoracic outlet surgery.

The White Sox signed Keller to a minor league deal over the winter, and he had a brief run with Chicago before being designated for assignment and electing free agency. The Red Sox scooped him up in late May. After a tough debut in Baltimore, he settled in to pitch well over a string of eight long-relief appearances, but Boston sent him to the minors in late June (a move he approved at the time). He was recalled on Friday, surrendered three runs in four innings against the Astros on Saturday, and was optioned back to Triple-A Worcester on Monday — this time exercising his right to become a free agent.

Overall, Keller has pitched 37 1/3 innings between the ChiSox and BoSox this season. He’s logged a discouraging 5.30 ERA in that time, but his season isn’t without its silver linings. First and foremost, the disastrous command issues he displayed last season have come back down to Earth. In fact, Keller has not only put last year’s ghastly 21.3% walk rate behind him — he’s sporting a career-low 7.7% walk rate in his 37 1/3 frames. His 17.8% strikeout rate is below the league average but is right in line with the 17.4% mark he posted prior to his TOS-ruined 2023 season. Keller has seen the velocity on his four-seamer and sinker tick up slightly (though he’s also primarily been working in relief, so that’s not necessarily due to better health), and this year’s 9.1% swinging-strike rate is the second-best mark of his career (but still worse than league-average).

Down in Triple-A, things have gone better. He’s pitched a nearly identical slate of 38 innings there and has similar walk and strikeout rates to the ones he’s posted in the majors. However, he’s sporting a 4.26 ERA that’s more than a full run lower than his MLB ERA, due largely to the fact that he’s been able to avoid the long ball in a way he hasn’t at the MLB level (0.24 HR/9 in Triple-A, 1.93 HR/9 in MLB). In all likelihood, his home run rate in the majors is due for some positive regression, while his home run rate in the minors is likely due to swing the other direction.

For a team needing some late-season rotation depth or length in the bullpen, the veteran Keller could be a worthy flier. The Twins, Astros, Guardians, Mets, Braves and Padres are among the postseason hopefuls who have incurred injuries or are experiencing notable workload concerns among their current crop of starting pitchers.

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