Position: RHP
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 220 lbs
Bats/Throws: R/R
Born: 04/04/1996
High School: Xavier HS (Cedar Rapids, IA)
How Acquired: Drafted 2nd round, 64th Overall, 2014
Bonus: $1,000,000
40-man Roster: Yes
Rule 5 Eligible: N/A
Minor League Free Agency: N/A
Options Left: 1
Overview
Keller moved up rapidly in the draft rankings in his last year of high school on the strength of a good curve and a fastball that started reaching 95 mph. He was committed to North Carolina, but signed for a $1M bonus, which was $113,200 above the slot amount. Once in the Pirates’ system, Keller developed into a top pitching prospect, with his fastball averaging 95-96 and topping out about 98, and his curve being viewed as a plus pitch.
Getting acclimated to the majors proved to be much more of a struggle for Keller, partly due to his fastball being hittable and partly due to his change not being effective, which led to trouble with left-handed hitters. His pitch selection has gone through a number of changes as he’s searched for the right mix. He’s compensated for the change, which he throws only rarely now, with a slider and, starting in 2023, a cutter. His fastball velocity has varied a lot, too, sometimes sitting in the upper-90s, sometimes much lower, but generally since 2022 it’s averaged about 95.
2014-17
Keller had a good debut in the GCL, then in 2015 went to Bristol in the now-defunct Appalachian League. Mild forearm tightness limited him to six starts there and he pitched badly. In 2015, though, he had a breakout season in low A and was named the South Atlantic League’s best pitcher. He showed excellent fastball command and got his innings total up to 130. He continued in 2017, spending about two-thirds of his time in high A and the rest in AA, not counting a month missed with back trouble. Keller finished his season with two outstanding post-season starts against good teams. The first one was a nine-inning, complete game one-hitter. The other clinched the Eastern League title for Altoona.
2018-21
Keller returned to Altoona and pitched very well without quite dominating. He moved up to Indianapolis after 14 starts and ran into real problems. In his first two AAA starts he gave up 13 runs and 16 hits, along with six walks in 8.2 IP. He partly recovered and pitched better the rest of the season, but was prone to games in which he’d dominate for several innings and then have a bad inning. He did post a 9.8 K/9.
Keller opened the 2019 season in AAA and pitched decently, with some control problems, through late May. Due to injuries, the Pirates called him up to make one start near the end of the month and he gave up six runs in the first inning before recovering to throw three scoreless innings. He returned in mid-June for two starts, then in mid-August for eight more, pitching well more often than not. For the season Keller pitched better in AAA than the stats make it appear, due to the offensive explosion with a livelier ball. He was close to the league lead in both ERA and, despite spending so much time in the majors, strikeouts. At both levels he had high K rates, probably due in part to his addition of a slider, which at the major league level got a lot of swings and misses. Keller’s performance in the majors probably wasn’t as alarming as the 7.13 ERA made it look. He was plagued by a stratospheric batting average on balls in play of .475 and a low strand rate of 59.6%. As a result, his xFIP surprisingly was 3.4.
The pandemic season was largely a loss for Keller, as an oblique injury limited him to five starts. He put up some peculiar numbers: 2.91 ERA, with just nine hits allowed but 18 walks in 21.2 IP. In 2021, the frustrations continued, as Keller just got hit extremely hard and also didn’t show good control. His average exit velocity and hard hit percentage were among the highest in MLB, leading to a 322/400/477 opponents’ batting line. It didn’t help that his fastball velocity was down sharply at times. When he failed to last three innings in his first two June starts, the Pirates finally sent him to Indianapolis. He stayed there through late July and didn’t really pitch much better. The Pirates brought Keller back up at the beginning of August. He had several good starts through the end of the season, but more bad or shaky ones.
2022-23
Keller’s season started off looking like more of the same, but ended very differently. He created some excitement in spring training by showing upper-90s velocity, but through seven starts his ERA was 6.61. Around that point, Keller started going more heavily with a sinker. From the beginning of June until season’s end, in 21 starts he had an ERA of 3.20 and a WHIP of 1.34. On the season he sharply cut his walk rate. He had only a mild platoon split and his change, which he still threw only sparingly, got much better results than the previous year. One possible advantage from the sinker was that Keller got double play grounders in 14% of the opportunities he had, well above the league average of 10%.
In 2023, Keller had very different first and second halves, but he clearly established himself as the team’s ace. He made 32 starts, and could have made 33 but the Pirates decided to shut him down on the season’s last day. He won 13 games, threw 194.1 IP (8th in MLB), and set the team’s all-time record for strikeouts by a RHP with 210 (10th in MLB). In the first half, he went 9-4, 3.31, and made the All-Star team. That included a complete game shutout, followed by a 13-strikeout, seven-shutout-inning performance. In the second half, he went 4-5, 5.59. To some extent, his ERA got inflated by Derek Shelton’s habit of leaving starters in too long; Keller had four games in which he allowed seven or eight earned runs. For the year, he had a 4.21 ERA and 3.70 xFIP.
2024
During spring training 2024, the Pirates signed Keller to a five-year, $77M extension that runs through the 2028 season. He responded with a great first half, but his second half was a different story. In his first 19 starts, he went 10-5, 3.46. In his next 12, he was 1-7, 5.65. Most of Keller’s peripherals didn’t change much; his K rate even increased slightly. The biggest difference was gopher balls. He allowed slightly more than one every ten innings in the first half, then slightly more than one every six innings in the second half. On the season, Keller had a lot of his trouble with left-handed hitters. They slugged .492 against him, nearly 100 points higher than right-handed hitters, and hit more than twice as many home runs in only slightly more at-bats.
Stats
Transactions
June 5, 2014: Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 4th round, 64th overall pick; signed June 14.
November 20, 2018: Contract purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates.