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Charting Out When Mitch Keller May Arrive In 2019

Mitch Keller is the last remaining high-impact prospect on the farm for the Pirates.

Last week, I discussed how the Pirates’ 2019 pitching staff is pretty much in place. Some of the pieces may get shifted around, but Neal Huntington doesn’t necessarily need to go out and get a player to fill a void.

There’s a pitcher on the horizon, though, that could force his way into the Pirates’ rotation by mid-2019. Mitch Keller is the sole remaining high-impact prospect on the farm for the Pirates. The Pirates aren’t necessarily going to keep an open spot for him, as they appear to have designs on contending for the division in 2019, but if Keller shows well in AAA to start 2019, he would be the final piece of a potentially impressive quintet.

But when will the Pirates think about calling him up ? Barring a series of injuries to the Major League staff that may force their hand, there’s two main factors in play:

  • The Pirates are methodical in time spent at levels — Using Jameson Taillon as a recent example, he spent close to 100 innings at the AAA level between the 2013 and 2016 seasons. Most of that time spent at AAA in 2016 was to scrape considerable amounts of rust off from 2014-15’s layoff due to injuries. Taillon pitched 127 innings at AA in 2012-13 until he was acclimated at that level. Mitch Keller pitched 52 innings at AAA this year.
  • The Super Two deadline is in play — No Pirate fan wants to hear about the Super Two deadline. Fans don’t want to hear about how financial off-the-field considerations bleed into baseball on-the-field decisions. But it’s a real thing and it’s not going away until maybe the next CBA. The long and short of Super Two is that to avoid giving a player four cracks at arbitration (resulting in $10M+ extra dollars over the course of an average player’s trips), service time must typically be kept under 2 years 130 days by the end of a player third calendar season in the Majors. With a Major League season being 187 days long, you’re looking at roughly 57-60 days of time spent in the minors to be safe.

So if Keller needs, on the low end, 45 innings in the minors and he pitches six’ish innings per start, that’s 7 starts. On a five day rotation, plus an off day or so, that would be about 40 calendar days. With the minors starting a few days after the Majors, that would put Keller into mid-May.

Dealing with the Super Two angle, 60 days on the conservative side, a call-up would be right around the beginning of June. That will be the limiting factor in this discussion.

I hope that the Pirates tentative rotation of Taillon-Archer-Williams-Musgrove-Nova is healthy and collectively all putting up Cy Young-caliber seasons at the outset of 2019, but that’s not realistic. Nova may or may not even be here at the start of the season, as he could be traded in the offseason. But let’s assume he’s here and that Chad Kuhl is either in the bullpen or out with elbow issues.

Nova is the most likely candidate to be replaced by Keller. He’s in the last year of his deal and his upside is lower than the other four starters. If the Pirates can’t find a trade partner in the not-so-fertile trading time of early June, then Nova would be shunted off to the bullpen as the long man.

Keller’s workload would be monitored closely in 2019. To again use Taillon as an example, he pitched 104 innings over 18 starts in 2016. There’s a lot of 5 inning starts in there when your average is less than 6 innings/start. Keeping Nova around a spot starter to spell Keller is an expensive $9M proposition, but he’s reliable and in a bottom-line way, he’s disposable.

Mitch Keller has low-end #2/high-end #3 upside. Although not necessarily in 2019, he can potentially join up with Taillon and Archer as the front trio. Youth is the currency of winning in today’s MLB. You win with stars. Keller is the last remaining star-potential on the horizon for the Pirates. June 2019 will be here sooner than you think.

Nerd engineer by day, nerd writer at night. Kevin is the co-founder of The Point of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Creating Christ, a sci-fi novel available on Amazon.

4 Comments on Charting Out When Mitch Keller May Arrive In 2019

  1. For Keller to join Taillon and Archer in the front trio, first Archer has to pitch better than Musgrove and Williams. Plus, it’s scary to think Keller is the last potential star on the horizon. I’m hoping Hayes can turn into something, but seriously, the Bucs were crazy to trade for Archer. We need prospects. Like now.

    • Steve DiMiceli // September 14, 2018 at 7:17 AM //

      Hayes probably doesn’t have star upside, but he probably has really good upside. He had a very productive year at two years younger than the normal curve for his level this year and he added some gap power. That’s a positive sign that more will come.

      As for other impact players in the system, I like O’Neil Cruz even if he does not have a clear defensive home and Travis Swaggerty even if he didn’t have a great season. There are a few players I could put on that list if they play like they did in 2018 or improve, Calvin Mitchell being one of them.

      That said, weird things happen in player development. Top prospects fail frequently, but guys come out of the blue too. At the moment the Pirates only have one high end prospect knocking on the door, but there is some intrgue in the system, IMO.

  2. Keith E Hadley // September 14, 2018 at 7:13 AM //

    What about Kingham? Bullpen?

  3. robert reznik // September 22, 2018 at 4:30 PM //

    Disagre on Hayes I think he has more star potential than any of the prates prospects.
    He has everything going for him except power which on the best prospects tends to be the
    Last tool that develops and his iso is trending up nicely. Keller irked have star potential too but
    He is a pitcher and durability is always a concern. I love Cruz and Mitchel but they don ?t have the overall
    Game Hayes. The best thing I ?ve heard said about Mitchels defense and athleticism is that he can hit!

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