BRADENTON, Fla. — The Pirates optioned top prospect Mitch Keller to Class AAA Indianapolis Saturday during their first round of spring training roster moves.
MLB.com ranked Keller, 22, as the No. 19 prospect in baseball. The right-hander will begin the season in Class AAA, where he finished in 2018, and has a chance to make his major league debut this summer.
“Continue to understand pitch sequencing, continue to understand tunneling, to continue to understand how to read swings,” general manager Neal Huntington said regarding what Keller needs to work on. “Be aggressive and attack. He’s a power pitcher, but how do we refine the changeup? How do we make the breaking ball such that he can continue to get hitters to chase it but he can land it for a strike behind in the count, and how does he use his fastball in different parts of the zone to be most effective.”
In four spring training innings, Keller allowed 10 hits and 10 runs with one strikeout — not good, but also not cause for alarm because of the volatility and lack of signal amongst the noise of spring training statistics.
“He’s not the first or the last guy to have some struggles in spring training, but what’s really encouraging is his attitude about it going out,” Huntington said. “It’s not what he wanted, it’s not what we expected, but he’s ready to tackle it head-on and go attack triple-A and earn his way to the big leagues.”
The Pirates drafted Keller in the second round in 2014 out of Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He began last season at Class AA Altoona and amassed a 2.72 ERA in 14 starts before his promotion, earning the chance to start the Futures Game. Upon joining Indianapolis, he allowed 13 runs in 82/3 innings in his first two starts but settled in, posting a 3.09 ERA with 44 strikeouts in 432/3 innings in his final eight.
“We know, he knows, that we never really saw the real Mitch Keller this spring, and he’s going to go work on some things and be Mitch Keller,” Huntington said.
The Pirates plan for Jordan Lyles to take the No. 5 spot in the rotation. Steven Brault, Nick Kingham and Rookie Davis are also candidates. Keller could be ready to join the mix this summer, possibly in late May or early June after enough time has elapsed to avoid his gaining a fourth year of arbitration via the Super Two provision.
Roster moves
The Pirates also optioned righties JT Brubaker and Luis Escobar to Class AAA Indianapolis. Brubaker allowed one run in six spring training innings and struck out five without walking a batter.
“JT’s been a guy for about four years now that we’ve liked much more than kind of the external noise is on him,” Huntington said. “It’s a power fastball, it’s a really good slider, it’s a good, smart man that, like Mitch, is learning how to use his stuff. It’s learning how to set up hitters, it’s learning how to attack swings. We like JT a lot and he did nothing but reinforce our belief in him this swing.”
Pitchers Dario Agrazal, Elvis Escobar, Eduardo Vera and Blake Weiman, and catcher Jason Delay, were reassigned to minor league camp.
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: March 9, 2019, 2:19 p.m.
Updated: March 9, 2019, 3:44 p.m.
