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Mitch Keller Received a Rare Promotion Because He’s a Rare Pitching Prospect

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BRADENTON, Fla. – In Mitch Keller’s final four starts in West Virginia, the right-hander combined for 23 shutout innings, with a 28:4 K/BB ratio. He didn’t miss a beat in his High-A debut this week in Bradenton, throwing six shutout innings with one walk and seven strikeouts.

Keller found out he was getting promoted right after West Virginia’s walk off win on Saturday night. He left to fly down to Bradenton the next morning, so that he could be in town to make his debut on Tuesday. In the process, he left his car in Charleston, which means his parents at some point will be going to pick it up and take it back to Iowa for him in the off-season. These tend to be the only types of problems you have when you dominate a level the way Keller has this year, and earn that late season promotion.

The promotion for Keller is extremely rare. As in, the Pirates haven’t made a promotion like this with any of their prep pitchers ever. They usually send prep pitchers to West Virginia for a full season, either in their first or second full seasons. Those pitchers always stayed at West Virginia the entire year, whether it was elite pitching prospects like Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow, or lower ranked guys like Nick Kingham and Clay Holmes.

Keller is the first pitcher the Pirates have drafted out of high school who has moved up to Bradenton from West Virginia during the season.

“They felt like I was ready to come up here and have my last two starts here,” Keller said of the feedback he got on the move. “The one thing they told me is I was doing so well. I was making strides, doing everything they wanted me to do. Just thought I was ready for the next challenge.”

It makes sense that Keller is the exception. The pitchers listed above are all very talented, and all four could make the majors, and some already have made the majors. But when they were at West Virginia, they all had different levels of problems.

Taillon’s issues were that his fastball was flat and elevated up in the zone too often. The Pirates were working on his mechanics at the time, trying to make him less hittable. They were also more restrictive with the innings counts in 2011, limiting him to 92.2 innings that year, and about four innings per start. By comparison, Keller has already gone 130.1 innings, with the Pirates focusing more on pitch counts and stress pitches these days. Keller hasn’t seen many stressful situations this year.

Glasnow was completely dominant in West Virginia, but had some serious control problems. He struck out 164 in 111.1 innings at the level, while posting a 2.18 ERA. However, he also walked 61 batters that season, starting an early trend where the ERA and strikeouts were excellent, but the walks were too high. Unfortunately, that hasn’t gone away, but at the time there was no need to rush him in hopes that he could figure it all out.

Kingham and Holmes are two examples of guys who did figure it all out at the level. Kingham posted a 6.06 ERA in 78.2 innings, with a 73:27 K/BB ratio to start the year in West Virginia, but things really started to click for him down the stretch, with a 1.68 ERA and a 44:9 K/BB ratio in his final 48.1 innings. The biggest improvement came on the control side of things, and that carried over to the upper levels for Kingham, until his control slipped before Tommy John surgery, which may have been early signs of the injury.

Holmes had a similar situation. He had a 5.08 ERA and a 44:47 K/BB ratio in his first 67.1 innings. He turned things around from there, posting a 2.79 ERA in 51.2 innings, with a 46:22 K/BB ratio. The walks were a bit high, but much improved over the first half. Holmes and Kingham both had things to work on throughout the year, and while they both improved by the end of the year, they weren’t ready for a promotion.

Keller has been a much different story. He started off absolutely dominating the level, with a 1.89 ERA in 57 innings over his first two months, with a 64:5 K/BB ratio. It was the dominance of Glasnow, without the control problems. He did run into some problems the next two months, struggling with a 4.47 ERA in 44.1 innings, along with a 39:9 K/BB ratio. He was missing with the fastball and elevating the pitch, leading to some hard hits. It was the same problem as Taillon, except this was more of a hiccup in the season than something that needed overhauled.

Keller did turn that around, posting those amazing numbers over his final starts before the promotion. There were also reasons why Keller was the exception, beyond the numbers. He didn’t have the control problems that Glasnow, Kingham, and Holmes had. He didn’t have the mechanical issues that Taillon had. This combination allowed him to work on the changeup a lot more often, while Taillon and Glasnow didn’t really start working on that pitch until Bradenton, due to their other issues.

The changeup isn’t a great pitch for Keller right now, and definitely behind the fastball and curveball, but he’s comfortable using it, which is a big step.

“I felt really good with it,” Keller said after his start in Bradenton. “I made some really good pitches with it there. I think the sixth inning I got two back-to-back changeups, got it over. It was a good pitch for me.”

You could really tell that Keller was ready by seeing his approach in his final starts with West Virginia. He would throw fastballs and challenge the opposing hitters to force him to throw something else. They never responded to that challenge, and it would get to the point where he was throwing all fastballs for the first 3-4 innings. There was one start where his first 48 pitches were fastballs, until throwing a curveball at the end of the fourth inning. He had to actually force himself to throw the off-speed stuff, not because he needed it for outs, but because he needed to continue developing the pitches.

After a year of dominating the level, showing that he was more advanced than Taillon and Glasnow at the same stage, and having very few problems, it got to a point where Keller just wasn’t even getting challenged in West Virginia. It was like playing a video game on rookie mode.

“That really got me ready for here, I think,” Keller said of the fastball-first approach. “Just trying to take what I was doing down there and just keep it going forward.”

The scary thing — for opposing hitters at least — is that Keller’s six shutout innings in his Bradenton debut represented a more difficult situation for him. He went with the fastball-first approach, but had to abandon that earlier, since the advanced hitters were sitting on his fastball. That led to a few harder hit balls that he got away with. Then he quickly switched to the off-speed stuff, and went back to dominating opposing hitters.

There will be some things for Keller to work on as he continues to move up. The progression of the changeup and learning when to throw his pitches against more advanced hitters will be the biggest factors. But what he’s shown so far this year has been exciting for his future. He’s got a fastball that is sitting 94-97, touching as high as 99, a curveball that flashes plus when it’s on, and confidence in his changeup, with the understanding on why he needs to continue throwing and developing the pitch for the long-term. That’s a perfect recipe for a future top of the rotation arm, which is the path Keller is heading towards after this season.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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