This is something I meant to get to earlier, but the rumors and news kinda stacked up there until well after midnight.
For weeks now, my message on Pirates starter Mitch Keller has been this: he’s a guy you’d be happy to have in the rotation, and maybe he even takes another step forward in a new organization. But the fact that he’s owed $55 million over the next three seasons means that acquiring him at the Trade Deadline is ALSO like signing him as a free agent, months in advance. You have to REALLY believe in him long-term at that price, AND you have to get a pretty good deal in trade for it to make any sense.
That’s why it was really hard for me to wrap my head around certain Owen-Caissie-plus-more rumors, and less hard for me to wrap my head around what has just come out: the Pirates are signaling that they don’t want to trade Keller anyway.
Ken Rosenthal reports that the Pirates likely aren’t going to trade Mitch Keller, in part because they worry about replacing his performance. Mmmm ok. More likely is the other reason Rosenthal suggests: the offers just haven’t been that great.
Consider recent comments from Pirates GM Ben Cherington on players like Keller (via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette): “Yeah, I think the leadership certainly and just the proven performance. If we’re going to be better in 2026, we need more of that, not less. We would only contemplate giving up something that’s seemingly more proven if we really believe that they give us a better chance to be better by next year.”
Translation: We haven’t gotten good offers for Keller, so we want to emphasize that it was always OK by us if we kept him.
Too many reports seemed to be pushed by Pirates sources, and simply ignored that Keller’s contract ain’t great. It’s not terrible, but it’s just not a big value add to the thing teams would actually want most: his performance THIS season over the final two months and the playoffs. Taking on the other three years might even be a straight-up negative for a number of clubs. Heck, that was why I suggested maybe the Cubs offer to take on Keller as part of the way they acquire David Bednar back when these rumors first popped up!
We’ll see if something surprising shakes loose before the deadline and maybe some team gets desperate and offers a face-saving package for Mitch Keller. I still say that team would have to be one that really believes in Keller longer-term anyway, rather than just wanting him because they’re competitive this year.
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