Pittsburgh Pirates Rumors: Team Shopping Keone Kela?

The Pittsburgh Pirates are currently in a tailspin, playing their worst baseball of the season.  With the trade deadline looming, they could look to deal a reliever.

This time last year, there was a lot of speculation that the Pittsburgh Pirates would try to acquire controllable reliever Keone Kela.  They ended up doing so on the day of trade deadline and put together a dynamic backend of the bullpen.

One year later, a lot has changed.  The Pittsburgh Pirates are having a tough season and have quickly turned into sellers with the deadline less than a week away.  This year it will be more about who the team will be selling, not buying.

One of the biggest issues from the outset for the Pittsburgh Pirates was Keone Kela.  He was supposed to be a lockdown eighth inning reliever, but instead he got hit around hard as he tried to pitch through an injury.  The Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen missed a healthy and effective Kela for a large portion of this season.

Now a year later, there are reports the Pittsburgh Pirates may look to trade the former Texas Ranger.  This is not really all that surprising; things have seemed weird since the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired him.  He took multiple days to report to the team after the trade and then was shut down in September.

This year Kela came into spring and still seemed to battle a lingering injury.  He tried to work through it, but he saw himself getting hit around pretty hard.  Also, the team wanted him to start throwing his changeup more, which he apparently was against.  Then upon his return to the team, it was announced that he was suspended for two games due to some sort of disagreement.  Well, yesterday Ken Rosenthal wrote that the Bucs could look to trade Kela.  Here is what Rosenthal wrote in his latest article on The Athletic:

"The Pirates also are more than willing to move reliever Keone Kela, who will return on Wednesday from a two-game suspension for unspecified violations of his contract. Prior to that, Kela had been on the injured list with right shoulder discomfort."

It has been a very rocky relationship with Kela and the Pittsburgh Pirates, and this likely could be why the team is looking to trade him.  If not that, then the team is just trying to trade a veteran reliever to get players/prospects that can maybe as soon as next year.