Rum Bunter’s 2020 Pittsburgh Pirates Staff Preview: Jack

Team Rookie of the Year – Mitch Keller

Mitch Keller was historically unlucky in 2019. In eleven starts, he was 1-5 with a 7.13 ERA and 1.833 WHIP. Not. Very. Good. However, his FIP was a very good 3.19 and his opponents’ BABIP was a staggering .475. He showed impressive strikeout ability, posting 65 in only 48 innings of work.

With all of those silver linings in mind, there are certainly aspects of Keller’s performance that need improvement. He was able to induce soft contact on only about 15% of batted balls. While his ground ball to fly ball ratio was a healthy 1.22, he allowed line drives at a pretty high clip of 28.7%.

Early career growing pains and bad luck aside, I believe Keller’s performance can also be attributed to misuse. While Keller has a solid, lively fastball, he threw it around 60% of the time. Unsurprisingly, his runs above average for that pitch was -10.4. He sports a filthy curveball and plus slider, backed by runs above average of 2.7 and 2.3, respectively. He threw the curve only 16.1% of the time and the slider at about 20%. He will benefit in 2020 from a better mix of pitches.