Mitch Keller has gone from a pitcher the Pirates could have moved for real value to one who now puts them in a far trickier spot.
That shift happened fast. At the 2025 trade deadline, Keller was one of the more attractive names on the market, carrying 3.5 years left on his deal and a 3.48 first-half ERA that made him look like a strong bet to draw interest.
Pittsburgh kept him, and for a while that looked like the right call. He opened 2026 in sharp form, posting a 3.18 ERA and 3.07 FIP through the end of April and looking very much like the dependable mid-rotation arm with frontline flashes the Pirates have come to know.
Then everything went sideways.
From May 1 on, Keller put up a 6.17 ERA, while his home runs and walks climbed to career-worst levels. At the same time, both his groundball rate and strikeout rate dropped hard. The season ended early when he landed on the injured list in early August with a right arm teres major muscle injury.
Now the Pirates are stuck with the aftermath. The chance to move their most experienced starter at peak value has passed, and the question is whether they’d be willing to move him now for much less.
The money makes this a messy call. Keller is owed more than $18 million in 2027 and more than $20 million in 2028 before the contract runs out.
A lot of clubs would happily pay that price for the 2022-25 version of Keller, the one who worked more than 150 innings every year and piled up 10 fWAR. Selling the last version he showed on the mound is a much tougher pitch.
Pittsburgh’s rotation picture also complicates things. The club already has Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, and Braxton Ashcraft in the fold, and top prospect Seth Hernandez only adds to the crowd. That gives the Pirates an obvious young core on the mound, but it also means there may not be much space for an expensive veteran coming off an injury-marred year.
At the same time, Keller still offers something that matters: stability. That sort of innings-eating reliability is hard to replace, even if the contract is heavy and even if the money could be used elsewhere. Moving him now would almost certainly feel like a salary dump, and that’s a tough outcome to swallow after the stretch of dependable performance he delivered over the past several seasons.
The simplest path may be the one Pittsburgh least wants to take: keep Keller and bet on a bounce-back. He should reach the offseason healthier than he was at any point during the year, and there’s a reasonable case for giving him one more shot. But that only works if ownership is willing to keep spending and support the roster without needing to clear money first.
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