For the Pirates, the winter picture is starting to come into focus in a few different ways: Mitch Keller’s recovery, Esmerlyn Valdez’s health, and a new voice joining the pitching mix in the upper minors.
Keller’s season effectively ended the day before the trade deadline, when Pittsburgh put him on the 60-day injured list with a teres major strain in his right shoulder. At the time, the club didn’t spell out many details.
Now, Aiden Stepansky of MLB.com reports Keller is believed to have suffered a Grade 3 strain, meaning the muscle detached from the bone. That sounds brutal, and in a twist that probably counts as good news, he apparently won’t need surgery.
The recommended path was a long shutdown and rehab, with Keller expected to start throwing again late this month and to have a normal offseason.
The injury may have been nagging him for a while rather than happening on one isolated pitch. Keller told Stepansky he couldn’t identify the exact moment it occurred, which fits the season he put together.
The right-hander finished with a 5.29 ERA in 22 starts, a 17.7% strikeout rate that was a career low, and an 8.3% walk rate that, while still respectable, was his highest since 2022. He had been under 7% in each season from 2023-25.
His average fastball sat at 93.3 mph, also a career-low figure, and he touched a season-low 91.9 mph in his final outing before going on the injured list.
Pittsburgh is still carrying Keller on the books for another two years and $38MM. If he comes back cleanly, he should rejoin a rotation that already features Paul Skenes, Braxton Ashcraft, Jared Jones and Bubba Chandler.
At 30, he’s the elder statesman of that group. Keller’s name has come up in trade talk before, but with that contract, the ugly 2026 numbers and the season-ending injury, the market for him this winter figures to be thin.
The flip side is that if he gets back to the pitcher he was, that remaining $38MM shouldn’t be a burden even for a smaller-payroll club. From 2022-25, Keller logged 707 2/3 innings with a 4.15 ERA and strong rate stats, averaging 177 innings and 31 starts a year.
Valdez also ended the year on the injured list, but his situation sounds far less alarming. The 22-year-old outfielder, who turns 23 in January, told Jason Mackey of MLB.com that the hamstring strain is no longer an issue and he doesn’t expect it to linger into next season.
“I’ve been running, hitting normally and catching the ball in the outfield. Everything has been good,” Valdez tells Mackey.
He’s planning to head to the Dominican Republic and play winter ball with los Leones del Escogido. He didn’t play winter ball last year, though he did spend the 2023-24 offseason with the Colombian Winter League. This trip should give him another chance to test the hamstring and bank more reps as he tries to lock down a long-term role in Pittsburgh’s outfield.
His first major league season gave the Pirates plenty to like. Valdez hit 17 homers in just 287 plate appearances and finished at .232/.345/.510 overall, production that checked in 30% better than league average by wRC+.
Add in the 13 home runs he hit in 237 Triple-A plate appearances and he finished the year with 30 long balls in 128 games and 524 plate appearances. The power came with loud contact, too: he averaged 91.9 mph off the bat in the majors and posted a 49.3% hard-hit rate.
The downside is just as obvious. Valdez struck out in 37.5% of his plate appearances, a number that’s going to have to come down.
His .232 average was helped by a .328 BABIP and a 26.6% homer-to-flyball rate. The issue isn’t that he’s selling out for power on pitches off the plate, either.
The problem is contact, even in the zone. Statcast shows he made contact on only 71.3% of the pitches he swung at inside the strike zone, the second-worst mark among the 361 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances this season.
His 14.6% walk rate kept his on-base percentage in decent shape, but if he’s going to cement himself as an everyday corner outfielder in the middle of the Pirates’ lineup, that contact rate has to improve. For now, he’s the favorite to handle right field alongside Oneil Cruz in center and Bryan Reynolds in left, though Pittsburgh could still add help there.
There’s also movement in the organization’s pitching ranks. Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports the Pirates have hired Sean Buchanan away from the Astros. Buchanan had been Houston’s pitching coach at Triple-A, and he’s expected to work in the upper levels of Pittsburgh’s system, though his exact title hasn’t been set yet.
Buchanan’s résumé includes a role in Peter Lambert’s turnaround with Houston this year, according to Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Lambert had a 6.28 ERA through 74 major league games before signing a minor league deal with the Astros.
He spent 2025 in Japan with the Yakult Swallows, where he posted a 4.26 ERA as a starter. Back in the majors this season, he became a stabilizing force for an injury-hit Houston rotation, throwing 155 2/3 innings with a 3.82 ERA, a 23.2% strikeout rate and an 8.9% walk rate.
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