4A48525442270 wrote: I thought most of the rating services showed him as a top prospect. They wouldn't be influenced by the old regime. It could be everyone was fooled; it could be it takes time for a pitcher to develop, even at the ML level. Another reason to look to a position player in the draft.
There's no doubt that it takes time to develop pitchers at the MLB level. They generally don't reach their ceiling for 3-4 years after they get to the majors. And I can see how Keller impressed the rating services at the A and AA levels. But when he faced a higher caliber of hitters at AAA he struggled.
He was consistently effective at Altoona in the first half of 2018 before moving up to Indy. There he struggled in his first 5 games, then had 4 well pitched games before ending with a poor game. He started 2019 with Indy pitching very much like he has as a Pirate, as likely to pitch a bad game as a good one in any outing. Despite that, the Pirates called him up in August and that trend of inconsistency has remained ever since. What's particularly troubling is that when he's bad, he's very, very bad.
Consistently inconsistent
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