OnlyBucs

I know it's spring training but geez....

I agree it is only ST, but as their #1 prospect one would hope that he would be successful when he gets the chance to pitch. Hopefully he gets a couple more starts that would give him confidence before he begins his AAA season.

Just reading in Pirates prospects that he mostly  working on throwing his curve for strikes. Also wind blowing out hard caused some damage on routine fly balls. So maybe I shouldn't have panicked...

For ST in Bradenton I'm trying to train myself to keep an eye on walks, Ks but ignore home runs (for both offense and defense).

Another tough outing for Keller today. Two innings, 4 runs and 4 hits. It is only ST, but I hope he is not hiding some injury. For a top pitching prospect, his stats don’t appear to be for a high end pitching prospect.

2D21207B727B737E79667C4B0 wrote: Another tough outing for Keller today. Two innings, 4 runs and 4 hits. It is only ST, but I hope he is not hiding some injury. For a top pitching prospect, his stats don’t appear to be for a high end pitching prospect.
Yeah. Brubaker is looking much better in Grapefruit play. Worrisome. Do I hope it’s due to injury with Keller? And it isn’t that the scouts have been wrong?

Both Brubaker and Keller sent to AAA today. Too bad Keller did not have a better ST.

These ST stats are not very useful. The pitchers get little work (no one yet has complied more than 9 total innings) and they often spend time in these games working on new pitches or new deliveries or trying different things. In 2016 Juan Nicasio was the ST surprise with an ERA of 0.00 in 15 IP. That put him in the rotation over big off season acquisition Ryan Vogelsong. Nicasio was removed from the rotation after 12 starts with an ERA of 5.83. So even good ST stats can be misleading. Williams got rocked yesterday but I don't think that negates his 2018 season. Keller isn't ready but we'll see how he looks after a half season's worth of starts in AAA. That will tell us more than a handful of ST innings.

Who knows what sort of off season workout schedule Keller was on. He's young and likely doesn't have a good idea of what he needs to do to be physically and mentally ready. Then he gets thrown into the MLB spring training rotation. He's pitching against the best hitters he's ever faced, likely not really ready physically. And it isn't like he's pitching late in the game against minor leaguers. He has been pitching against the top hitters.



Nothing to worry about.

130E2A2826430 wrote: Who knows what sort of off season workout schedule Keller was on. He's young and likely doesn't have a good idea of what he needs to do to be physically and mentally ready.  Then he gets thrown into the MLB spring training rotation.  He's pitching against the best hitters he's ever faced, likely not really ready physically.  And it isn't like he's pitching late in the game against minor leaguers.  He has been pitching against the top hitters.



Nothing to worry about.
I agree it is nothing to worry about, but it would have been good for him, if he had at least one successful outing this spring. It would give him a little confidence going into this AAA season.