This Version of Brad Keller is a Must-Keep Pitcher, Even in a Crowded Cubs Picture

[Matthew Trueblood]

The burly veteran righthander came to camp on a minor-league deal, but he has looked like an unquestionably big-league arm in his first two Cactus League appearances.

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

If you were disposed to skepticism, you might not have bought into the velocity readings Brad Keller put up in his first appearance of spring training, last week against the Dodgers in Glendale, Ariz. He sat at 96 miles per hour and touched 98 in a five-out appearance, which represented a bump of more than 2 mph from his average in 2024. Even knowing that he'd spent a chunk of his offseason at training and development hub Maven Baseball Lab, that was such a surge that it seemed a bit incredible.

In his second outing, though, Keller did more or less the exact same thing, so now, we need to have a different conversation. He was perfect in two innings against the Padres, with one strikeout, but the most noteworthy thing was that his fastball stayed right at that same level. Two Statcast systems in a row can't be wrong. Keller is really, truly throwing harder five months shy of his 30th birthday than he ever has before:

I broke things down by month, just to be sure, but Keller's velocity so far in spring camp would be the highest of any period even that long in his career, let alone a season. Since he was clearly active this winter learning how to generate this velocity, it's a safe bet that:

1. He'll gain less velocity than other pitchers might in the time between late February and late March, let alone between February and June; and
2. He'll either run out of steam altogether long before October, or need to be shelved for a while on the injured list, in what the modern argot terms a "de-load" phase.

It's not yet popular to think that way, but we're right around the corner from it. The baseball season has stretched until it lasts from Valentine's Day to Halloween, and with the Cubs going to Tokyo to open the regular season in mid-March this year, they're getting an even earlier start than most. That means that all teams—and especially the Cubs—need to keep in mind the almost inevitable need for a shift change in their pitching staff sometime during the summer, even as they amass enough depth to be strong over the first two months of the season. Last year, they missed the playoffs largely because they got the former right, but had already fallen too far behind because of their failure to do the latter.

Keller has an opt-out at the end of spring training, a team source confirmed, so if he doesn't make the team, the Cubs will lose him to free agency. They shouldn't let that happen. As I wrote back in November when I tabbed Keller as a good target for the team on this kind of deal, Keller has the unique, cutterish fastball shape the Cubs prize; that's why Brooks Baseball now codes his heater as a cutter. At 93 or 94, that pitch works reasonably well, given good location. At 96, he's throwing something very much like Porter Hodge's fastball; it's an overpowering offering. 

Keller already had a solid slider, and it will only play up when it's humming in at 87-88 mph, as it has so far this spring. His sinker has generally been hit hard, but the extra couple of ticks help it, too. His profile levels up with this bump, in a way not every pitcher's can. Keller should be penciled in as the long man for the Cubs' bullpen to start the season.

Javier Assad is virtually sure to start the campaign on the injured list with an oblique strain, even though he seems to have come through it without much disruption. That's fine. Ben Brown, Cody Poteet, and other candidates for similar roles can all start the season at Triple-A Iowa without missing a beat. So far, Brown's velocity is down a tick from where he was last year, anyway. Again, that's only to be expected; he's coming back from an injury. Since not rostering Keller would mean losing him, though, and since there's so little to lose by managing and restricting usage for younger pitchers early on, it's a no-brainer.

The hard-throwing version of Keller still doesn't have a Hodge-like breaking pitch to set everything off, but he can throw strikes and limit opponents' quality of contact more than well enough to give the Cubs great work through the cold, pitcher-friendly early segment of the season at Wrigley Field. He's not destined to be part of this team if they make a run in the postseason, but (despite and because of that) he should be in their plans for Opening Day. It's the logical way to piece together a good pitching staff for the whole of an overlong season.

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