Pittsburgh Pirates: Mitch Keller, SP
The days of Andrew McCutchen in Pittsburgh are long gone now, as the Pirates now look to rebuild on the backs of other young players such as Mitch Keller. He only has 10 AAA starts under his belt, but he’s certain to get plenty of MLB time to show off his skills once he is ready. Currently, the Pirates rotation has Joe Musgrove and Nick Kingham on the back end and Pittsburgh is likely to be willing to give one of their spots to Keller is one isn’t performing well.
Keller’s run prevention at every minor league level explains why he has been ranked so highly as a prospect pretty well. Outside of a 16 inning stint in Rookie Ball and prior to AAA, Keller never had an ERA of 4.00 or more. Even with a 4.82 ERA in 52.1 AAA innings, his xFIP was 3.95 and his DRA was 3.71. In his final 5 starts of 2018, he improved even more with an ERA all the way down to 2.20 and a FIP of 2.84.
There’s a good belief that these performances will be able to translate once the 22-year-old makes it to the show. His mid-to-high 90s fastball with sink is a big reason MLB.com ranked him as the 19th best prospect in baseball. His curveball is also considered a plus pitch, and he has been able to command his pitches very well. If he keeps those three aspects and is able to develop a changeup that has been the missing link for a while, Pirates fans should be very excited. He spent most of last season focusing on improving it.
St. Louis Cardinals: Alex Reyes, SP
Yet another player on this list with an injury that kept them out for the majority of 2018. Reyes likely would have already graduated from prospect status if it wasn’t for tearing his lat tendon. The Cardinals’ GM has said that he would like the hard-throwing right-hander to continue pitching as a starter, although the Cardinals have a much bigger weakness in their bullpen than their rotation so I could see him switching over at some point this season.
Reyes made his MLB debut way back in 2016 when he pitched 46 innings before getting Tommy John surgery in 2017. He wasn’t able to come back fully outside of 1 start in 2018 before another setback. Despite the fact that he hasn’t had consistent playing time, Reyes has been nothing short of impressive. As a starter in his MLB stint, Reyes had a 1.93 ERA with a 4.60 xFIP, while as a reliever he had a 0.52 ERA with a 3.47 xFIP. Currently, Steamer projects him to be worth 1.4 fWAR over 18 starts. It’s hard to use his stats from 2016 to project where he’ll be after 2 major surgeries because he may experience some velocity trouble, but if he recovers it’s clearly very promising.
Reyes was ranked #1 by both Fangraphs and Prospects Live among all Cardinals even with the injury concerns, just because his stuff was that promising before. Reyes is athletic, has 4 above average to plus pitches, throws a fastball in the high-90s, and that all points to somebody with the potential of a future ace. Of course, the injury concerns make it possible that he moves to a smaller role in the future, but even with that risk, the upside is noteworthy.
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