Royals’ Brad Keller emerging as key to future: ‘A legit No. 1 for us’
They filled the hallway outside of the Royals clubhouse, a dozen or so deep, many wearing Brad Keller jerseys to meet Brad Keller. They are a proud family, and would be without baseball, but sometimes it’s still hard to process this reality.
They watched him grown from boy to man, from prospect to big-leaguer, and holy cow he just became the youngest starter to win on opening day since Jose Fernandez in 2014.
He was dominant, too, surrendering just two hits and one walk across seven innings. Just five batters got to three-ball counts. None reached second base. The Royals won 5-3 on Thursday, a score made closer by a near meltdown from the bullpen. Afterward, Keller posed for dozens of pictures — horizontal, vertical, just to be sure — to capture the moment of his professional life so far.
All that and if they don’t like the pictures, they can always look up the highlights.
“He was outstanding,” Royals manager Ned Yost said, emphasizing the word to make the point. “I mean, just outstanding.”
Keller is a baseball oddity. Successful baseball rebuilds require both aptitude and luck, especially in small-money markets, and Keller’s ascension represents a jackpot in both.
The Royals were lucky the Diamondbacks made Keller available in the Rule 5 draft before last season, but also smart to recognize the talent. Four players went ahead of Keller in that draft. The Reds selected Keller fifth, and immediately flipped him to the Royals for cash. Luck and aptitude. Needed both.
Keller is now a central figure of the best version of the Royals’ future. He is 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds with a fastball that sits in the mid-90s. He came to the Royals as, basically, a turnkey relief ace, but the organization wants to see if he can be a middle- or even front-of-the-rotation starter.
Yost has said — most recently after Thursday’s game — that the club views Keller as “a legit No. 1 for us for years to come.” That is the most optimistic view, and would require continued improvement, but at the moment the Royals appear to have found a lottery ticket.
As club officials plan and implement the next rebuild, one area they have prioritized improvement is in developing starting pitchers. This is a significant part of why they chose college starters with each of their first five picks in last year’s draft. But at the moment, Keller appears the most likely man in the organization to start a theoretical future playoff game.
He throws primarily a fastball, sinker, and slider. MLB’s Pitch f/x data charted just one change-up on opening day, but Royals catcher Martin Maldonado remembered “three or four.” That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a pitch Keller continues to work on, and that would serve as an effective complement.
“The demeanor,” Maldonado said when asked what made Keller effective. “You see that guy on the mound and you know he’s all about business. Attacks the hitter, does his homework. His preparation is as good as you could get.”
Keller’s slider might be the key to it all. He struck out just 96 batters in 140 1/3 innings last year. But he prioritized the pitch in the offseason and especially in spring training. He threw it 21 times on Thursday, seven times getting swings and misses. Small sample size warnings should be blaring at deafening levels here, but that’s an encouraging bump from last year’s rates.
“I just didn’t really have much of a strikeout pitch,” Keller said of last season.
If that’s changed then the Royals really have something. Their plan with the first rebuild covered average starting pitching with lockdown relievers. The results were so overwhelming that most of the sport is now trying to do the same.
The Royals have some power arms in the minor leagues that might make for a good bullpen someday, but they know they need a rotation that doesn’t require a repeat of the HDH group.
One more thing. Relievers can sometimes get away with less. They typically throw fewer pitches, of course, but particularly when given clean innings their existence can require little adaptation.
That’s vastly different for starters. Thursday’s first pitch was delayed nearly two hours, with enough uncertainty that Keller began his routine twice before shutting it down. The disruption was minimal — the club’s goal was to always give him at least a half-hour heads up — but for such a young pitcher on opening day could have been negative.
He is also showing an advanced feel. Yost considered pulling Keller after the sixth inning, and Keller felt himself losing control of his fastball early in the seventh. He made a mechanical adjustment after two pitches in the inning, then seven pitches later had the third out and a five-run lead for the bullpen.
They won’t all be like this. Keller will face better lineups than the White Sox, and will be working with lesser stuff on certain days. But particularly in a season that is still more about development than the standings, this was as encouraging a start as the Royals could expect.
This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 10:11 PM with the headline "Royals’ Brad Keller emerging as key to future: ‘A legit No. 1 for us’."