{"id":67109,"date":"2024-02-22T10:51:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=67109"},"modified":"2024-02-22T10:52:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:52:40","slug":"mitch-keller-extension-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/02\/22\/mitch-keller-extension-pirates\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Pirates, Mitch Keller Agree to 5-Year Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kellemi03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mitch Keller<\/a> and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in agreement on a five-year contract, Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN reports. The right-hander had a stellar 2023 campaign where he struck out 210 batters and was an All-Star for the first time when finished 13-9 with a 4.21 ERA. Keller will be the pitcher who will anchor the starting rotation for the team that drafted him in the second of the 2014 MLB Draft. He is 25-38 with a 4.71 ERA in 102 appearances. He has 521 strikeouts in 522 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">BREAKING: Right-hander Mitch Keller and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in agreement on a five-year contract extension, sources tell me and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kileymcd?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@kileymcd<\/a>. After a breakout season in which he struck out 210, the 27-year-old Keller will anchor the rotation for the team that drafted him.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JeffPassan\/status\/1760682734421442954?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 22, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mitch Keller Gets His Extension<\/h2>\n<p>Keller already agreed on a one-year, $5.4 million deal for the upcoming season, avoiding an arbitration hearing in the process. This new contract could overwrite that deal as he&#8217;ll be guaranteed for years and over $71.5 million in new money. Coincidentally, that aligns with the four-year, $73.5 million between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lopezpa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a>\u00a0and the Minnesota Twins. L\u00f3pez, similar to Keller, was between four and five years of big league service at the time of the agreement.<\/p>\n<h3>Third Long-Term Extension in Three Years<\/h3>\n<p>The deal will make Keller the third player to sign a long-term extension in three years for the Pirates. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hayeske01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ke&#8217;Bryan Hayes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/reynobr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryan Reynolds<\/a> both receieved extensions in the past two offseasons. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/04\/07\/pirates-kebryan-hayes-agrees-to-an-eight-year-70-million-extension\/\" target=\"_self\">Hayes got<\/a> eight-years, $70 million whereas <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/04\/25\/bryan-reynolds-extension-pirates\/\" target=\"_self\">Reynolds got<\/a> eight-years, $106.5 million. The extension of Keller will finally put trade rumors to rest. That, and it&#8217;s also likely that manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sheltde99.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derek Shelton<\/a> soon annoucnes the 27-year-old as the team&#8217;s Opening Day starter.<\/p>\n<p>One thing is for sure, Keller has made it pubically clear that he wants to remain in Pittsburgh. After three rough years at the major league level from 2019-2021, Keller was demoted to the bullpen. From there, he adopted a sinker and worked his way back to the rotation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would love to be here,&#8221; Keller told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/sports\/pirates\/2024\/02\/22\/pirates-mitch-keller-opening-day-starter-contract-extension-2024\/stories\/202402220077\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week<\/a>. &#8220;This is all I&#8217;ve known, all I&#8217;ve been through. I wanna win here, man, I really do. I really think we have something special.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Keller Should Set the Tone<\/h3>\n<p>Keller will be the guy to set the tone for the Pirates against a Miami club that broke through and snuck into the postseason. It&#8217;s something Shelton&#8217;s group thinks it can do this year. So far in spring training, Keller is looking like he&#8217;s in midseason form. Hopefully, that gives him every chance to increase his workload this year.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitch Keller and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in agreement on a five-year contract, Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN reports. The right-hander had a stellar 2023 campaign where he struck out 210 batters and was an All-Star for the first time when finished 13-9 with a 4.21 ERA. Keller will be the pitcher who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":67113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071,35],"tags":[1374,3160,3070,2762],"class_list":["post-67109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-bryan-reynolds","tag-derek-shelton","tag-kebryan-hayes","tag-mitch-keller"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}