The Pirates will miss the title Anthony Kelly in his MLB debut, reports Franchys Romero. He’s already on the 40-man roster, as the Bucs had to opt out of his contract last season to avoid entering the Rule 5 draft. They will need to make an effective roster move that includes a pitcher tomorrow.
Kelly, not to be confused with the pitcher of the same name who was recently traded from the Dodgers to the Cubs, is one of Pittsburgh’s best prospects. A native of Aruba, he was under the radar international signee in 2021. Kelly added power and built his speed in proball, posting solid strikeout numbers as he moved up through the minors. He put himself firmly on the prospect radar with 107 1/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball between High-A and Double-A last year.
Baseball America ranks Kelly the #8 prospect in the organization. He is seventh in the program on MLB Pipeline. Keith Law of The Athletic ranked him 15th in his offseason write-up of the Pittsburgh organization, and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked him 19th when he ranked Bucs prospects last week. Except for minor differences in ordinal levels, test reports are generally consistent.
Kelly is a decent shortstop at 5’10” who finds good health on a fastball averaging 97.6 mph in Triple-A. His mid-80s changeup is his second-best pitch and a potential weapon against lefties. The big question for scouts is whether he’ll develop a reliable enough breaking ball. fringe-average offering Arsenal got plenty of whiffs in the lower levels but didn’t missed a lot of at-bats in Triple-A.
Over his first 54 innings at the minor league level, Kelly owns a 4.50 earned run average with a 20% strikeout rate. His 10.6% swing mark is also below average, and he has walked 10% of the batters he has faced. Kelly spent most of the season working in the Triple-A rotation but has come out of the bullpen in his last two games. That appeared to be a prelude to a move to help an MLB bullpen that has been struggling of late.
Kelly has experience facing the best hitters in the world. He was the #1 starter for the Netherlands in this year’s World Baseball Classic. That gave him the unenviable task of using eventual champions Venezuela to kick off the tournament. Kelly worked three innings of two-run ball, striking out Wilyer Abreu but to stop running away from home Javier Sanoja.
Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette confirms the Bucs will use Kelly without a bullpen. They certainly aren’t closing the door on long-term rotation futures. Pittsburgh took a similar step last year Bubba Chandler again Braxton Ashcraft as relievers. And they just need reliable bullpen arms, especially one from right.
Pirates relievers are 20th in MLB with a 4.45 ERA. The past few weeks have been particularly bad, as he has allowed nearly six earned runs in nine over the past 14 days. They gave up a 10-run inning to open a tough game against the Dodgers on Tuesday. That was less than a week after a major upset in Houston, where they gave up a 9-5 lead in the eighth inning – allowing six runs despite retiring the first two batters in the frame.
Dennis Santana was expected to be their most reliable right winger this season. He sits at a 5.00 ERA across 27 frames. Carmen Mlodzinski he crashed and spun around when he appeared for the second time after rolling over and turning around. Rookie Wilber Dotel he pitched well in his first seven outings before the Dodgers forced him into the aforementioned 10-run frame. John Ramírez he is a traveler who should be in a low-rated area. It’s a clear area of need at the trade deadline, but they’ll look to Kelly as they look for solutions in the meantime.
