MLB Pipeline began their position-by-position rankings of the top prospects in baseball, starting with right-handed pitchers on Tuesday morning. As you can imagine, this is the deepest position in the game and it is top-heavy with elite prospects. Mitch Keller is one of the top 20 prospects in the game right now, but on the list of right-handed pitchers, he’s ranked sixth overall.
Jonathan Mayo has a breakdown of the best tools at the spot and he ranks Keller as having the best control (60 on the 20-80 scouting scale) and he also has Keller as the highest floor. That last one is impressive considering that four of the five players ahead of him on the list have at least Triple-A experience. That’s including Shohei Ohtani, who has pitched five years at Japan’s highest level, but has yet to debut in the States. Mayo notes that Keller’s combo of stuff, plus size and command, makes him the most likely to reach his ceiling of the group. I’d also throw in that Keller has a very low effort delivery, which should help keep him healthy, but also makes it easier to repeat his delivery.
Depending on how deep upcoming positions are, we might not see another Pittsburgh Pirate prospect make the top ten until next Tuesday when Pipeline has third base, shortstop and outfield over the course of three days. They plan to unveil their top 100 prospects list next Saturday on MLB Network.