Welcome to the Pirates Prospects daily video rundown, where we pull some of the top videos of the Pittsburgh Pirates across the internet.
Player Spotlight
Mitch Keller
The Pirates second round pick back in 2014, Keller was rated as the organization’s top prospect three straight years from 2018-2020, but has yet to find his footing at the major league level.
In 39 career starts, Keller has a 6.02 ERA with 173 strikeouts in 170 1/3 innings.
Keller become an internet sensation during the offseason with his bullpen sessions. The 25-year-old saw an increase in his velocity, even topping 100 mph on his fastball, including some other mechanical changes.
Mitch Keller, Elevated 99mph ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/Sttku58b1I
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 29, 2022
Guess the question has been answered if he was going to be able to carry that into game-like situations. It’s Spring, so you can take results with a grain of salt, but there has been no denying that Keller has looked different.
If you wanted to look at the statistics, Keller has yet to give up a run in 8 2/3 spring innings, allowing seven hits, walking one and striking out seven.
Tuesday he pitched four innings, allowing five hits and struck out four. Including this beautiful cutter.
Mitch Keller, Nasty 90mph Cutter. ✂️
Love having a mic on Roberto Perez that inning.
Daily Video Rundown
Hoy Park
The left-handed utility man is continuing to make a very convincing case that not only should he be on the Opening Day roster, but that he could be a viable option off the bench.
Hoy, Hoy, Hoy! pic.twitter.com/sYC9ja1Mjg
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 29, 2022
Park hit his second home run of the Spring on Tuesday, and seems a lot further ahead of the curve than someone who got a late start to camp.
Kevin Newman
Pirates fans were upset when they got the very anticipated news that Oneil Cruz was getting optioned to the minor leagues, as that paved the way for Kevin Newman to remain the team’s shortstop.
It shouldn’t have been any question that Newman was at the very least going into the season as the starting shortstop. Despite his shortcomings offensively (he finished with a .574 OPS in 2021), there is no doubting Newman’s ability with the glove.
A Golden Glove finalist from a year ago, the pressure will be on Newman to find some success with the bat in order to stave off Cruz.
Kevin Newman destroyed that baseball!! pic.twitter.com/JCbFB09gCm
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 29, 2022
This might help. Of course, last Spring showed that you couldn’t get too hung up on offensive numbers. Newman batted .606 last Spring (20-for-33), but obviously didn’t carry that over to the regular season.
