Original story published by Jack Stern on Brewer Fanatic.
MILWAUKEE — The newest Brewers hurler looks like a solid fit, as a ground-ball pitcher surrounded by excellent defensive infielders. However, his path to success has more to do with his pitch mix and benefiting from the rest of his defense.
The Brewers finally bolstered their rotation depth with an external move, acquiring veteran starter Dallas Keuchel in a minor-league trade with the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday. Keuchel was pitching for Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma on a minor-league deal, but will immediately step into Milwaukee’s big-league pitching mix. He joined the club during Tuesday night’s game.
The southpaw could debut in Wednesday’s series finale with the Texas Rangers. He last pitched on Friday, which lines him up for a Wednesday start on regular rest. Colin Rea was set to pitch, but is no longer listed as the probable starter.
This move is akin to last summer’s acquisition of Julio Teherán. Milwaukee needed a cheap and available veteran for short-term innings coverage in a thin rotation. If it can coax five or so passable starts from the 36-year-old, he’ll go down as a successful addition.
Formerly a Cy Young Award winner and two-time All-Star with the Houston Astros, Keuchel is far removed from his days as a mainstay in a big-league rotation. His last three seasons of MLB work have been especially rough: a 6.29 ERA, 5.20 FIP, and 5.01 SIERA in 260 ⅓ innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio during that stretch is an unsightly 1.53, and his once-sterling home run rate has ballooned to 1.35 per nine innings.
The Brewers have had plenty of success in helping pitchers with lackluster strikeout-to-walk ratios outperform their peripheral metrics by fielding an elite defense behind them. Wade Miley was a shining example in both of his stints in Milwaukee. The injury-ravaged rotation Keuchel is joining has remained afloat thanks to significant overperformance on batted balls from Rea, Bryse Wilson, and Tobias Myers. Could he be the latest in that trend?
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The potential is evident at first glance; the sinkerballing Keuchel has always been an extreme ground-ball pitcher, and he is playing in front of an excellent defense that features three natural shortstops with plus range.
Keuchel’s 53.4% ground-ball rate during the aforementioned stretch falls short of the monstrous grounder rates he produced in Houston, but still ranks in the 93rd percentile of pitchers. In his 13 starts with the Tacoma Raiders this year, he induced grounders on 59.5% of balls in play.
Milwaukee’s infield defense ranks fifth with 10 Outs Above Average this year, and that total includes a debatable -1 rating for Brice Turang, who ranks sixth in baseball with 8 Defensive Runs Saved. The run prevention unit has limited opponents to a .231 batting average on ground balls, the eighth-lowest mark in baseball.
However, Keuchel’s .236 batting average allowed on ground balls since 2021 suggests that he does not stand to gain as much from that infield defense as one would think. Any boost he may experience could stem from inducing more ground balls and mitigating damage on other kinds of contact.
Keuchel has gotten burned on balls in the air about as badly as any pitcher to work over 100 innings since 2021. Of 456 such pitchers, his .404 batting average allowed on fly balls ranks 454th. His .243 BABIP on fly balls, which excludes home runs, ranks the same.
Much of that damage is self-inflicted. Keuchel’s hard hit and barrel rates on fly balls rank in the third and first percentiles of that list, respectively. He’s yielded louder fly balls than most pitchers, and this is a common problem. There’s a platoon advantage for fly-ball hitters against ground-ball pitchers, because the locations where a ground-ball guy works often fit well with the ones where fly-ball hitters seek to make damage, and because a fly ball surrendered by a ground-ball hurler is usually a mistake pitch, therefore more likely to be squared up.
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At the same time, it may be the area where Milwaukee’s defense stands to aid him most. The outfielders behind Keuchel have combined for -4 Outs Above Average over his last three MLB seasons. The Brewers’ outfield ranks seventh in baseball this year with 6 Outs Above Average. They’ve recorded the fourth-most hard-hit outs on fly balls (117).
The best way to avoid damage on fly balls is to limit them. Simplifying Keuchel’s pitch mix to focus on what he still does well is a good first step.
Keuchel’s sinker still possesses above-average movement and has yielded a fly ball rate of just 13% since 2021. He has only thrown it 39% of the time during that stretch, though, while turning increasingly to an ineffective cutter that’s been responsible for most of the barrels he has allowed.
Keuchel has leaned on the sinker more heavily with the Rainiers, boosting its usage to 46.5% while using his cutter just 13.5% of the time. His most-used secondary pitch has been his changeup, which features excellent separation from his fastball due to its plus vertical drop and average velocity of 79.7 mph.
That’s the blueprint Keuchel will have to follow in Milwaukee: lean heavily on the sinker and change-up to induce ground balls and keep hitters out in front. He should probably take the prevalence of those two pitches to an even greater extreme than he has in Triple-A. From there, the cutter and slider can serve as occasional new-look offerings. As we know, though, the Brewers also like to keep secondary fastball looks in the mix for their starters, so we could see the cutter remain in the mix and generate unexpected utility.
By using the right mix and getting enough help from the rangy outfield corps of Blake Perkins, Sal Frelick, Jackson Chourio, and perhaps Garrett Mitchell, Keuchel could be the holdover the Brewers need as the club waits on its rotation to get closer to full strength. Even if that doesn’t pan out, he was a worthwhile buy-low acquisition.
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