Atlanta Braves Top 5 Free Agent Pitching Targets Outside of Cole and Strasburg
By Seth Carter
Dallas Keuchel
Age: 32
Qualifying Offer: No
Projected Contract: Three years, $36MM (AAV: $12MM)
2019 Stats
ERA: 3.75
WHIP: 1.37
BB/9: 3.1
Innings per Start: 5.9
Quality Starts Percentage: .63
Innings Pitched: 112.2
Strikeouts: 91
Walks: 39
Depending on how you look at it, you could argue Dallas Keuchel’s 2019 season with the Braves was both positive and negative. If you remove the August 8th start against the Marlins, the ERA would provide you with a more accurate reflection of Keuchel’s consistent performance for the Braves.
His final ERA of 3.75 is not bad, but with that one skid-mark in Miami wiped clean, his ERA would have ended at sparkling 3.22.
It is also worth noting that after the debacle in Miami, Keuchel only allowed four earned runs over his next 37 innings.
More indicative of the consistent season Keuchel put together for the Atlanta Braves was that 63% of his starts were considered quality starts…the same rate as Mike Soroka. Sixty-three percent is also the second-highest number on this list, next to Ryu’s 73 percent.
This season, Keuchel does not have a qualifying offer attached to him. The predictions say Keuchel will go for a lot less money than he was looking for last season. In 2019, the Braves paid Keuchel $13 million for 19 regular-season starts. Analysts project Keuchel to land an annual average salary of $12 million.
Keuchel will also have the advantage of getting a full spring training in and starting the season under his normal routine. There’s no doubt that waiting out the draft pick attached to the qualifying offer had an effect on Keuchel in 2019.
Here are a couple of oddities that show he wasn’t quite himself last season:
- Last season was the first time in his career that he exceeded 3.0 BB/9 in a single season, finishing with a 3.1.
- Being a ground ball inducing machine, Keuchel leans toward pitching to contact rather than striking out 15 guys in a game. Despite not missing bats at an elite rate, he has never been prone to giving up the long-ball in his career. His lifetime average sits at less than one HR per nine innings. Last season was the highest HR rate he’s given up since his rookie season in 2012.
Keuchel had an astounding 60.1% ground ball rate last season. He has crossed 200 innings on three occasions since 2012. He has a Cy Young under his belt, and while nobody expects him to be a Cy Young pitcher at this stage, it is a heck of a notch on the belt. It is not too often you can find a former Cy Young winner for $12 million per year.
If you compare him to some of the higher-ranked options, his value looks even better. A 32-year-old Keuchel for $12 million sounds like a better value than a 36-year-old Cole Hamels at $15 million per year. Keuchel is also projected to earn a considerable amount less than Jake Odorizzi, who registered a quality start in exactly 29% of his starts (ed. note: good luck with that, Minnesota).
Based on the projections from MLBTradeRumors.com, the Braves could add Keuchel and one of the top three guys in this article for about the same price another team will pay Gerritt Cole annually. I’ll take it!
The Atlanta Braves are in need of a left-handed starter, but is Keuchel a better option than the southpaw on the next page?