Candidates for Mid-Season Promotion: Dallas Keuchel

The 2008 and 2009 drafts under Bobby Heck have brought some serious talent into the dismal Astros farm system.  The biggest impact I think I’ve seen is in the quality of pitching.  Just about everything this farm system had was traded away and left us with very few prospects.  Felipe Paulino and Bud Norris were struggling with injuries and Fernando Nieve was on the way out.  But, those two drafts have put some pitchers into the system that could be impact rotational pitchers in the next few years for the Houston Astros.  The two most notable pitchers are obviously Jordan Lyles and Tanner Bushue, as they were both considered reaches and fit the mold of Heck’s tall projectible frames coming out of high school.  But, there is one college guy from the 2009 draft that could be knocking on the door of the big leagues soon, Dallas Keuchel.

Dallas Keuchel is one of my favorite prospects.  I’m a bit biased when it comes to him as I really want to see him moved along and be successful.  I tend to be biased to University of Arkansas baseball players because I wasn’t that big into college baseball until 2009. My soon-to-be brother-in-law is the one who got me interested and he is a huge Razorback fan.  I watched last years CWS with him last year and really got into it and Keuchel’s heroics in the 2009 CWS really hooked me into it.  Most of his big time performances of last year came after the draft, and the hype resulting from it screamed that he should have gone way sooner than the 7th round and made us the beneficiary of possibly a great steal in the draft.

Keuchel can be classified as a soft-tossing lefty who can draw some similar reviews to our current Wandy Rodriguez.  He has the upper 80’s four-seam FB that can occasionally break 90 and he may add a few ticks to it to where he sits at 90 as he 6-3 200, but he looks pretty filled out already so maybe he won’t.  His high 80’s two-seam FB is what really helps him out.  Every report I could find said it has heavy sink and allows him to induce a lot of ground-balls.  He also throws the typical change-up.  The big pitch on him is his curveball.  Every report says it’s his best pitch, and it’s a good one.  He commands it and can paint it on the outside corner against lefties.  It doesn’t have a lot of hump in it, so it looks like a FB at first and it just drops off the table.  He also says that his slider can be dominant.  His stuff isn’t eye-popping, but he has excellent control and pitchibility which allows for his stuff to play higher than it is.  But, he is an average pitcher at worst in terms of overall stuff and his intangibles make him a plus pitcher at times.

Statistically, Keuchel can flat out pop out at times.  At one point in this season, he pitched 17 innings in two games and allowed just one run and struck out 15 batters.  Both of those games were away from the band box known as Clear Channel Stadium.  Well, the way to succeed in Lancaster is to locate your FB, don’t walk batters, and keep the ball down.  Well, Keuchel has done that as best as you possibly can.  He only has 17 walks, comes out to a BB/9 of 2.05.  He has 62 strike-outs which comes out to a K/9 of 7.47.  That make makes a solid 3.64 K:BB ratio.  Even more solid when considering he’s a heavy ground-ball pitcher.  His FIP is a pretty mediocre 4.22.  But, neutralized for park and luck, it becomes a solid 3.70.  That’s not outstanding, nor dominant, but considering he is a ground-ball pitcher in a hitters league and an extreme hitters park, that is very solid to say the least. 

Going into batted ball numbers, his ground-ball rate shows you even more why he is being successful.  His GB% is an outstanding 59.5% and it’s not really luck either, that’s only two percentage points over his career average.  It’s slightly lower at home in Lancaster at 57.6% which is right at his career average.  Another way to limit damage is too keep from giving up line-drives.  Keuchel has done that.  An 11.4% LD% is pretty solid and Lancaster blows it up to 14.4% at home which is still decent.  Away games, which are closer to his actual level of talent has a 7.1%.  You have to limit fly-balls in Lancaster and he only gives up 23.6%.  12.5% of those go for HR’s, but all of those HR’s game in Lancaster.  That’s a good stat; he has given up ZERO homeruns in away games where parks are more neutral.

Right to left splits are a little interesting for him.  He has been very unlucky with lefties.  His BABIP is .462.  That will definitely come down.  But he does strike-out and walk lefties at better a rate which is expected.  Against righties, he’s very lucky with a BABIP of .267.  Not sustainable.  But, when neutralized for park and luck, his FIP against righties lowers from a 4.38 to a 3.61 which is better than against lefties, 3.87.

Overall, he has performed extremely well for pitching half his innings in the terrible environment of Lancaster.  I don’t think he’d miss a step by moving up to Corpus right now.  He would go from a hitter’s paradise to a much more neutral Texas League.  He has shown the ability to pitch deep into games consistently and plays above his stuff.  He doesn’t walk guys and actually strikes guys out at a very solid rate for a groundball pitcher.  He throws multiple pitches and has shown that he can command all of them it seems like.  Obviously, we can’t know specifics about his current mechanics or pitch development because we can’t watch him or get radar gun readings.  But, we know his approach to the game and command are advanced for his level.  Given he is 22 years old A+, he’s not technically too old to be a prospect for his level, but his stats would be much more special at the next level.  Given the condition of the pitching staffs in Corpus and Round Rock, there shouldn’t be anyone who is blocking his advancement.  Tyler Lumsden, Jared Wells, and Jeremy Johnson are not real prospects and should not be warranting starting rotation slots at the AA level.  If they are legitimate organizational depth guys, they should be in RR.  So, who’s on board to send Dallas Keuchel to Corpus?

Minor League Splits Stats

Q&A with Dallas Keuchel