Michael Keller‘s season ended the day before the trade deadline, when the Pirates placed him on the 60-day injured list due to a major right shoulder strain. The team didn’t provide major details at the time, but Aiden Stepansky of MLB.com writes that Keller reportedly suffered a Grade 3 strain — a gruesome injury that saw his teres major muscle come loose from the bone.
Keller did not need surgery. Doctors recommended a long period of inactivity and rehabilitation. The plan was for him to return to throwing at the end of the month, and he should have a normal offseason.
The injury did not occur on a specific terrain, it seems. Keller told Stepansky he could not pinpoint the exact moment it happened. This suggests that he had been experiencing discomfort for some time, and the results confirm this. The usually steady Keller was hit for a 5.29 ERA in 22 starts. His 17.7% strikeout rate was a career-worst, and his 8.3% walk rate — while still solid — was his highest since 2022. He posted a sub-7% mark every year from 2023 to 2025. Keller’s average fastball of 93.3 mph was also a career-low mark. He sat at a season-low speed of 91.9 mph in his final start before going on the injured list.
The Bucs still signed Keller for two more years for a total of $38 million. Assuming his recovery continues smoothly, he should return to a solid rotation that also features young starters. Paul Skenes, Braxton Ashcraft, Jared Jones And Bubba Chandler. He’s only 30, but he’s clearly the elder statesman of this group. Keller has often seen his name pop up in trade rumors, but between the money left on his contract, his poor showing in 2026, and the season-ending injury, it’s hard to imagine a solid market for his services this winter. If he can return to his previous form, the $38 million remaining on the contract shouldn’t be onerous, even for the low-budget Bucs. Keller has pitched 707 2/3 innings with a 4.15 ERA and solid rate stats from 2022-2025, averaging 177 innings and 31 starts per season along the way.
Young outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez He also finished the season on the injured list with a hamstring strain, but he tells Jason Mackey of MLB.com that he’s healthy now and doesn’t expect any lingering issues next year. “I ran, hit normally and caught the ball in the outfield. Everything went well,” Valdez told Mackey.
Valdez, 22 (23 in January), adds that he is preparing to travel to his native Dominican Republic where he will play in the Dominican Winter League. He did not play winter ball last year, but participated in the Colombian Winter League during the 2023-24 offseason. A run with Los Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Republic this winter will give him a chance to test his previously ailing hamstring and get a few more reps under his belt as he looks to carve out a permanent spot in Pittsburgh’s outfield.
Valdez made his major league debut last season and showed plenty of raw power, hitting 17 home runs in just 287 trips to the plate. He hit .232/.345/.510 overall in his first taste of the majors. According to the wRC+ metric, this is 30% better than the average overall production at the plate. Add in the 13 round-trippers he’s totaled in 237 Triple-A plate appearances, and Valdez has hit 30 total big flies this year — while appearing in just 128 games with 524 turns at the plate. He also showed excellent batted ball stats, averaging 91.9 mph off the bat with a 49.3% hard hit rate in the majors.
This is obviously an encouraging rookie campaign, but there is one glaring red flag. Valdez has hit an untenable 37.5% of his plate appearances. He needed a big BABIP of .328 and a whopping 26.6% homer-to-flyball ratio to bring his average to .232. However, Valdez’s strikeouts don’t come from chasing too many pitches from the plate. They come from poor bat-ball skills, even on pitches in the strike zone. Valdez made contact on just 71.3 percent of the pitches he swung at inside the strike zone, according to Statcast.
That’s the second-worst mark among the 361 hitters who have made at least 200 plate appearances this season. A massive 14.6% walk rate has kept his on-base percentage afloat, but Valdez will need to find a way to make more contact in the zone if he wants to solidify himself as an everyday corner outfielder in the middle of Pittsburgh’s lineup — especially because he’s not considered a particularly skilled defender. For now, he will enter the offseason as the favorite for the right field job alongside center fielder. Oneil Cruz and left fielder Bryan Reynoldsbut it’s possible the Bucs could bring in other help.
Elsewhere in the organization, changes are already underway. Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the Pirates have hired Sean Buchanan away from the Astros. He had been Houston’s pitching coach at the Triple-A level. Buchanan is expected to work in the upper levels of the Pirates system, but a specific title for him has not yet been determined.
Chandler Rome of The Athletic reported earlier this summer that Buchanan was instrumental in Pierre Lambertbreakout with the Astros this year. The former Rockies right-hander had posted a 6.28 ERA in 74 major league games before signing a minor league deal with the Astros. He spent 2025 in Japan, pitching to a 4.26 ERA for the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball as a member of their rotation. This year, Lambert has been the savior of an injury-plagued rotation, giving Houston 155 2/3 innings of 3.82 ERA ball with a 23.2% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate.
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