Brewers acquire former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel from Seattle.

So I woke up from my afternoon siesta yesterday and started scrolling Twitter. I came upon the above tweet from Ken Rosenthal. I thought for a brief second that I traveled back in time during my nap. I felt like Robin Williams in Jumanji:

Dallas Keuchel? In the year of our Lord 2024??

But it’s true. If I’m honest I had no idea he was still roaming around the league. Like if you just started naming random older baseball players and asked me if he was retired or active I would have answered ‘RETIRED’ after Keuchel’s name before you even got done saying it.

Now what can you get out of Keuchel? I don’t think anyone is sure. At one point is he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. From 2014-2017 he was an All Star twice, won a Cy Young (2015) and was a frontline starter on a team that won a World Series (2017). His last real success at the major league level was with the White Sox during the pandemic year in 2020. He finished 6-2 that year with a 1.99 ERA and finished 5th in Cy Young voting.

Since then? Not great. He fell off with the White Sox in 2021, and since then has spent time with 4 different organizations, posting a 6.93 ERA when he’s been at the major league level during those stints.

He signed with the Mariners in April and has been with their AAA team ever since. He hasn’t been bad there. 3.93 ERA over 71 innings, and a 1.16 ERA in his last 5 starts. So he’s been on a heater lately.

He’s always been a ground ball pitcher and that should play with an excellent Brewer defense. He’s got experience at the highest level in the biggest games, and the Brewers have a starting rotation that has been dealing with injury after injury after injury.

Conclusion: Why not! This is the time to try a move like this. We’ve got 5 weeks until the deadline and the Brewers are sitting in first place in their division with an obvious need in their rotation. Before we contemplate spending high-level prospects on a pitcher at the deadline, let’s exhaust all other options. Maybe there’s some toothpaste still at the top of the tube for Keuchel that you can squeeze out. This kind of reminds me of the Julio Teheran move last season. Former All Star that hadn’t been in the majors for a few years. The Brewers signed him and he gave them a bunch of quality starts until he got hurt. Ultimately he pitched in 71 mostly useful innings (4.40 ERA) for a team that won their division. Maybe Keuchel can do something similar.

PS: Also, the Brewers gave up ‘cash considerations’ for Keuchel. This is the definition of a low risk move. It also lets me use my favorite baseball meme of all time:

Double PS: How can you not love Pat Murphy: