The Pirates will recall pitching prospect Antwone Kelly for his MLB debut, reports Francys Romero. He’s already on the 40-man roster, as the Bucs needed to select his contract last offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. They’ll need to make an active roster move involving a pitcher tomorrow.
Kelly, not to be confused with the similarly named pitcher who was recently traded from the Dodgers to the Cubs, is one of Pittsburgh’s better pitching prospects. An Aruba native, he was an under the radar international signee in 2021. Kelly has added strength and built his velocity in pro ball, posting strong strikeout numbers as he climbed through the minors. He put himself firmly on the prospect radar with 107 1/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball between High-A and Double-A last year.
Baseball America ranks Kelly the #8 prospect in the organization. He’s seventh in the system at MLB Pipeline. Keith Law of The Athletic ranked him 15th in his offseason writeup of the Pittsburgh organization, while Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs had him 19th when rankings Bucs prospects just last week. Despite the slight variation in the ordinal rankings, the scouting reports are generally in alignment.
Kelly is a shorter righty at 5’10” who gets good life on a fastball that is averaging 97.6 mph in Triple-A. His mid-80s changeup is his best secondary pitch and a potential weapon against left-handed hitters. Evaluators’ biggest question is whether he’ll develop a reliable enough breaking ball. Kelly has a mid-80s cutter that most scouts grade as a fringe-average offering. The arsenal has gotten a lot of whiffs at the lower levels but hasn’t missed many bats in Triple-A.
Over his first 54 innings at the top minor league level, Kelly owns a 4.50 earned run average with a modest 20% strikeout rate. His 10.6% swinging strike mark is also a bit below average, while he has walked 10% of batters faced. Kelly has spent most of the season working from the Triple-A rotation but has come out of the bullpen for his last two outings. That seemed a precursor to a move to help an MLB bullpen that has struggled of late.
Kelly does have some experience against the top hitters in the world. He was the #1 starter for the Netherlands in this year’s World Baseball Classic. That gave him the unenviable task of tanking on eventual champion Venezuela to kick off the tournament. Kelly worked three innings of two-run ball, striking out Wilyer Abreu but giving up a home run to Javier Sanoja.
Colin Beazley of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette confirms the Bucs will use Kelly out of the bullpen. They’re surely not closing the door on a long-term rotation future. Pittsburgh took a similar tack last year breaking Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft in as relievers. They’re also simply in need of reliable bullpen arms, particularly one from the right side.
More to come.
