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The San Diego Padres have been successful in reliever-to-starter conversions under their current pitching infrastructure.
The Seth Lugo experiment was a successful one for the Padres, as Lugo provided valuable starter’s innings at a below-market rate price tag. Since the concept is not a foreign one for San Diego, they could look to one of 2025’s most surprising arms to round out their rotation.
If you had told a baseball fan at this time last year that Brad Keller would be one of the most sought-after arms in free agency, you would likely receive a raised eyebrow or two. Keller bounced around on waivers in 2024, The former Reds Rule 5 pick pitched to a 5.68 FIP and 1.52 WHIP with the White Sox and Red Sox. Keller nearly made the jump overseas to NPB, but a deal with the Chiba Lotte Marines fell through, leaving Keller free to sign a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs.
Keller went on to make the Cubs’ roster for Opening Day, going on to make 68 appearances with them. He made three of those outings against the Padres, all early on in the season. In those appearances, he allowed one run in 2.2 innings, while flashing his newfound blistering fastball. Keller went on to post a 2.07 ERA and 2.93 FIP in 69.2 innings, striking out 27.2% of batters while walking only 8%. For an arm whose previous career high in strikeout percentage at the MLB level was 19.6%, this performance seemingly came out of nowhere.
BIG out from Brad Keller. ? pic.twitter.com/GPGx3AoOIn
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) October 9, 2025
The right-hander found new velocity out of the bullpen, as all his pitches were seeing 1-3 mph increases in average velocity. Keller appears to have fully recovered from shoulder impingement syndrome that slowed him down in 2023, as he averaged 97.2 mph on his fastball. Keller’s slider averaged 87.1 mph this season, up from 2024 (86.0 mph). Keller appears to have reinvented his changeup, now appearing to rock a kick-change with lift and 92.3 mph average velocity. His sweeper is also now up to 86.3 mph, averaging 14.1 inches of gloveside movement. There’s a reason batters hit .071 against the pitch, it’s a legitimate out pitch. This arsenal, at face value, is somewhat reminiscent of what San Diego had with Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek. Both they and Keller had a pair of fastballs as well as the two shapes of breaking ball. The Padres also worked with Kyle Hart on incorporating a kick-change, which allowed him to get better results as the season went on.
Brad Keller and his sweeper was the highest rated pitch thrown by a reliever in May pic.twitter.com/6XOoRD5rZ1
— Baseball Prospectus (@baseballpro) June 2, 2025
When looking at what Keller is bringing to the table, the pure stuff is there. The five-pitch mix will certainly work out of the rotation, even if the fastball loses a tick due to the workload. Depending on how much pitching depth the Padres can add this offseason, the team could take a page out of the Mets’ Clay Holmes playbook and manage his workload to keep his arm healthy throughout the season. It is worth noting that the reason Seth Lugo was able to pitch as much as he did in 2023 was that he missed a month’s worth of time due to a calf strain, which essentially replaced any sort of cool-down period or shortened outings for workload management.
Signability will also be something for the Padres to consider.
As currently constructed, the team needs an arm like Keller more than he needs them. Keller was one of the hottest topics at the MLB GM meetings, per MLB insiders, so the team would likely be competing with a plethora of other teams with their own self-imposed payroll concerns. The term and value of any potential contract becomes a point of discussion as well, as Keller will likely be looking to cash in on a multi-year deal, much like Drew Pomeranz did after his 2019 resurgence in Milwaukee. San Diego paid out a four-year, $34 million deal to Pomeranz back then, with an AAV of $8.5 million.
For comparison, Seth Lugo’s contract in 2022-23 had an AAV of $7.5 million, and Clay Holmes’ 2025 agreement with the Mets was for $12.67 million annually. Pomeranz and Lugo were coming off strong seasons as non-closers, and with Keller not having been a primary closer until the postseason, he may be in line for a deal like those mentioned above.
For the sake of projection and hypothesis, San Diego could offer the right-hander a three-year, $30 million deal with player options and opt-outs after each season. This structure would allow the team to keep payroll space to add a bat, while including escalators in the deal would allow Keller to make some extra cash based on performance incentives. The season-by-season nature of the deal could allow Keller to cash in on his performance again should he have a strong season while allowing the Padres to take their time with prized pitching prospects Miguel Mendez, Kash Mayfield, and Kruz Schoolcraft.
San Diego will be looking left, right, and center for a starting pitcher to round out their rotation. Brad Keller is generating interest as a starter after a dominant relief season on the North Side. Circumstances do match, making Keller and the Padres a logical free agent fit.
A born and raised San Diegan, Diego Garcia is a lifetime Padres fan and self-proclaimed baseball nerd. Diego wrote about baseball on his own site between 2021-22 before joining the East Village Times team in 2024. He also posts baseball content on his YouTube channel “Stat Nerd Baseball”, creating content around trades, hypotheticals, player analyses, the San Diego Padres, and MLB as a whole.
A 2024 graduate of San Diego State, Diego aims to grow as a writer and content creator in the baseball community.
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