Is Pittsburgh Pirates starter Mitch Keller just a bit overconfident?

Confidence is a vital attribute for any Major League Baseball player. Even those who can not claim stardom know this — it can be useful — but the Pittsburgh Pirates designated Opening Day starter this year, Mitch Keller, recently pushed the envelope in this regard.

As MLB.com writer Justice de los Santos reported Tuesday, Hill declared, “We’re right there with the best organizations in the game with our pitching and what we have.”

This is Keller’s view despite the fact that Jarlin Garcia, the Bucs’ only “established” left-handed reliever, will not be throwing for at least a month because of “an injury to the nerves in his left biceps.”

However, de los Santos managed to strongly imply some agreement with Keller at least in regard to the Pirates starting pitchers, barring injury in the lead-up to games that count. Those starters include Keller, JT Brubaker, Roansy Contreras, Rich Hill, and Vince Velasquez.

“On paper,” writes de los Santos, these five hurlers are “Pittsburgh’s best rotation in several years.” This is very likely true. Are they, however, “right there with the best organizations in the game?”

The Pirates haven’t had a winning season since 2018, so it is perhaps unfair or at least unkind to point out that the career won-lost record of these five pitchers is 111-124, but this record is only this close to .500 because Hill is 23 games over .500 himself. None of his previous wins were booked for the Pirates.

Also, Hill will be MLB’s oldest player this summer at 43.

The best career WHIP for these five pitchers belongs to Velasquez (1.235), who spent the first five-plus years of his career driving Phillies fans nuts with the exorbitant number of pitches he managed to throw before being pulled from games. The worst belongs to Keller, the putative Pirates number one.

Only two of these pitchers had an ERA below 4.00 in ‘22. Contreras’ figure was 3.79, Keller’s 3.91.

Not only is Pittsburgh’s starting five likely not among the best in baseball, it’s a little bit of a stretch to say they’re as good as division rivals in Milwaukee (led by Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff) or St. Louis (Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, and Jordan Montgomery).

The best that can be objectively said about the Pirates pitchers is that, excepting Hill because of age, you might take all the others if you were starting an MLB team because they’re all reasonably young. (Velasquez is 30).

The only Pittsburgh Pirates starter most would really want, though, is Roansy Contreras, who is only 23. But who knows? Maybe Keller’s remarks will spark something unexpected in Pittsburgh this year. That would make Andrew McCutchen’s return to Pittsburgh truly something special.