The Cubs have informed Brad Keller that he has made the Cubs’ roster for domestic Opening Day. Manager Craig Counsell passed the news along to Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times. The Cubs will have to make a corresponding move to get him onto the 40-man. Also, per Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic, Ben Brown has won the final rotation spot over Colin Rea.
Keller, 29, pitched to a 4.22 ERA in 10 2/3 innings this spring but turned heads with improved velocity and sharper breaking pitches. He’ll grab a spot in the Chicago bullpen. Given his background as a starter and his 10 2/3 innings in just six appearances, he’ll give Counsell an option who can pitch multiple innings.
Keller was a Rule 5 pick by the Royals out of the D-backs system back in 2017, and for three years he was a solid, durable member of the Kansas City rotation. His effectiveness began to wane in 2021, however, and injuries plagued him in the coming seasons. By 2023, his command had completely eroded. He walked 45 batters in 45 1/3 innings before landing on the injured list. A series of tests eventually led to a thoracic outlet syndrome diagnosis and season-ending surgery. He returned to the majors with the White Sox and Red Sox in 2024 but struggled in both spots.
The 25-year-old Brown came to the Cubs in the 2022 trade that shipped David Robertson to the Phillies. Brown made his big league debut last year, tossing 55 1/3 innings with a 3.58 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate, 38.7% grounder rate and 0.81 HR/9. He sits 96-97 mph with his four-seamer and couples that offering with a plus curveball. Brown has at times worked with a changeup in the minors as well but has deployed a two-pitch arsenal in the major thus far. He allowed a pair of runs in 2 2/3 innings versus the Dodgers in the Tokyo Series, but Brown also whiffed five of his 15 opponents there. Similarly, he’s allowed six runs in a small sample of eight spring frames but did so with a pristine 9-to-1 K/BB ratio.
Brown gets the nod over the veteran Rea, who’ll open the season in the bullpen after signing a one-year, $5MM deal in free agency this winter. The 34-year-old righty carries a 4.40 ERA in 292 innings for the Brewers across the past two seasons. He’s worked both as a starter and long reliever in that time. Rea may not start the year in the rotation, but it seems likely he’ll make a handful of starts as injuries and/or poor performance elsewhere in the rotation dictate the need for a fresh arm or even a more permanent replacement.
Brad Keller? Should have signed Iglasias because OMG! fits here…
Hopefully the next bit of news will be that Workman has earned a spot.
Yes. Barring a “last minute” injury, the final bench role is seemingly down to Rule 5 selection Gage Workman or out-of-options Vidal Bruján.
Workman has the higher ceiling and is a better option at the infield corners if 3B Matt Shaw struggles or 1B Michael Busch gets hurt.
Makes sense. Rea had a horrible spring which shouldn’t be a surprise because that’s pretty much been the theme of his career up to this point.
Rea is not great, but the unanimity of the trashing of him by Cubs fans surprises me a little. He was a good player on a good team the last 2 years; I’m not sure why you all hate him so much.
@Alan53,
Informed Cubs fans don’t hate Rea. They hate what he represents: an underwhelming, cheap free agent signing by a team that has the financial wherewithal to acquire much better players.
Understood. And this season is going to be bad, particularly relative to the rather bizarrely optimistic expectations being expressed by that moron Brett Taylor and others…It might be so bad that it finally gets the odious Hoyer and his smirking lackey Hawkins fired.
@Alan53,
I’m not a fan of Hoyer/Hawkins, but the biggest problem is the ownership.
I think he’s just confusing being stupid with being a racist. But I’m not in the room either. But trading Cam Smith was a real head scratcher to me. I would have made him off limits for anyone.
Hoyer can be both.
Watch the Cubs play the Athletics next week. They are going to be killed by that guy Lawrence Butler. I predict he’ll hit 5 or 6 homers in that band box as the A’s sweep the Cubs. You might find yourself thinking, gee I wish we had a guy like Butler. Now such a guy could be black or white, of course. But the guy who is most like Butler is, well, Butler– and there was never any chance the Cubs would get him, because Hoyer doesn’t like his dark skin and dreads. That’s what I’m talking about: Hoyer limits the field of possible Cubs stars by eliminating a whole group from consideration from the start. And since that group is a racial group, then he is guilty of racism.
The Cubs were run much like this in the last awful years of the Wrigley regime. The GM was an unrepentant old racist named Bob Kennedy. The only kinds of black players who could be on the Cubs were the kind who’d bow and scrape and call you sir. It was appalling. And now here we are again.
I would ask you all: if I am wrong, then why DON’T the Cubs have any players whose skin is darker than Tony Orlando’s? Do you really think it is just a coincidence? The empirical evidence is on my side. I wish it were not so.
If Alan wants to keep talking about race, Alan’s comments will keep disappearing, like they did on this article.
I hope he proves me wrong, but I think once you see him on a regular basis you’ll understand what we mean. My advice to Counsell is to avoid using Rea in high leverage situations as much as possible.
Well, there will be plenty of low-leverage innings for Rea to pitch, starting tomorrow night….I wonder if Steele will lead the league in AGH again this season.
Alan, he’s not good and he is more of what Jed Hoyer loves- a budget, soft-tossing RHer that adds nothing to the team.
Expect the Cubs to release him by July when they have Assad, Brown, Horton, Birdsell, and Wicks vying for starts and a whole list of better arms deserving a look in the ‘pen, and multiple arms out of options.
Depth is necessary but Rea and is no better than our minor league depth.
I agree with you with two exceptions: I have never understood what anyone sees in Assad. I think the Cubs are better without him.
And, Wicks is also a bit worrying: He doesn’t throw hard enough to get MLB hitters out, and when he thus tries to throw harder, he immediately injures himself. I don’t see him as having a future in the majors.
Do you think Steele will lead the league in AGH again?
I think Brad Keller could easily be the next Paul Skenes if he began throwing the Roger Beshens football slider. He just needs to be open to new ideas….
Should be chooch. You spelled it wrong.
Brad Keller couldn’t even be Olivia Dunne, regardless of what he learns…
I think he’d do a fine job at gymnastics thank you very much
“domestic Opening Day”
So, Opening Day.
i.e. The point where games should start to count.
Considering the Tokyo games did count, it is their domestic opening day.
Right. I’m saying they should not have counted. Good job reading.
The overseas opening day games have counted for years so not sure why you think this year should be any different.
Agreed, but the term itself has a kind of cutesy, precious, officious sound to it that offends the ear and the baseball sensibilities. Also, it seems to assume that teams going halfway around the world to play games that count in utterly atypical conditions is, well, OK–and call me a purist or a grouch or a Republican or something, but it is NOT OK, and I hope the Cubs never get mixed up in such nonsense again.
Domestic Opening Day is such a cringe term
Agree, but the term “cringe term” is something of a cringe term itself–a kind of instant tired cliché. When did we speakers of English stop saying what we mean and start speaking in trendy shorthand instead?
“Ackshually” vibes dude. Just stop.
The Cubs are betting on their ability to extract value from volatility—a strategy that could change how teams evaluate both pitcher injuries and starter qualifications going forward. If Keller and Brown succeed, expect a shift in the industry toward post-injury velocity gambles and a further embrace of non-traditional, flexible pitching roles.
Alright, strap in, folks, because I’ve been chewing on this Cubs thing like it’s a stale hot dog bun from Wrigley on a humid July afternoon—and lemme tell ya, it’s got my brain doing cartwheels! So, here’s the deal: the Cubs, bless their unpredictable little hearts, are out here playing 4D chess with the rest of the league stuck on checkers, betting the farm—or at least a decent chunk of the bleachers—on this wild notion of squeezing every last drop of juice out of volatility. Yeah, volatility! Like, we’re not just talking about the usual ups and downs of a 162-game slog, but this whole chaotic stew of pitcher injuries, arm speeds, and starter roles that don’t fit into the neat little boxes we’ve been doodling on our scorecards since the days of Ernie Banks.
Take a step back with me—picture this: the front office, probably sipping some overpriced craft IPA in a meeting room with too many windows, goes, “Hey, what if we flip the script? What if instead of crying into our Old Style every time a pitcher’s elbow twinges, we turn that into gold?” And boom, enter Brad Keller and Ben Brown—two names that might not scream “ace” yet, but they’re the guinea pigs in this grand experiment. The Cubs are basically saying, “Screw the old playbook—let’s see if we can take these guys, post-injury or not, and crank their velocity dials to 11, then figure out where they fit later.” It’s like they’re baking a cake without a recipe—toss in some flour, some sugar, maybe a little kerosene for kicks, and hope it rises.
Now, if this works—if Keller’s fastball starts humming again and Brown’s arm turns into a rubber-band slingshot—holy cow, we’re not just talking a Cubs W here. We’re talking a seismic shift, a full-on tectonic rumble across baseball! Teams might start scouring the injury reports like they’re treasure maps, hunting for the next guy who can throw 95 after a stint on the IL. “Oh, your UCL’s toast? No prob, let’s rehab you into a velo beast!” Suddenly, every GM’s got a spreadsheet titled “Post-Injury Velocity Gambles,” and they’re all trying to out-Cubs the Cubs. And the starter thing? Pfft, forget five innings and a shower—we’re in a world of flex roles now, where a guy might start Monday, relieve Wednesday, and close out Sunday just because his arm’s feeling frisky. Non-traditional? Sure, call it that, but it’s more like baseball’s version of jazz—improvise, baby!
But here’s where my head starts spinning like a foul ball in the upper deck: what if it flops? What if Keller’s arm says “nah” and Brown’s velocity stays stuck in neutral? Are we just back to square one, or does this still nudge the needle forward—like, “Hey, at least we tried something bonkers”? I dunno, man, I’m just a guy with a laptop and a faded Cubs cap, but this feels big—like, bigger than the time I thought they’d win it all in ’03 (we don’t talk about that). If they pull this off, it’s not just a strategy tweak; it’s a whole new lens for how we eyeball pitchers, injuries, and what “starter” even means anymore. Thoughts? Am I overcooking this, or are the Cubs onto something wild?
I think it’s interesting, but I think yiu are a lot smarter than Cubs mgmt. They don’t have the brains and creativity to think the way you are suggesting. You are giving them too much credit.
I’m more interested in your writing style. It is good, but feels derivative. I can’t put my finger on who it sounds like, some post-modernist. Tom Robbins, who just died, RIP? ..Who’ve you been reading lately?
Some guy writes that if I keep “writing about race” (I’m not, I’m writing about how race seems to be a factor in the Cubs’ roster decisions), my comments will be deleted. Well, actually, they are still here, but I would not be silenced anyway. I am not afraid of you censors and book burners. In fact, the intensity of some of the responses against me only tells me I’ve hit a nerve. I’m sorry if my calling out the Cubs upsets you–I’m a lifelong Cubs fan, it upsets me too, I wish I didn’t have to do it–but what I am talking about, the pernicious effects of “soft” (but real) racism needs to be exposed.
But more generally, the attitude of that guy who wants to cancel me for “writing about race” is revealing. That attack on me, and other attacks by some of you, is shooting-the-messenger. And those attacks are illogical anyway. It’s like someone in, say, the 1840s saying something like, “It’s the Abolitionists who are the REAL racists–all they ever talk about is race.” Maybe there were people who said that then. Maybe some of you present-day haters would say that now.
That was me, and if you haven’t noticed, half the comments in this thread are gone because they got deleted.