Dave Van Horn reacts to Dallas Keuchel trade to Brewers
Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Dave Van Horn recently shared his reaction to the Milwaukee Brewers trading for former Razorback pitcher Dallas Keuchel.
At one point, Dallas Keuchel was one of the best pitchers in baseball. However, in recent seasons, he’s struggled on the mound and struggled to find a team, even playing in Triple-A and showing a determination to get back to the show.
“Dallas, if he was a 95 mph guy, I’d get it,” Dave Van Horn said. “But he’s just a pitcher. I mean, 89, 88, 92 with sink and run and cut. He can manipulate the baseball. He’s not trying to strike everybody out. He’s trying to get some ground balls. If you have different types of guys, big, right-handed hard throwers, and you pitch him the next day or off of them, it can be a little confusing even to a big league hitter.”
In 2015, Dallas Keuchel won the Cy Young Award with a record of 20-8 with a 2.48 ERA. He also won the World Series in 2017 and is a five-time Gold Glove Award winner. He continued to be an effective pitcher until the 2021 season. That’s when things started to go sideways for him and he had a 5.28 ERA that season. He followed that up with a 9.20 ERA in 2022 and a 5.97 ERA in 2023.
Dallas Keuchel started 2024 in the minor league system for the Seattle Mariners before getting traded to Milwaukee for cash considerations. That makes six teams that he’s played for since the start of the 2022 season while trying to get back to where he once was.
“So, yeah, I imagine that they need him now and they traded somebody,” Van Horn said. “So, they didn’t trade [for] him to pitch in the minor leagues. They traded for him to come and get some big league hitters out for them.”
Certainly, the Brewers do want Dallas Keuchel to pitch for them. He already got a start on Wednesday against the Texas Rangers. It was his first MLB start of the season and he went four innings while allowing five earned runs and two home runs.
Keuchel played for Arkansas and Van Horn for three seasons and was the team’s Friday night starter for the 2009 season. That year, he had a 3.92 ERA and the Razorbacks managed to go all the way to Omaha and the College World Series.