Merrill Kelly was once out of American professional baseball as he looked to keep his career alive in the sport. On Tuesday, he'll take the mound for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic final against Japan.
Team USA manager Mark DeRosa indicated Kelly was likely to get the ball during Tuesday's championship following the team's semifinal win against Cuba on Sunday.
"Obviously, it looks like it's Merrill Kelly's day," DeRosa told reporters.
Kelly has made only one appearance so far in the WBC, when he gave up two runs on four hits and two walks while striking out one in three innings against Colombia.
Handing the ball to Kelly in the final will be putting the ball in the hands of one of USA's best pitchers, in spite of his shaky WBC outing. Last season, Kelly had a 3.37 ERA across 200.1 innings of work despite pitching in the NL West against playoff powerhouses like the Padres and Dodgers.
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As Kelly prepares to pitch on the biggest stage of his career, The Sporting News is taking a look back at his long road to starting the winner-take-all WBC final.
Who is Merrill Kelly?
Kelly is a 34-year-old right-handed pitcher who currently plays for the Diamondbacks. The veteran starter is in his fourth season with Arizona, and is expected to be No. 2 in the rotation behind ace and likely Opening Day starter Zac Gallen.
While Kelly will be getting the ball for the most important start of his career, his path to this point has been anything but easy.
Here's a look at how Arizona's right-hander reached the WBC.
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Merrill Kelly career timeline
Yavapai College
Coming out of Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., Kelly was selected in the 37th round of the 2007 MLB Draft by the Orioles. However, he opted instead to go to the juco route at Yavapai College.
His first season there, Kelly pitched to a 5.53 ERA in 70 innings of work with 55 strikeouts and 17 walks. But he experienced a major jump the following season. As a sophomore in 2009, Kelly had an impressive 1.48 ERA in 97.1 innings of work with 88 strikeouts and only 24 walks. With Kelly on the staff, the Roughriders won two straight ACCAC Conference titles.
That performance in his sophomore year was enough for Kelly to again receive MLB consideration. Baseball America wrote that while his stats were outstanding, scouts didn't quite view him as positively as coaches of the teams he faced. The site described him as having an upper-80s/low-90s fastball with a changeup that was almost an eephus.
Cleveland selected him in the 22nd round of the 2009 MLB Draft, but Kelly once again turned down the chance to go pro and instead set his sights on the next level of college ball.
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Arizona State
Following his graduation from Yavapai, Kelly transferred to Arizona State, remaining in his home state to pitch as a junior in Tempe.
Kelly had his ups and downs during the season. He had a 4.23 ERA, but also went 10-3 with 78 strikeouts in 100 innings of work. He was placed on the honorable mention All-Pac 10 team in his lone season with the Sun Devils.
That season would be his last in Arizona — for a time. Kelly was back in MLB draft consideration, with his scouting report having improved facing the tougher competition. Baseball America continued to see mixed results from Kelly, praising his ability to find success, but having concerns over his delivery.
"You just don't see guys pitch like that in the big leagues," one scout told BA. The site said he likely profiled best as a reliever in the pros.
The Rays liked what they saw out of Kelly and took him 251st overall in the 2010 MLB Draft, and this time, he signed to take his talents to the pros.
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Tampa Bay Rays
Kelly jumped right into the pros in 2010, pitching with Tampa Bay's Low-A and Class-A teams to a 4.30 ERA across 37.2 innings of work.
The next year, he was pitching as a starter full-time with the team's High-A affiliate, and showed some improvements. In 25 games, he had a 3.28 ERA, but continued to have issues missing bats, with only 70 strikeouts to 51 walks in 129 innings.
Kelly continued to ascend up through the minors, posting solid ERAs, albeit with low strikeout rates and high walk rates. At Double-A in 2012, he had a 3.57 ERA in 88.1 innings, but had 61 strikeouts to 28 walks. In 2013, between Double-A and Triple-A, it was a 3.64 ERA with 111 strikeouts and 65 walks in 158.1 innings.
He seemed to turn a corner in 2014 when he had by far the best season of his career. In 114 innings, he had a 2.76 ERA with 108 strikeouts and only 37 walks, tied for the lowest BB/9 rate of his MiLB career (2.9) and by far his best strikeout rate (8.5 to 6.3 in 2013).
But after the season, he was a free agent and did not return to the majors. Instead, Kelly went overseas.
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SK Wyverns (KBO)
Kelly's 2014 season might not have netted him the success in the U.S. he was hoping for, but it did get him noticed internationally. According to Cut4, SK Wyverns of the KBO League in South Korea asked the Rays about Kelly, but they were turned away due to a buyout fee.
After they failed to land him that season, SK Wyverns signed him after the season. Kelly said he viewed it as the best option for him since he wasn't added to Tampa Bay's 40-man roster or selected in the Rule 5 draft, and he started to feel like his future with the team would be as a swingman, pitching both out of the rotation and in the bullpen. he wanted to be a starter.
Still, the KBO was a relative unknown to him.
"When I was first approached, I had no idea there was even a KBO," Kelly told Cut4. "I knew of the NPB, I knew of guys that had gone over to play in Japan for a long while, but I had never heard of the KBO and didn't know there was a professional league in Korea."
Life in Korea was an adjustment for him, he said. He didn't speak the language, the training schedule and food were different, and his girlfriend still lived in the U.S., working as a kindergarten teacher. He said his teammates helped him get adjusted to the new situation.
Kelly saw mixed results in 2015, his first season in the KBO. He had a 4.13 ERA in the hitter-dominant league across 181 innings and had just 139 strikeouts and 54 walks in the season.
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But with each year, Kelly saw improvement. He was down to a 3.68 ERA in 2016 and 3.60 ERA in 2017, with him also posting a 9.0 K/9 with 189 strikeouts in 190 innings. In 2018, though his ERA went back up to 4.09, he also struck out 161 batters in 158.1 innings with only 47 walks, his first time in the pros with more strikeouts than innings pitched.
During that point, he also upped his velocity from the low-90s with Tampa Bay to as high as 97 in Korea.
"I wish I could put my finger on what exactly contributed to the spike in velo, but honestly, I don't have a solid answer for you," Kelly told Cut4.
"Sometimes over there, you have to be your own pitching coach," Kelly added. "Just whether or not something gets lost in translation or whether or not you are attacking the same problem, but they go about it a little bit differently. You have to navigate the waters on your own sometimes. That forced me to start to look for things I didn't before because you have to fix it."
Kelly hit free agency after the 2018 season, and before too long, was headed back to baseball. And this time, it was going to be in the majors.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Kelly was signed to a minor-league deal with the Diamondbacks in December 2018, and he earned a spot on the Opening Day roster as a starter in Arizona, the state where he went both to high school and college.
His first season saw him lead the NL in losses with 14, but he also led the team with 13 wins. He posted a 4.42 ERA in 183.1 innings with 158 strikeouts and 57 walks. The next year, he had a 2.59 ERA in five starts in a COVID-shortened season that also saw him shut down in September due to an injury.
His ERA hit a high in 2021 at 4.44, but his walk rate also went down to 2.3 BB/9 across 158 innings of work. He also struck out 130 batters (7.4 K/9).
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Last year was his best. In 2022, he had a 3.37 ERA while leading the NL with 33 starts. He had 177 strikeouts in 200.1 innings with only 61 walks, good for an 8.0 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9. Kelly was named the NL Pitcher of the Month in July with a 4-0 record, a 1.31 ERA and a league-best 41.1 innings of work.
After he saw his ERA rise up after a strong start, he improved his walk rate in July, walking only nine batters from July 1 to Aug. 6.
“If I have my command, that means I can be more aggressive, I can attack better,” Kelly said, according to AZCentral. “If I have my command, that means I'm getting ahead early. That means I can expand the zone late. Rather than if I don't have the command, that means I'm falling behind and then you kinda go into more survival mode than attack mode.”
Kelly will be heading into his age-34 season with the Diamondbacks. He's under contract through 2024 with a team option for the 2025 season.
As Arizona prepares for what could be a breakout campaign for a young, exciting roster, Kelly is going to be a central piece for their team. But on Tuesday, the only thing Kelly will be focused on is helping his team win a second straight WBC title.