The 2022 Baltimore Orioles have been full of surprises, but perhaps one of the biggest to many Orioles fans has been the rise of Dean Kremer as a really solid starting pitcher in the rotation.
Kremer came over to the Orioles as the main pitching piece of the Manny Machado trade and coming into this year, he hadn’t looked especially good. He made his major league debut in 2020, pitching 18.2 innings through four starts and turning in a 4.82 ERA.
He was then sent back to Triple-A in 2021, pitching to an unimpressive 4.91 ERA over through 13 starts and 62.1 innings. And in the majors that year, Kremer posted an awful 7.55 ERA through 13 starts.
Given all this, it would be understandable coming into 2022 if Orioles fans were less than excited to have Kremer in the rotation. But he’s been an extremely pleasant surprise, pitching to a 3.33 ERA and 3.58 FIP through 105.1 innings and 18 starts.
So the question now is, how real is all of this? Is this luck? Or has Kremer made some changes that mean this kind of pitching could stick now and in the future?
What Kremer is doing right
Kremer has absolutely made some noticeable changes this season. First off, there’s the extra tick of velocity added to his fastball, bringing up its average velocity from 92.6 MPH last year to 93.6 MPH this year.
Now, a fastball sitting around 94 MPH on average is hardly anything special in the majors anymore, but combined with a very high spin rate (in the 74th percentile in all of baseball), Kremer’s fastball is able to be very effective.
In fact, from a batted ball perspective, it’s been his best pitch, with hitters posting just a .267 wOBA and .099 ISO against the pitch. It’s not a strikeout pitch by any means (four-seam fastball rarely are) but it’s an excellent pitch at inducing weak contact.
The other big change Kremer has made has been using his cutter more. Here’s a look at the pitch:
Kremer significantly increased his usage of the cutter this year, from throwing it 21% of the time last year to 30.9% of the time this year. It’s almost equal to his fastball, which he’s been throwing 35% of the time this year compared to 55.7% of the time last year.
The pitch has looked really good this year, posting a 35.6% chase rate, 11.3% swinging-strike rate, .305 wOBA against and .094 ISO against. Combined with his four-seamer, Kremer’s cutter represents a really solid one-two punch that sort of acts like a fastball/slider combo.
What Kremer is doing wrong
There are definitely plenty of things Kremer is doing that are very concerning to me. Whether or not he’s had a good start has entirely hinged on how well he’s throwing his cutter, and that’s because the rest of his secondary pitches are garbage.
His third most-thrown pitch is his changeup, and while it’s getting some swings and misses (it’s got a solid 32.9% chase rate), it’s also eminently hittable, as opposing hitters have a .298 average against the pitch. Fortunately, they haven’t been slugging the pitch too hard, posting just a .088 ISO against it, so that’s helped some, but a .298 average and .335 wOBA against isn’t great.
Even worse though is his curveball, as that pitch has posted a miserable .411 wOBA and .300 ISO against. Hitters are just teeing off on that pitch, and no wonder—look where he’s locating it:
If you’re going to throw curveballs middle-down in the zone, hitters are going to crush them. This is especially frustrating to me because Kremer has a really good-looking curveball—take a look.
That’s a really solid looking curveball, one that I think could be a really solid secondary pitch for him. The problem is, he has to locate it lower in the zone—you can’t throw a curveball over the middle of the plate to major league hitters or else you’re going to get the results that Kremer has seen so far.
So what does the future hold for Dean Kremer?
I love a lot of the changes Kremer has made this year. My friend Nick Pollack over at Pitcher List has said before that there are two types of pitchers—throwers and pitchers. Throwers go up there with nasty stuff and just throw it, and if it doesn’t work, they just keep doing the same thing over and over again. Pitchers tinker with their mechanics, their repertoire, they work on things to change what isn’t working.
It’s looking like Kremer is more pitcher than thrower, and I like that. He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, he doesn’t have a 100 MPH fastball or a 92 MPH slider he can rely on—he has to work his way through things, and it seems like he’s doing that.
Increasing the cutter usage, adding velocity to his four-seamer, both of those are awesome, and I think a lot of his success can be owed to that. But you need more than two pitches, and the fact that his changeup and curveball are so bad really worries me.
I would love to see Kremer employ an approach of mainly fastballs and cutters like he is, but locating his fastballs mostly up, cutters low and away to right-handed batters (almost treating them like you would a slider), and then throwing curveballs below the zone as an occasional putaway pitch while peppering in a few changeups here and there.
He’s got to do something to add another pitch he can consistently use. If he just keeps going with a fastball/cutter approach, that’s going to eventually blow up. There aren’t many starting pitchers who can succeed consistently with just two pitches, and the ones that do typically have an absolutely filthy pitch as one of those two pitches (see: Kevin Gausman).
Kremer is not one of those guys. His stuff is fine, it works, but none of it is going to be among the best in the league (at least, not right now). But Kremer can be a solid starting pitcher if he develops a consistent third pitch he can mix in with his cutter and fastball. I’d love to see that be his curveball, I think it’s a good looking pitch, but whether it’s that or he’s able to make his changeup less hittable, one of those things needs to happen if Kremer is going to be a consistently good arm in the Orioles’ rotation.
Ben Palmer has lived in Maryland his whole life and currently spends his days working as a health care journalist. He also previously wrote for and was a site expert for the FanSided blog The Baltimore Wire and currently works as managing editor at Pitcher List where he writes about fantasy baseball.