Player Preview: Dean Kremer
Breaking Down The Orioles Potential Opening Day Starter and What To Expect in 2023
The 27-year-old right is in the mix to be the opening-day starter after a surprising 2022 campaign and is one reason for the remarkable improvement in the Oriole’s record. Dean was acquired in 2018 in the Manny Machado Trade and is the only player acquired still with the Orioles organization.
The righty has spent parts of the past three seasons with the birds and is under team control through the 2027 season and will make the second year minimum while potentially garnering super two status after the season, meaning he could trigger his arbitration years to start a year early if he spends enough time in the bigs. If he does not make the cut-off for super two status he will still make the minimum in 2024 and then enter arbitration in 2025 through the 2027 season.
After making his debut in 2020 with four starts, 18, and 2/3rds innings with a 4.82 ERA which was slightly below average taking into account the ballpark as his 98 ERA+ shows. In 2021 Kremer struggled mightily as he had an ERA over 7 in 13 starts measuring 53 and 2/3rds innings before having a drastically improved 2022 campaign. After dealing with an oblique strain that caused him to miss the beginning of the season the righty put a 3.23 ERA over 125 and a third innings in 22 games, 21 starts. His ERA+ was 124 showing he was well above average even when you adjust for the park though his periphery numbers show he may have outperformed as his Fielding Independent Pitching measured .380 while his expected ERA and expected FIP measured 4.46 and .4.43 respectively. This is partly driven by the fact that Kremer does not get a lot of strikeouts with his K rate measuring in the 13th percentile of all qualifying major leaguers to go along with measuring in the 23rd percentile in Whiff percentage and having only 6.25 strikeouts per nine innings last season significantly below the league average. The righty has a four-pitch mix mainly relying on his fastball and cutter which combined for 72% of his pitches last season then sprinkled in his changeup(15%) and curveball(12%) one thing to note is that his fastball measured in the 17th percentile in terms of velocity which shows how things have changed in MLB as his average velocity is 93MPH. The big thing in terms of his Statcast numbers is his spin rate where he measures in the 73rd percentile in fastball spin and 79th percentile in curveball spin. Kremer also was middle of the pack in average exit velocity (52nd percentile) and Barrel Percentage allowed (48th percentile) and his pitch-to-contact approach that worked last season has been effective in limiting walks as his Walk Percentage measured in the upper third at the 68th percentile. His 2.8 WAR according to Baseball Reference and 1.8 according to Fangraphs were good for him only making 21 starts which put him in solid starter territory.
ZiPS currently has him projected for a 3.51 ERA over 146 innings spread over 26 starts which would be good for 2.4 WAR according to their metrics over at Fangraphs. While his periphery numbers are concerning there have been many pitchers who have outperformed their numbers since baseball isn’t played on paper or on a computer he could continue to have success though 125 innings is not the largest of sample sizes. Like a lot of the young inexperienced Orioles on the current roster, there is a wide array of potential outcomes for Kremer this season if he pitches like last season and is healthy the full season he could have a 4+ WAR season which is borderline All-Star territory. On the other hand, if he pitches more like his periphery numbers would indicate he would be more of a back-of-the-rotation starter type probably putting up a 1-2 WAR at best and while I think he is better than the advanced metrics would indicate since they downplay pitchers who do not get a lot of strikeouts the results will probably be somewhere in the middle of the two outcomes. I would project about 150 innings,175-200 if he stays healthy, with an ERA around 3.75 to 4.2 which should be around league average as I see him as a middle-of-the-rotation arm going forward meaning a solid number three-type starter though he is still in his physical prime and has potential to be a front of the rotation starter if he can build on last season. Lastly, it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to how the league adjusts to him as now they will have plenty of information as to how he attacks hitters and his approach. I’d like to hear what you think Dean will do this upcoming season so let me know in the comments or on Twitter.