The right hander has hovered around average for years. Could he have a breakthrough in ‘25?
Look: there are worse things than being an average MLB pitcher. Being terrible at baseball, for instance. So we need to clarify that when we say that for the last few seasons, Dean Kremer has been an average starting pitcher, this is still a very good thing.
Sometimes you hope for a breakout anyway, though.
For several years running, the right hander has been a regular fixture in the Orioles’ starting rotation. Come 2025, barring something random or ridiculous happening, that’s where he’ll be again. It’s nice to have, if not particularly exciting.
Over the last four seasons, Kremer has posted an ERA of 7.55 ERA (ouch), then a career-best 3.23 in 21 games in 2022, but then a 4.12 ERA the next season, and last season it was 4.10. This translates to an ERA+ of 59 in ’21, 121 in ’22, 99 in ’23 and 92 in ’24. Overall, his career ERA is 4.28 and ERA+ 94. Like we said, average.
Kremer has done one thing very well for the Orioles, and that’s make himself available. In 2022, Kremer missed a couple of months with an oblique strain, but he managed to give his team 21 starts, anyway. In 2023, Kremer made 32 starts and, despite a just-average ERA, the O’s loved playing behind him, with a stellar 24-8 record in Kremer starts. Last season, Kremer spent several weeks on the IL in May-June with a right triceps strain, but he still completed 24 starts.
Here’s what the folks at FanGraphs project for Kremer in 2025:
9-8 W-L, 26 G, 3.95 ERA, 7.97 K/9, 3.02 BB/9, 1.14 HR/9, 4.13 FIP, 1.5 WAR
It’s pretty even-steven with what he’s done before. Let’s see where there’s wiggle room, good ‘n’ bad.
The case for the over
Here’s the bad of Dean Kremer, in four words: length, barrels, heater, K’s.
Kremer has developed a pattern of being effective early in games, then falling off dramatically. The 2024 season was a perfect illustration: he had a sparkling 2.75 ERA over the first three innings of his starts, but a 6.09 mark in innings 4-6. By the same token, he allowed an OPS of just .503 the first time through the batting order, but that went up to .794 the third time.
Then there’s barrels. Apparently Kremer doesn’t miss a ton, but when he misses, he misses badly. Despite ranking in the 84th percentile in average exit velocity he finished in the bottom 13 percent of pitchers in barrel percentage.
There were indeed some Kremer pitches that opponents simply teed off of last season. Chiefly that was his fastball, against which opposing batters slugged .500. That’s a big difference, for what it’s worth, from his four other pitches, which had a slugging against of .355 or less.
Kremer was good at limiting walks and home runs, but his strikeout rate of around eight batters per game is below average, too (44th percentile last year).
The case for the under
Here’s the good of Kremer, in three words: arsenal, spin, damage-control (OK, I cheated).
Kremer is continually messing with his arsenal to try to outwit batters. In 2023, he used his fastball 41% of the time, his cutter 31%, then his changeup and curveball. In 2024, he reduced his dependence on his heater (32%) and introduced a splitter (18%). This spring, we’ve already seen Kremer a new two-seam fastball—to mixed results, to be sure, but he and Brandon Hyde sound like they think the pitch will come around.
Kremer may not have the highest strikeout rates, but he does have a lot of spin, ranking in the top 21 percent in curveball spin and top 27 percent in fastball spin rate. That takes average offerings and makes them harder to pick up. Kremer’s split-finger is a good example. The pitch had a solid chase rate of 31.7%. This context makes FanGraphs’ predicted K/9 of 7.97 (which would be Kremer’s lowest since 2022) seem perhaps unnecessarily stingy.
Finally, Kremer sometimes gets hit hard, but he doesn’t give up many of the biggest blows. In 2022, his best year, his 0.8 homer rate was ninth-lowest among qualified AL starters. That total rose to 1.2 in ’24, but the vast damage was done against his fastball, his worst pitch last season. If Kremer can introduce deceptiveness with new stuff, it will help him frame and offseat the heater.
Kremer, who turned 29 on Jan. 7, became arbitration-eligible for the first time this offseason, and was signed to a one-year, $2.95 million contract for the 2025 season. This was a little bit less than the $3.5 million via arbitration that MLBTradeRumors predicted.
It’s not an exciting contract, but boring can be good sometimes. This offseason he told reporters, of a personal goal, “Being good is boring.” The Orioles would certainly take 20-30 boring starts from an above-average Dean Kremer.
It feels like the right hander is often on the cusp of a breakout. Can Dean Kremer take a step forward in 2025?