TT: Dean Kremer - Why is he having success, what's different, is it sustainable?

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

His first pitch str% is 61.6%.  It was 55.7% in 2021 and 42% in 2020.  League average is 54.2%.
 

His P/PA are also better than league average.  He is under 3.8.  He has been above 4 the previous 2 years.

Of course we have to bear in mind that we are under 100 IP in total in his career, so these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Word, good research.  Fangraphs, I'm assuming?

Yep, it's all still a small sample size but at least things are trending in the right direction for him.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Word, good research.  Fangraphs, I'm assuming?

Yep, it's all still a small sample size but at least things are trending in the right direction for him.

Baseball reference.  

And yea, that’s what we are looking for.  Improvements.  The improvements are showing, both in traditional and non traditional numbers.

There are also reasons to think he will regress but at least progress is being shown and that’s great to see.

[btdart20]

I like seeing that much red on the Savant page!  Looks like the pitch mix changes has helped us FB be more effective.

15 hours ago, PHRESH said:

Ok, so it's up a little, but probably a negligible amount. 

A change from 60% to 65% is an 8+% improvement.  8+ more strikes per 100 pitches.  2ish per IP.  In a game were failure 7 out of 10 at bats is HOF material that type of “marginal” improvement/variance on the most pivotal piece of the game (throwing strikes) moves the needle on a lot of downstream stats.

[PHRESH]

4 hours ago, btdart20 said:

A change from 60% to 65% is an 8+% improvement.  8+ more strikes per 100 pitches.  2ish per IP.  In a game were failure 7 out of 10 at bats is HOF material that type of “marginal” improvement/variance on the most pivotal piece of the game (throwing strikes) moves the needle on a lot of downstream stats.

Lol yeah, at first glance, a 5% increase didn't seem like much, but it's actually a pretty nice jump. 

[Matt Bennett]

Another great start from Kremer, although seems like the defense helped him out quite a bit. I’m wondering if Dean is Bruce Zimmermanning us right now. 

Getting a little 2012 Chris Tillman + Miguel Gonzalez vibes to Tyler Wells + Dean Kremer??

[Tony-OH]

3 minutes ago, Matt Bennett said:

Another great start from Kremer, although seems like the defense helped him out quite a bit. I’m wondering if Dean is Bruce Zimmermanning us right now. 

Getting a little 2012 Chris Tillman + Miguel Gonzalez vibes to Tyler Wells + Dean Kremer??

Wells and Kremer are certainly the top two starting pitchers in the rotation right now. Nice to have guys in the rotation that you kind of expect to have a good start, not hope to have a good start.

[Frobby]

Pitching is endlessly fascinating.   The pitchers who are consistently good are few and far between, and even those guys can throw a stinker once in a while.

Kremer looked very good in 2020 in his first few major league starts, closed the year with a stinker, sucked all last year and was even shaky in the minors, and now looks like the guy we saw in his first few starts in 2020.   Will it continue?   Beats me, but I hope so!   I appreciate Tony’s attempt to break it down with pitch analysis, but in the end, we don’t know if the guy will keep executing his pitches or not.   Crossing my fingers!
 

 

[interloper]

It seemed like he got a little lucky last night, but at the end of the day 7 scoreless is 7 scoreless. However I am refusing to let myself believe that "he's good now" or anything like that. Just hope it lasts as long as possible, because we really need him right now. 

[now]

23 hours ago, PHRESH said:

Lol yeah, at first glance, a 5% increase didn't seem like much, but it's actually a pretty nice jump. 

So we're talking about going from 60% to 65% strikes, a 5% difference. But the balls also decrease from 40% to 35%, another 5% improvement. Is this double counting? If so, it's like playing head to head with an opponent, and any win or loss has double the impact. Or is this math twist off base??

 

[sportsfan8703]

Kremer is a great example of that a pitcher can go back down to AAA and work on things.  It's not all or nothing when they first come back.  I think we'll see the same from Zimmerman.  We should keep this in mind with Bradish as well, and possibly with inserting Akin back into the rotation.  

[Frobby]

56 minutes ago, now said:

So we're talking about going from 60% to 65% strikes, a 5% difference. But the balls also decrease from 40% to 35%, another 5% improvement. Is this double counting? If so, it's like playing head to head with an opponent, and any win or loss has double the impact. Or is this math twist off base??

 

It’s fair enough.  And I think one has to consider that in the majors this year, nobody throws more than 75.7% or less than 58.4% strikes (30 inning minimum).  So, you’re not really working on a 100-point range, it’s more like 18% top to bottom.     65% strikes is about a top 35% strike-thrower, 60% is a bottom 20% strike-thrower.   So, that’s a very big difference, relative to other pitchers.  

[Hank Scorpio]

I think it's the hair/moustache combo. 

[now]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

It’s fair enough.  And I think one has to consider that in the majors this year, nobody throws more than 75.7% or less than 58.4% strikes (30 inning minimum).  So, you’re not really working on a 100-point range, it’s more like 18% top to bottom.     65% strikes is about a top 35% strike-thrower, 60% is a bottom 20% strike-thrower.   So, that’s a very big difference, relative to other pitchers.  

Good research, milking that 5% improvement for even more value added!

[justD]

On 6/29/2022 at 10:11 AM, sportsfan8703 said:

Kremer is a great example of that a pitcher can go back down to AAA and work on things.  It's not all or nothing when they first come back.  I think we'll see the same from Zimmerman.  We should keep this in mind with Bradish as well, and possibly with inserting Akin back into the rotation.  

Just an aside: When we look at how much pitching talent we have in AAA or AA and are checking stats and “success” at those levels, it could be wise to consider how much they’re often working on things rather than trying to just pitch a good game.

I mean, pitching success is often based on pitch sequences, on knowing what to throw to a hitter, etc. Whereas when you’re working on things, you might be ignoring that quite a bit in order to get the desired reps in of a given pitch or set of pitches that aren’t your strength at that moment, hence trying to work on them.  Right?

[Tony-OH]

12 hours ago, justD said:

Just an aside: When we look at how much pitching talent we have in AAA or AA and are checking stats and “success” at those levels, it could be wise to consider how much they’re often working on things rather than trying to just pitch a good game.

I mean, pitching success is often based on pitch sequences, on knowing what to throw to a hitter, etc. Whereas when you’re working on things, you might be ignoring that quite a bit in order to get the desired reps in of a given pitch or set of pitches that aren’t your strength at that moment, hence trying to work on them.  Right?

It also unfortunately goes the other way were success at hose levels may not mean success at the major league level. That's why you gotta scout them and look at how they are being successful. I wish statcast data was available for the general public on minor leaguers. Not sure why those are held as state secrets!