Orioles starter Dean Kremer on facing doubt, competing with himself, and finding major league success
Dean Kremer spent 2021 pitching scared. The 2022 version had to shed that fear, and the resulting success has made him one of the Orioles' many success stories on the mound.
In the second week of September a year ago, Dean Kremer was summoned for a spot start against Toronto in vastly different circumstances than the one he’ll make Wednesday.
He had been at Norfolk for well over two months straight, his extended stay back in the minors coming after the promise of his 2020 dissipated with an incredibly challenging 2021. His first demotion came in late-May with a 6.85 ERA, and in the third of his three starts after returning in June, Kremer walked five and allowed a home run while recording one out in Toronto before being sent down for, essentially, the duration of the season.
The current edition of Kremer is a different pitcher than that entirely. Since returning from an oblique injury that occurred while he warmed up to pitch the first weekend of the season, Kremer has been realizing the potential that made him a key piece in the Manny Machado trade with the Dodgers back in 2018. He has a 3.22 ERA with a 3.38 FIP and a 1.21 WHIP in 89 ⅓ innings, and leads the team with 1.8 wins above replacement (WAR), according to FanGraphs.
It’s pretty obvious he’s not the same pitcher, but it’s not outwardly easy to quantify what has changed. So, I asked for a bit of his time before Tuesday’s game to try and find out. The threshold for a Q&A here is probably higher than most places, but I felt like this met it. Here is a fascinating, unedited conversation with Kremer about the challenges of breaking into the big leagues and how he overcame them.
Jon Meoli: This time last year, you were about to come up for a spot start against them. It had been a couple months in Norfolk. I imagine that everything probably felt a lot different than it feels like now. What do you remember about that stretch of your life and your career, when you had your rotation chance and then you weren’t here for a while?
DK: Me, along with several others, we all came up here and struggled at one point, just trying to learn the ropes. The big leagues, you can develop and develop and develop, but there’s nothing like development within the big leagues. You can’t replace the development in the big leagues with development in Triple-A. I’m sure that guys this year, the young guys that have come up this year, are realizing that as well, because when they go back down it’s like, ‘OK, this is a lot easier than I remember it.’ And they come back here, and it’s just not the same. Getting adjusted to that during spring, coming to the realization that this is what it’s going to be for, hopefully, the rest of my career. I just have to embrace it.
So this spring you had that thought?
Yea.
I guess that’s what I was wondering – were the seeds of what you’ve been able to do planted during that time last year?
A little bit. I definitely took some baby steps towards the end of last year. A majority – I’ll say a lot of playing in the big leagues is physical, and having the ability to keep up and whatnot. But a lot of it is also mental, and realizing it doesn’t matter who’s in the box, or what the scouting report says, or this and that. So, it’s kind of like a lot of the battles that I’ve found myself and a lot of other guys having is that mental battle of like, ‘Do I belong? Do I not belong?’ Once you kind of embrace that you do belong, and you have the stuff, the potential or whatnot, it doesn’t get easier – but it does.
What led you to hitting that head on and being like, ‘Alright, this is what I need to do? This is how I need to approach this?;
Last year was just trying to stay up here. It was the battle of, like, I don’t want to be sent down. I don’t want to do this. I want to show that I’m good. It was about pitching safe, and then this year, it doesn’t really matter who’s in the box. I’m going to attack you with my best stuff regardless of who you are, whether you’re Mike Trout or Aaron Judge or whoever else. It doesn’t even matter what team you are, whether you’re facing the top team or the top-tier of the league versus the bottom tier of the league. I’ve realized that every lineup has a pocket of guys who can turn five pitches into three runs and you’re just like, ‘Well, that was quick. I guess I’ll start here.’ But just kind of attacking everybody – it doesn’t matter who you are.
You mentioned thinking about that as opposed to the scouting reports and all that stuff. You could almost tell last year you were not your competitive self.
Yea.
What does that feel like and look like when you look back on it?
It doesn’t feel like myself, that’s for sure. Just being all out-of-sync and whatnot. The competitiveness wasn’t necessarily about getting guys out. It was just trying to stick around. That was the biggest thing.
I’ve said this when anybody asks me – not that it matters – but I remember your second start after the trade in Harrisburg, you were pitching great and started getting squeezed and it was like there was smoke coming out of your years. And that’s not the guy I saw on the mound. I’d tell people – that’s not the guy I saw on the mound.
You can attribute it to a bunch of different factors. You have COVID where we’re facing the same guys over and over again, it becomes a developmental thing. The consequences aren’t necessarily there. You don’t have to deal with crowds, any of that – media stuff. You don’t have to deal with any of that.
Then, after I got hurt this year, I came back and I was like, ‘You know what? Screw it. Start from scratch. Who was I before I was–whatever happened last year. What made me good?’ So it came down to, it didn’t matter about who was in the box. It mattered my ability to put the ball where I wanted, and make it move the right way, and things of that nature. I don’t get mad at other guys or players or whatnot, just because that’s not me. But I get mad at myself a lot, because I expect a lot out of myself. And when I do get mad, it’s something that I do or feel like I failed at, then it makes me angry and it brings out the better in myself, performance-wise. That’s kind of what I’ve learned about myself.
And you mentioned being the best pitcher you can be – have you changed as a pitcher stuff-wise? When you look at the Savant page, stuff looks a little different. I don’t know how intentional it is.
My two primaries, I guess, my fastball and my cutter, nothing has changed really. I threw the same changeup last year, but I didn’t have the feel for it that I do this year. I tweaked my curveball a little bit, to try and make it a little smaller and harder so I can control it a little bit better and get more competitive pitches out of it. So, the big one is hard to land and it’s not always most effective because it pops out of the hand. Tweaks to that, and four, five starts ago–last time I faced Toronto, actually, was the first time I really broke out a two-seam, sinker thing. Just trying to get it a little bit more consistent every time.
Stuff-wise, a little bit different, but not a whole lot different. I attribute it more to the mental than the physical, and the physical – the consistency in my delivery is getting better. I realized in ‘18, the year that I got traded, what did I do that I didn’t do the last couple years? It was being on the mound four out of five days instead of two out of the five days. So, my routine would be like gameday, and then Day One, day off, so I’d just play catch. Day Two, I have my bullpen. Day Three, I’ll do dry work, and then Day Four I’ll do dry work as well. I’m on the mound every day but the day after I pitch in games.
And that’s helped in terms of staying in your delivery?
Consistency, and yea, making sure I’m doing the right things. I’ll have outings where my delivery is slightly off, but it’s not my main concern, especially on that day whereas last year, sometimes I got into the mechanical side where I was thinking something was wrong, whether it was or wasn’t. I was thinking trying to focus on doing the right thing mechanically as opposed to competing against the glove or the batter.
I know that everyone has their own experiences working with new people. Is that something you had to find for yourself, like, ‘I know this is what’s prescribed but this works for me.’ Is that something you had to go through on other aspects?
Your whole career, I’m sure everyone in the clubhouse can attest to this. Everything is trial and error. You see what works, you see what doesn’t. I know for me, people can tell me this and that, but if I don’t try to figure it out for myself – they’ll give me an idea and I have to form it my own way. So, for example, if I’m say, quote-unquote, working on a specific pitch. Then, I’ll go to the guys in the pitching room and be like, ‘OK, this is the spin we’re chasing. This is what we’re trying to get it to do. This is the spin that I want, this is the spin that I need to create.’ Then, I have to figure out through grips and throws how to make it do that, or how to chase that spin, that feel. So, everything is pretty much trial-and-error. See what works, see what doesn’t work, and if it does work, keep it.
When you’re talking about the mental side of this, is there anybody you were going to for it? I know you’ve talked about your parents’ [advice] in postgame stuff last year?
Definitely my parents. They know my body language better than anybody. It is incredible. They’ll text me after games, and they know what’s up with me before I even know what’s up with me sometimes. For example, last outing I was battling a cold and I got a text from my Mom after that was like, ‘I know you’re not OK, your mouth was way more dry than it usually is.’ And I was like, ‘How the hell do you even know that? What on the mound did you pick up about my mouth being more dry?’ And then my dad has his background in sports. [Kremer’s father, Adi, played and coached tennis at the University of the Pacific.] He analyzes people better than anybody I’ve ever met. He knows what’s up with me as well.
What about when it’s going well? On the good days, what are the texts like?
My dad, maybe seven or eight starts ago, he was like when you’re up-tempo–because he doesn’t watch the game live, he watches it after so he can fast-forward through it. On the MLB App, you can do like 15 seconds forward, 15 seconds forward. He said after you throw a ball and I press the 15 [button] and you’re throwing the next one versus when I have to hit it twice, stuff like that–when your tempo is up, you’re much more consistent and aggressive.
Last thing. In spring training, you’re fighting for a roster spot and Mike Elias did a [media] call and mentioned all the guys who struggled the way you did last year. He basically was like, ‘All these guys we’ve been counting on, it’s time to go.’ What did it mean to you seeing that and hearing that at the time? Was that communicated to you guys individually?
I can only attest for myself, but I think he approaches each guy slightly different, just because of personalities and whatnot. With me, I don’t necessarily think he was like, ‘This is a now-or-never kind of deal.’ At least not that I can recall. I think they’ve been more than patient with me, but sometimes [laughs] I take a little longer to figure things out than other guys, because I’m stubborn and I want to do it for myself and figure it out.
I’m a firm believe in, if you can figure it out yourself – of course with help, it’s not that I’m saying no to help. But if you can’t figure it out for yourself, because nobody can feel the ball the way that you do, then you’re going to struggle and you won’t be consistent. That’s my thinking.