Is this pitcher a bit overlooked in the Baltimore rotation?

He is not the forgotten man in the Orioles starting rotation but maybe he is at times slightly overlooked.

With Birdland excited about Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez at the top of that rotation and the return of lefty John Means late last year in addition to the potential to add another starter, we can look past the 2023 contributions of right-hander Dean Kremer.

And we certainly should not, although on the stat sheet, his ’23 was not as strong in some respects as his ’22. But last season Kremer made 32 starts and the Orioles went 24-8 (.750). That stat alone should grab your attention. For comparison, they went 19-11 (.633) in Bradish’s starts and 14-9 (.609) when Rodriguez took the mound.

That doesn’t make Kremer a better pitcher since so much goes into that record like the defense behind you, run support and the ability for the late relievers to close out your game. But Kremer puts his team in position to win such a high percentage of his starts.

His season was marred by a slow start. In fact, his ERA was 6.67 in April. But then it was 3.59 his last 26 starts, as the Orioles went 21-5. Had he posted a 3.59 ERA for the full year he would have finished ninth in the AL in that stat.

But Kremer had some nice accomplishments for the season:

* His career-high 13 victories ranked second on the O’s and were tied for sixth in the AL.

* He also posted career bests with 157 strikeouts, 14 quality starts, and 172 2/3 innings.

* He recorded 46 strikeouts with his cutter, the third-most in MLB.

* His 11 victories in night games were tied with teammate Kyle Gibson for second-most in the AL.

* He pitched to a 5-1 record with a 3.09 ERA and seven quality starts in his final 15 starts.

Kremer had a strong finish indeed with an ERA of 2.63 his last three starts. Over his last 10 regular-season starts beginning Aug. 4, he was 3-1 with a 2.89 ERA, a .226 average against and .612 OPS. The O’s went 8-2 in those games.

Kremer is also now positioned to make a run at 200 innings if he made all his starts in 2024. He threw 134 1/3 innings in 2022 counting a few on the farm and pitched 172 2/3 last year.

There might be reasons to have a few questions about Kremer's 2023 season when he posted a better ERA (3.23), WHIP (1.253), homer rate (0.8) and walk rate (2.4) in 2022.

But none of his 2023 numbers in those areas were poor at all and again, his rough April last year in the end skewed some of his season-long stats.

But as the Orioles look toward their rotation for next season, Kremer's spot seems solid. Bradish, Rodriguez, Means and Kremer are a good group of four right now. They could be joined by a new addition and/or any of Tyler Wells, DL Hall and Cole Irvin to produce a pretty solid group to make another run at an AL East championship.