Both veteran pitchers are enjoying the best baseball of their career right now. With shakeup of the rotation on the horizon, can they provide stability now and in 2026?
With the trade deadline looming just nine days from now, this Orioles rotation should be in for quite the shakeup. As our Tyler Young outlined yesterday, starting pitchers Charlie Morton, Zach Eflin and Tomoyuki Sugano could very well leaving Baltimore in the coming days. All are on expiring contracts and, between their age, performance this season and what it’d cost to keep them, they don’t exactly fit into the Orioles long term plans.
However, the pending exodus of starters means the Orioles—a franchise that’s only finished with a Top 10 team ERA twice in the last 25 seasons—will once again be looking to remake their rotation. And in an unlikely turn of events, the two pillars likely to be holding up this rotation after the fire sale will be Dean Kremer and Trevor Rogers. But are they up for the task?
Both Kremer and Rogers came to the Orioles organization under similar circumstances. Kremer was one of four players the O’s got in return when they shipped Manny Machado and his expiring contract to the Dodgers in 2018. Kremer was by no means the headliner of that prospect package, but he is the only one to ever earn a meaningful opportunity with the Orioles.
Up until the last couple months, Kremer had always been looked at as the kind of pitcher you’re fine with as your No.5 starter, but who you’d worry about if thrust into a bigger role. He had a 4.28 ERA in 94 starts for Baltimore prior to 2025 and never showed the consistent ability to be more than slightly above replacement level.
Rogers faced an uphill battle with Birdland before he even threw a pitch for the O’s because of the players Baltimore traded away to acquire him. Many viewed outgoing players Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby as potential future starters in Baltimore and questioned the idea of swapping them for a starter with a 4.53 ERA. It didn’t help that Rogers struggled to a 7.11 ERA in his first four appearances in black and orange before being sent to Norfolk to rediscover his best form.
Since Rogers made his 2025 debut on May 24th, he and Kremer have been the most consistent and most productive members of the Orioles rotation. In seven starts this season, Rogers has a 1.74 ERA, .163 BAA and has done his best Tom Glavine impression as a control-oriented lefty with a high ground-ball rate.
In that same time frame, Kremer has played the best baseball of his career, posting a 2.72 ERA, .234 BAA and 2.91 FIP while averaging six innings per start. Kremer’s certainly mixed in a few more subpar outings than Rogers, but he’s giving the Orioles length and putting them in a position to win every time he takes the mound.
The “why” behind the improvement from Kremer and Rogers also suggests that this run of form is sustainable. Kremer has long had a reputation as a tinkerer on the mound, someone who changes his approach from start to start. Since May, Kremer has settled on a repertoire that continues to produce results. After relying heavily on his cutter early in the season, he’s returned to his splitter being his go-to secondary pitch while using his cutter only against right-handers.
Kremer has also shown a level of fastball command we haven’t seen from him in the past. Previously, he’s been a little scattershot with his fastball command, making it harder to set up his other offerings. This season, Kremer’s been far more consistent in attacking the top of the zone with his fastball—which is where you want to live if you’re trying to set a dive-bombing splitter.
Kremer’s success this season is really the refinement of the approach he developed when he first started throwing the splitter last season. His current hot stretch may seem like a 10-start outlier, when in actuality it’s the culmination of work Kremer’s been putting in over 40+ outings.
For Rogers, much of his improvement comes down to an uptick in velocity. Like Glavine, Rogers is always most successful when relying on his fastball-changeup combo and using his breaking ball just enough to keep hitters off balance. Rogers has always operated in the low 90s throughout his career, but has seen that velocity play up thanks to his above-average extension.
This season, his average fastball velocity is up almost two whole MPH from what we saw last season. While the jump from 91-92 mph to 93-94 mph might not seem like a lot, it’s made all the difference for Rogers. As a pitcher who relies heavily on his changeup, that extra fastball velocity helps get hitters that much more out in front of the off-speed offering.
The 27-year-old southpaw has always been a ground ball pitcher with a low strikeout rate, and the improved velocity has helped him produce the best ground ball rate of his career. On his changeup in particular, Rogers has a 77.5% ground ball rate, nine percentage points higher than his career best and 13 points higher than his All-Star season in 2021. Which is to say, unless his fastball velocity suddenly dips, the good version of Rogers looks here to stay.
The two sixth-year veterans may never be seen as capable of leading a pitching staff, but they are proving with every start that they can provide the foundation the Orioles need to start rebuilding this rotation for 2026. It’s easy to imagine that Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez return fully healthy in 2026 and, along with Kremer and Rogers, give the O’s a quartet of starting pitchers that can launch them back into contention.
However, betting on Rodriguez’ health has proven to be a losing proposition lately, and there’s no way to be sure that Bradish can bounce back to his best post-Tommy John. Baltimore needs starting pitchers they can rely on both now and throughout next season. Thankfully, in one of the few positive surprises of 2025, Kremer and Rogers are proving to be those pillars of reliability.