Dean Kremer adjusts pitch mix and arm angle with Twins, showing early results

Dean Kremer has made meaningful adjustments to his pitch mix and raised his arm angle since joining the Minnesota Twins, and per Dan Hayes of The Athletic, those changes are showing up in early results. One of the alterations, Hayes reports, was Kremer's own idea.

What happened

Per Hayes, who covers the Twins beat, Kremer has incorporated two notable changes since arriving in Minnesota: a different pitch mix and a higher arm angle. Hayes notes that at least one of those adjustments came at Kremer's own suggestion — a detail worth holding onto, because pitchers who arrive with a diagnosis of their own mechanics tend to own the fix in a way that outside-in tinkering doesn't always produce.

The report does not specify which pitches were added, removed, or reprioritized in the mix, nor does it quantify how much the arm angle has risen. What Hayes characterizes is a directional shift — a pitcher who has changed how he operates since changing addresses — and early returns that he describes as successful.

Why it matters

Arm angle and pitch mix are not cosmetic. They are the two levers most directly connected to how a pitcher's stuff plays against major-league hitters. A higher arm angle typically changes the vertical and horizontal movement profiles of every pitch in a starter's arsenal — the same grip, released from a different slot, produces a different shape. When that change is paired with a reconfigured mix, the cumulative effect on a hitter's timing and eye can be substantial.

The fact that Kremer reportedly initiated at least one of these changes himself matters operationally. A pitcher who identifies his own adjustment and brings it to the coaching staff is, in a practical sense, a different kind of project than one who is handed a prescription. The Twins' pitching infrastructure has a track record of working with starters on mechanical and arsenalrelated refinements, and a willing participant accelerates that process.

Hayes is not reporting a projection here — the word "early" is doing real work in his framing. Early success is exactly that: a sample, a signal, a reason to watch. It is not a verdict, and the Posterior Wire desk is not in the business of issuing those anyway.

The numbers

Kremer is scheduled to start Saturday, August 22 at Petco Park against the San Diego Padres, with Casey Mize projected as the opposing starter. That is the next concrete data point — a start in a major-league game, in a park that has its own particular character, against a lineup that will have its own opinion about the new arm angle.

The Twins enter that start at 68-75 (.476), sitting third in the AL Central, 7 games back of the division lead, and carrying a one-game losing streak into San Diego.

Where the club stands

Minnesota's 68-75 record places them third in the AL Central. On the wild card ledger, they sit ranked seventh, 4.5 games relative to the cut line — a position that makes every rotation start load-bearing in a different way than it would be for a team with breathing room.

The upcoming schedule runs through San Diego for the first two games of the series — Kremer on Saturday, Bailey Ober against Walker Buehler on Sunday — before the club travels to face the Athletics at Sutter Health Park on Monday, where Zebby Matthews is projected to start opposite Jeffrey Springs.

For a team 4.5 games outside the wild card picture in late August, the rotation is not just a pitching question. It is a run-prevention question, a bullpen-management question, and, at this point in the calendar, a roster-construction question. The 26-man active roster limit runs through August 31, after which clubs can expand to 28 players — a mechanical reality of the schedule that shapes how managers deploy their pitching staffs in the final weeks of the regular season.

What we don't know yet

The Hayes report is clear on the existence of the changes and the early direction of the results. It is not a full accounting. The specific pitches involved in the mix adjustment are not detailed in the extracted reporting. The degree of the arm angle change — how many degrees, from what slot to what slot — is not quantified. The sample size underlying "early success" is not specified.

Whether the adjustments hold up as opposing teams accumulate looks at the new version of Kremer is, by definition, unknown. Pitching changes that work in the first weeks after a trade or signing sometimes stabilize into a new baseline; sometimes hitters adjust. The report does not claim to know which of those futures is coming, and neither does this desk.

What to watch

Saturday's start at Petco Park is the most immediate test. A road start in a pitcher-friendly environment against a National League lineup that has not faced the post-adjustment Kremer — or has faced him only in limited exposure — is a reasonable early-returns audition.

Beyond Saturday, the question Hayes's report implicitly raises is whether the changes are durable. A higher arm angle is a physical adjustment that requires consistent repetition to become automatic; a pitch mix change requires the new offering to hold up under pressure, not just in favorable counts. The Twins' coaching staff will be watching both, and so will anyone trying to assess whether what Hayes is describing as early success becomes something more settled.

The Twins have a 4.5-game deficit to the wild card cut line, the kind of number that turns every rotation turn into a referendum. Kremer's next few starts will be watched closely — not because one pitcher determines a playoff race, but because a starter who has genuinely found something new is a different asset than one who is simply taking his turn.

Per Hayes, Kremer appears to be the former. The sample will have more to say.