The Inhuman Peak of Craig Kimbrel

Craig Kimbrell is a solidly above average MLB pitcher as things stand today now some might not think that's much of an eyeball grabbing headline after all Kim has been designated for years as a hot and cold phenomenon being just as capable of striking out 15 in a six inning stretch is giving up five homers in that same span with Kimbrell who today is pitching for the Baltimore Orioles and currently has an RA plus just north of 110 wasn't always this way no in fact it's probably fair to say that even last season's version of Craig when as a member of the Phillies he made his ninth All-Star team struck out 94 over 69 Innings and registered in a plus of 134 was still somehow less than half the pitcher he used to be I'm not knocking Kimbrell at all he's still a usable big league pitcher at 36 years old which is impressive for a relatively undersized power arm I'm just trying to illustrate how dominant he was to begin his career how he came out of the gate being more unhitable than any pitcher had ever been and then stayed to that level for basically the next half decade so staggering was this run that it defies easy analysis some of his numbers seem to be the work of fiction reading almost like the fabricated story of Sid Finch the fake Mets proc ECT who could throw 168 mph and played the French horn Kimbrell at his Peak was truly finch-like pitchers weren't supposed to reduce the best hitters in the world to helpless hacks who couldn't even manage to make contact in the form of foul tips they weren't supposed to strike out literally over half of the Batters they faced in a full relief season they weren't supposed to register numbers that made them about four times as good as an average ml pitcher that's why today I wanted to take a closer look at the insanity of Craig Kimbrell at the height of his powers detailing to my best efforts the ab domination of a kid from Huntsville AL Alabama who somehow wasn't even the best pitcher on his high school team now listen 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game time over the past few years so if you find this in any way convincing you can use code MTC for $20 off your first purchase terms apply Again download the game time app make an account and then use code MTC for $20 off your first purchase now back to our video most hurlers who weren't drafted out of high school in the late 2000s faced especially long odds of making it to the show especially if they were barely 6 feet tall weighed 160 lb and through in the mid 80s this pretty much described Craig Kimbrell who was the second best pitcher at Lee High School behind Lefty buddy bosers who was 6'3 and 200 lb just the kind of prospect D1 teams were looking for Kimbrell posted a 3 and seven record while being pretty wild on the mound un aable to control most of his pitches he didn't even make the All City team so it made sense no D1 schools bothered with him Kimber instead accepted an offer to play at Wallace State Community College in Hansville Alabama after the coach saw him pitch in his showcase then the summer before he left for school Kimbrell suffered an injury that would in many ways change his life for the better since Kimber was 12 he'd spend his Summers working with his dad who was an electrician on that fateful day before kimberl could install an outlet in a house he was working on he had to move a stack of sheetrock if you've ever handled sheetrock before you know it's bulky and cumbersome and the last place you'd want to drop it on is your foot but that's what Kimbrell did not one sheet mind you but 12 he'd be in a cast for 3 months about three times longer than normal for a break because the bone that connected the big toe to the rest of his foot was dislocated he couldn't stand and throw but he could do two things lift weights that focused on his upper body and throw from his knees with a cast on lots of players throw from one knee as a Training Method but Kimbrell was throwing from two 20 minutes a day 6 days a week after 8 weeks Kimbrell could throw a baseball from third base to the right field foul pole then he could throw out the length of a soccer field the drill taught him how to generate work with his upper body and how to get perfect Back Spin as he released the ball the weightlifting also added pounds of muscle and by the time the season started in the spring kimal was touching 95 instead of 85 because of the injury Kimbrell started his career as a closer because he wasn't built up to start it seemed to match his natural competitive nature he went eight and0 was a freshman good enough for the Braves to draft him in the 33rd round but instead of signing Craig decided to return to wall of state and again dominated posting a record of 9 and3 as a starter this time while Fanning 123 in 81 Innings the Braves had seen enough at this point to D draft him in the third round and so his professional Journey began but not before hitting a major roadblock the year was 2009 and Craig was in the process of getting demoted from high a Myrtle Beach back to low a Rome because his ra had ballooned to 1097 that's right 1097 why Kimber was trying to improve his change up which would cause him to drop his arm and mess with his mechanics overall a coach in Rome said forget the change up and just be a two-pitch power guy using his Elite fast ball with ride and biting knuckle curve to just straight out blow past hitters Kimbrell took the advice and ran with it striking out 103 batters in 60 Innings between single a double A and tripa A over the next two summers by 2010 he was in Atlanta to stay where in 20 and 23s Innings he struck out 40 batters a rate of 17.4 CAS per nine his ra Plus in that time frame an otherworldly 914 built on the back of a 0.44 ra no homers allowed and just nine hits against at the time you probably would have thought that's a fluke there's no way he could possibly do something close to that for an entire season but you'd have been wrong as he basically went out and did exactly that in 2011 His official rookie campaign to give you just one example of his dominance he surrendered one of his only earned runs on June 10th the next one you give up would be on September 9th in between where 37 and 23s Innings over 38 appearances in which he allowed just one extra base hit while striking out 67 batters by the end of the year he ranked first among all MLB relievers in war K hits per nine and whip he set a rookie record with 46 saves and was unanimously chosen as NL Rookie of the Year his stuff is truly electric out there Met's third baseman David Wright said you don't see too many guys throwing 98 and you definitely don't see too many guys that make it look as easy as he does with the life it's not like he's 7 feet tall out there either in fact even to this day when Kimbrell delivers the ball to home play his release point is only about 5T off the ground as the ball explodes from his three4 slot that means when he pitches up in the zone the pitch looks like it's coming out of his jersey and then just keeps on Rising the only blemish in the whole season was when Craig blew a save in game 162 to the Phillies part of one of the greatest 129 minutes in baseball history when multiple pennant races climaxed within minutes of each other Kimbrell got his revenge on the league however by absolutely destroying everything in his path over the next few seasons in 2011 up through 2014 Kimbrell put up arguably the greatest run by a Leever in the history of Major League Baseball such as in 2012 when Kimbrell struck out more than half of the Batters he faced 231 came up to hit against him and 116 sat right back down no one had ever done that over a full season that same year he set the record for the lowest batting average against as well at just 126 yet that same season Kimbrell walked only 6.1% of batters with an RA of 1.01 no other pitcher in baseball history had struck out so many walked so few with an RA that low while pitching more than 60 Innings he never gave up more than one hit or one run in an inning All Season all of that translated to an E plus of 399 making him almost four times better than an average MLB pitcher I'm throwing 89 mph fast balls and he's throwing 87 88 mph curve balls team Chris Medlin said it's hard to even understand how he gives up any runs not many though obviously by now what Kimbrell was best known for aside from his dominance was his pre pitch stared on to the batter again to this day he stands on the mound leaning over his right arm angled like he's throwing a punch if you were to do that and throw 92 it'd be a joke but when you strike out over half of the Batters you face in the best league in the world with an exploding 99 it's straight intimidating between 2012 and 2014 he converted 93. sa% of his save opportunities while the league average hovered at around 70% one save though he didn't get was in the 2012 wild card game against the Cardinals which the Braves lost 6 to3 Kimbrell pitched a perfect inning for his part but the game overall was marred by a disputed infield pop-up ruling that cost the Braves momentum Following season in 2013 the Braves made it the nlds against the Dodgers kimberl picking up a save in game two but when facing elimination in game four the Braves took a three to2 lead in the eighth inning instead of bringing in the game's best closer for a six out save kimberl watched from The Dugout as David Carpenter gave up a two-run home run to WAN ybe and the Braves went home again that season Kimber actually registered his career high in saves with 50 along with posting another E Plus North of 300 at 311 his ra again a staggeringly low 1.21 however things were soon to change in Atlanta there was no postseason for the Braves in 2014 as the team stumbled to four games under 500 but they still had the game's best closer to dangle as trade bait following as Craig had again dominated the world that year and route to a 1.61 ra 223 ra plus and nearly 14 k per n all of that along with his fourth straight season with over 40 saves so it was right before the 2015 season open the Braves pulled the trigger trading Kimbrell and BJ Upton to the Padres for a host of prospects that ended up resulting in a draft pick that became Austin Riley while also getting rid of Upton's honorous salary a good move for the Braves in retrospect at that point Kimbrell had the all-time best erra at 143 and the all-time best k raate at 42.2 in MLB history for pitchers who thrown over 250 Innings he was just 27 years old he grown up a Braves fan but the Braves were now in rebu build mode and needed to replenish their farm system and shed salary the Padres wanted to win now and in a flurry of Trades give out prospects like Max freed Trey Turner and yasmani grandall on route to finishing six games under 500 themselves ouch 2015 proved to be the first season that Kimbrell appeared to be human he saved 39 games and 42 chances but his erra ballooned to 2.58 as he gave up more hits in homers than he had ever had his a plus of 145 while still good was by far the worst total of his career the next season the Padres since they traded every decent Prospect they'd have the previous offseason decided to Pivot again now back to prospect acquisition mode sending Kimbrell to the Red Sox for Manuel Margo and three other prospects who mostly amounted to nothing though he was coming off a poor season by his standards he was under team control until 2018 and still had Elite stuff the 2016 version of Kimbrell again didn't match his all-time greatness as his ra reached another career high 3.40 which led to another career worst in ra Plus at 132 being down now by a factor of over three from when he was at his best so was his dominance a thing in the past would heying the realm of Simply dominant relievers down from the pantheon of the all-timers not for at least one more year because in 2017 Kimbrell came roaring back with the Vengeance the numbers were so surreal that teammate Joe Kelly said you couldn't even do that in a video game the game won't let you strike out that many and he's doing it in the major leagues he's the best stuff I've ever seen by mid June his batting average against was just 086 in may he gave up exactly one hit over his first 30 appearances just 46 balls were put into play he was striking out 53.2% of hitters he went on to dominate the rest of the year as well striking out his second highest rate of batters ever at 16.4 per9 he saved 35 games had an Immaculate and four strikeout inning and finished with an E plus of 319 the first time since 2013 he had climbed back to that lofty perch three times better than an average hurler but in the postseason he didn't equal his regular season Brilliance needing the force a game five to stay alive the socks used K roll in the eighth inning with the game tied at three with a runner on first Kimbrell threw one to the back stop and then walked George Springer before battling Josh reck who ended up grounding a single to left put the Astros on top for good the Red Sox would storm back the following year winning the World Series in 2018 with Kimbrell having an excellent if not insane regular season with 42 saves and a 2.74 ra he did manage to set a few MLB records along the way though like becoming the youngest player in MLB history to reach 300 saves at age 29 along with doing it the fused appearances at 474 and save chances at 330 but again October baseball gave him fits he saved two games against the Yankees in the ALDS but gave up three runs and two in third innings in the ALCS against the Astros he gave out runs in his first two outings though he again earned saves in both before game five former closer Eric G relateded to socks manager Alex Kora that Kimbrell was tipping his pitches Kimbrell tried to make the corrections necessary on the fly in the World Series against the Dodgers he saved game two but gave up a two-run home run to Kik Hernandez in game four in the Clincher it was Chris S who pitched the ninth he was a free agent following the the trophy hoisting and the Red Sox decided to let him walk in 2019 Kell would end up signing an MLB contract until June 5th for 3 years $43 million for the Cubs he went on to for the first time in his MLB career struggled mightily in limited action battling through knee inflammation and rout to the lowest ra plus of his career at just 68 meaning he was only a bit better than half of an average MLB pitcher based on a bloated ra of 6.53 with just 13 saves he pitched just 20 and 23s innings in total his lowest total since his first year and gave up nine homers in this time span this from the man who had given up just one hit in a month two years before next season was 2020 Co and Kimbrell struggled again posting another season where he was below average on the mound overall with an RA plus of just 87 and 15 in a third Innings he even lost his closer role to Jeremy jeffris but did manage to pitch one and a third scoreless innings in the Wild Card series against the Marlins but Craig wasn't ready to hang up his cleats following a couple down year as he came out firing in 2021 and by June 15th he led the majors in saves with 18 with an ER that was back down to a microscopic 0.66 the Cubs were winning and life was good kimber's ERA plus was back in the stratosphere at 865 his whip was 0.71 and he was Fanning 15.7 per n in other words he seemed to be back to his old self sadly so were the Cubs who started losing massively before trading away anyone of value at the deadline including Kimbrell to the white socks who already had a closer and Liam Hendrick that meant Kimbrell had to adjust to being a setup man and needless to say he didn't take wellth role going two and two with an AR of 509 looking much more with the 2019 2020 versions of himself than the one he had presented in the first half of the Season he ended up allowing three runs over two innings in the ALDS against the Astros in his series The White Socks would lose his journey nevertheless continued as before the 2022 season he was traded to the Dodgers for AJ Pollock La needed a closer and Craig needed a chance at Redemption he wouldn't really find it however as he blew five saves and just 32 chances while posting a 108 ra plus and to make matters worse after he walked in the window run on September 27th the Dodgers decided to wash their hands of him completely leaving him off their postseason roster entirely that led to him signing a one-year deal with the Phillies where he would rebound somewhat making his ninth All-Star team after a rough start 20 games in his ra had been at six but he'd finished strong saving 23 games the the of 3.26 his K rate bounced back to 33.8% and his batting average against was down to 181 then came the postseason met again Kimbrell struggle he gave up basically nothing in the first two rounds but in the NLCS against the Diamondbacks he went 0 and2 with an ra of 12 he's now with the Orioles and has again been up and down going four in one so far with 12 saves and an RA of 315 the Orioles are again set to make the playoffs but given that Kimbrell's career postseason ra is 450 fans have to be wondering if they UST him with the ball in October against the likes of stto Judge Ramirez or Seager Craig Kimbrell is now simply an above average Major League pitcher he's no longer at the peak of his all-time great Powers but few are when they're 36 years old he currently ranks fifth all time in saves and has a chance to overtake Frankie Rodriguez for fourth place when he to 438 for all of his struggles over recent years he still managed to convert 88.4% of saves in his career better than even the great Maran Rivera at this point and he had undoubtedly one of the most dominant stretches ever between 2010 and 2014 will he make the Hall of Fame well he got to 400 saves pitching in 707 Innings faster than anyone else in MLB history his career era plus of 170 would be the second best Mark ever if he manages to reach 1,000 career Innings pitched but Billy Wagner had a better Mark than this at 187 and 93 Innings and he hasn't exactly glided into the Hall overtaking Frankie Rodriguez for fourth place all time and saves won't guarantee him a spot in Cooper's Town either Frankie himself isn't there after all regardless of whether he ends up getting elected he will still go down as one of the most dominant hurlers ever to pick up a baseball and for a prime period of almost half a decade put up numbers that baseball had never quite seen before in our minds here at MTC that alone deserved examination and more than a little celebration as well now thank you for watching if you enjoyed today's video please consider liking and subscribing and checking out this playlist for more essay content just like this have a great rest of your day everyone