With plenty of fanfare at the end of last August and into September, the Orioles called up starting pitchers Keegan Akin, Dean Kremer and Bruce Zimmermann. It was the first arrival of a group of high-minors pitching prospects the club hoped would help turn around the major league team’s fortunes.
With the call-ups came serious expectations. Akin had spent all of 2019 at Triple-A Norfolk, but Kremer and Zimmermann were part of an impressive Double-A Bowie rotation that summer, along with Mike Baumann, Alexander Wells and Zac Lowther. Together, they became emblematic of the possibilities on the pitching side that a new player development strategy could bring.