Kevin Kramer

The jump from Triple-A to the majors is tough and it's proven especially tough for Kramer. A second-round pick in 2015, Kramer has posted strikeout rates in the mid-20s at Triple-A Indianapolis over the past two seasons, but he's seen that number skyrocket to 41.1% in 90 big-league plate appearances. He did improve his walk rate to 12% in a trio of stints with the big club in 2019 and some indicators such as zone contact percentage and chase rate point to progress at the dish, though there is very little in the batted-ball numbers to suggest this is a big-league caliber stick. One thing going in Kramer's favor in 2020: with the turnover in the Pirates' front office, it seems the organization is fully embracing a rebuild, and if they're not going to compete, giving at-bats to a guy like Kramer to evaluate his standing makes sense. He has some outfield experience and could be a fit in a super-utility role.

Most small samples don't mean much at all, but it's hard to ignore 20 strikeouts in 40 plate appearances. Sometimes, extremes in small samples do tell us something. Kramer hit well over .300 in a much larger body of work at Triple-A Indianapolis, but he needed a .392 BABIP to get there. He struck out 24.1% of the time while with the Pirates' top minor-league affiliate. That's not a terrible figure in a vacuum, but for a 24-year-old at that level, it's not great, especially when that level of swing and miss comes with only modest power (.181 ISO). Also modest: Kramer's speed. He stole 13 bases with Indy but was also caught five times. Kramer was a second-round pick in 2015 so there is some pedigree here, but he hasn't walked much at the higher levels and there are holes in the swing, making Kramer a long shot to be much more than a utility infielder at his peak. Don't be surprised if he has to bide his time at Triple-A for a while yet to begin 2019.