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Craig Kimbrel

2026
Royals· RHP · throws R· 39.0 IP· 4.15 ERA· 1.23 WHIP· 160 BF
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Grade

How good he's been, and at what
Dbetter than 33% of pitchers at limiting bases
RelieverMixed Profile

A blend of skills without one defining trait.

Kimbrel has been below average at limiting damage

The simulator expects 0.465 bases allowed per batter faced against him — better than 33rd percentile of qualified pitchers. The soft spot is Command (19th percentile). Short relief stints inflate strikeout rates a touch, so read the Strikeouts spoke with that in mind.

160 batters faced · data through 2026-08-22.

How to read this chart
Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size (not raw season stats), so farther out = better. Spokes are the metric itself; ↓ marks a rate where a LOWER number is better. Percentiles vs. 464 qualified pitchers — 100+ batters faced, starters and relievers pooled.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Craig Kimbrel.

Pitcher type

What kind of pitcher he is, next to the league

Pitcher type

Where he sits among qualified pitchers on the two skills that separate styles.

How to read this chart
Two skills separate pitching styles: finishing hitters without free passes (strikeout rate minus walk rate) and keeping the contact they do allow soft (hard-hit rate against). Every dot is a qualified pitcher this season; dot size tracks batters faced. Click any dot to open that pitcher's page.
 Craig KimbrelLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(lower = better).521.52833rd
Walk rate(lower = better)11%9%19th
Strikeout rate(higher = better)22%22%58th

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Arsenal

What he throws, and what it does

Craig Kimbrel leans on his four-seam fastball (67% of pitches). His four-seam fastball has performed closest to league average.

Pitch mix & swing-and-miss

+10 bases better than a replacement arm this season

allowed 72 bases vs a replacement arm's 82 over the same batters faced

Replacement level is per-batter and can't be split by pitch type, so the bars below use league average.

All pitches

3.1 bases cost vs league average, across 592 pitches — 0.5 per 100.

Four-Seam Fastball
67%
93.6 mph · RHP median 95.1
25% whiffs · Lg median 21%
eveneven
Sweeper
14%
85.5 mph · RHP median 83.5
32% whiffs · Lg median 30%
cost 3.5 per 1003.2 total
Knuckle Curve
9%
84.1 mph · RHP median 82.6
eveneven
Sinker
not charted
6%
93.7 mph · RHP median 94.7
Changeup
not charted
3%
88.6 mph · RHP median 87.1

His sinker and changeup aren't in the charts below — too few of each were tracked this season.

How to read this chart
What they throw, how hard, and what misses bats — from pitch tracking, regular season only.

Mix by batter side

Four-Seam Fastball
70% vs LHH · RHP median 41%
64% vs RHH · RHP median 34%
Sweeper
9% vs LHH · RHP median 18%
19% vs RHH · RHP median 29%
How to read this chart
How the mix shifts against lefty and righty bats. Medians are among right-handed pitchers who throw that pitch at least 3% of the time — between 120 and 351 of them, depending on the pitch. Overall results by batter side are under Platoon splits.

Craig Kimbrel's pitch movement, 2026

Craig Kimbrel's pitch movement, 2026-12012-12012in← glove sidearm side →more risemore drop
Four-Seam FastballFF
Rise 15.1 in
−0.6 vs Lg median
Break 10.7 in
+3.1 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
SweeperST
Rise 1.1 in
+0.2 vs Lg median
Break −13.5 in
+0.4 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
Knuckle CurveKC
Rise −7.2 in
+2.7 vs Lg median
Break −9.8 in
−3.8 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
Early season → nowLg medianCurrent-dot uncertainty
How to read this chart
Each dot is a pitch's current shape — horizontal break (arm side vs. glove side) by induced vertical break (rise vs. drop). Both axes are in inches of break. The trail runs from this season's earliest tracked outings — the faint, thin end — up to today's solid dot; a trail with only a few segments just means fewer tracked outings. The soft halo around each dot is how far that dot could sit off on its own, just from ordinary outing-to-outing wobble. Don't read a long trail as proof on its own that a pitch changed. Every pitch in baseball loses a little break through midsummer and gets it back by September — the same shift two full seasons back agree on — and the trail shows that league-wide seasonal swing alongside whatever this pitcher did himself. The sentence at the top of this card has the league's share taken out, so it can read “has not moved” above a trail that looks long. That is the two marks measuring different things, not a mistake. A pitch counts as changed only once it sits at least two inches from its own early-season shape — a verdict about this pitcher against himself, never a comparison with anyone else. League median: the small hollow ring marks it, on the same two measurements. Where it sits far from a pitch's dot, a line joins the two — and on a wider screen the ring carries that pitch's code as well — so a distant ring is never orphaned; where it sits close, neither is drawn, because the pairing is already obvious. League median is missing entirely for a pitch marked *: too few pitchers throw it for one to be worth setting, so it is plotted without a reference ring. For the exact dates a pitch changed, see the by-appearance chart below.

By appearance

How the stuff has held up outing to outing

One point per outing — how his velocity, movement, and pitch mix have moved across the season, with league context for scale. Each pitch keeps the same color in every chart. His sinker and changeup aren't in these charts — too few of each were tracked this season.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA allowed)

Better vs RHB than vs LHB by 0.041 EB/PA allowed (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.033 to +0.049

vs LHB85 PA0.489

vs LHB: shrunk estimate 0.489 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.467 to 0.509, based on 85 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.548 EB/PA. League median vs LHB: 0.454 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHB rate (0.548) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHB77 PA0.448

vs RHB: shrunk estimate 0.448 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.426 to 0.468, based on 77 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.366 EB/PA. League median vs RHB: 0.440 EB/PA.

Raw vs RHB rate (0.366) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.4160.4420.4670.4930.519
← betterworse →
Below league medianAbove50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a righty arm (median 0.040). He allows more than the league median against both sides.

How to read this chart
  • Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
  • His raw rate is the unshrunk number against that side — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
  • Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all pitchers against that side.
  • These are bases allowed, so lower is better. Weighted by how often he faces each side, the two splits average back to his modeled overall EB/PA allowed — not the xEB/PA headline at the top of the page, which folds in strikeouts and walks differently.
  • Shrunk splits beat raw splits on held-out seasons, most decisively at low batters-faced counts (relievers especially), and converge with the raw numbers as exposure builds.

Contact allowed

What hitters do when they connect

Batters go to the pull side off him most often, and that's where the hardest contact comes from.

Pull and oppo are relative to each batter's stance, so this pools all the hitters he faced.

Batted balls allowed

Where every ball hit off Craig Kimbrel landed this season.
How to read this chart
Dot color is estimated bases (EB) — what the contact was worth, regardless of what the defense did with it. So a dark hollow ring in the outfield is a crushed ball his defense ran down. Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two, and use the ▶ links to watch a play on Baseball Savant.

Earned vs. actual

Results have matched the contact quality — batters have been credited about what they earned off Craig Kimbrel.

Earned off his contact allowed55
Actually credited to batters53

over 105 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides

How to read this chart
Every ball in play is worth the bases its exit velocity and direction usually earn. Comparing those earned bases with the bases batters were actually credited shows whether his results have been lucky, unlucky, or fair.

ERA 4.15 · WHIP 1.23 · BABIP against 0.257 (Lg median 0.286)

Best games

His biggest outings this year

Best games

His best outings this season by bases saved vs a replacement arm.

Multi-season trends · Craig Kimbrel

HR allowed% down, BB% down, K% down vs last season

Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.