Right-hander Brad Brach won his arbitration hearing against the Orioles yesterday, Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reports (via Twitter). As a result, he’ll earn the $3.05MM that he and agent Brian Charles of Big League Management proposed instead of the $2.525MM proposed by the team. Brach’s salary comes in just over $100K north of the $2.9MM mark that was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.
As Heyman notes, the O’s entered that hearing with a sterling 11-1 record in arbitration hearings, making Brach’s win all the more noteworthy. The 30-year-old had a strong case, however, given his excellence in a career year this past season. While Brach has been excellent ever since being traded over from the Padres in exchange for minor league right-hander Devin Jones, he was flat-out dominant in 2016.
Control has previously been a problem for Brach, but that wasn’t the case last year, as he tossed 79 innings with a 2.05 ERA, 10.5 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and a 41.5 percent ground-ball rate. Brach’s pristine earned run average, glut of strikeouts, heavy workload and 24 holds all worked in his favor in his arb hearing.
This marked Brach’s second time through the arbitration process. He’ll be eligible once more next offseason before reaching free agency upon completion of the 2018 campaign (in advance of his age-33 season). With Brach’s salary now set for the 2017 season, the Orioles have resolved all nine of their arbitration cases (as can be seen in MLBTR’s 2017 Arbitration Tracker).
Wow
He was by far the easiest case to predict that he would break the O’s arb record. Can’t believe they thought they would beat him, his #s are fantastic and he’s still a huge bargain
The only thing I think the team had against him was that he struggled some in the second half of last year. Other than that, they had no chance in beating him.
He was basically below average in the 2nd half. And his trade value is probably a little higher at the lower number. It was worth the risk for the O’s.
He earned it
His first half was as good as any but he tailed off in the 2ND half. I would think ten wins out of relief with a couple of saves and a dominant first half put him over the top. The Orioles iron hand arbitrator, Russell Smouse, retired so the Os are probably in for a lot more cases then they are used to over next few years. One positive is the Os are pretty good at paying guys in arbitration. They don’t have a lot of cases as a result of that alone.
Brad Brock fan
Good Padre player
Sometimes I understand where each side comes from
Team gives out a fair offer or the player request his fair offer
It’s the times when a team low balls or when a player thinks he is better than when he is.
Does anyone have any insight on i.e. saying a player wanted 3 mil a team said no you get 2.5 mil and instead the player get like 2.25?
I feel like I’ve seen this before.
No – arbitrator selects either one or the other. Only time a player gets something different is when they agree outside of arb