Atlanta Braves trade: team obtains Oriole reliever Brad Brach

The news keeps coming today!  Atlanta goes out to bolster their beleaguered bullpen again with deal to bring in Brad Brach from Baltimore.

Alex Anthopoulos may have been in New York for the festivities for Chipper Jones, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t still working.  32-year-old reliever Brad Brach is to be a member of the Braves, pending his physical.

So the next most obvious question is “what did we give up?”  The answer?  Essentially nothing… and that might be the best part of this news (which itself is close to amazing):

Now let me set the context/expectations a bit:

• Brach is a ‘rental’ – he’s on a $5.17 million contract that expires at season’s end.
• The Braves will owe him roughly $2 million for the balance of the season
• He is 32+ years old, measures 6’6″/215.
• Right-handed
• He has some closing experience
• He has not actually been that stellar this season:  4.85 ERA, 4.38 walks per 9 IP.
• The most concerning stat?  1.77 WHIP.  That’s a significant number of base-runners.

In fact, in Brach’s last 8 outings, he’s allowed runs in half of them.  Here’s a run-down of the games in which he didn’t give up runs:

• vs. Boston/July 24:  1.0 inning, 2 hits, 1 walk, 5 batters faced.
• vs. Toronto/July 20:  1.0 inning, 3 batters – none reached (the only such occurrence)
• vs. Philly/July 12:  1 batter, who was retired.
• vs. Twins/July 8:  1.0 inning, 1 walk.  (3 days before, the same Twins got him for 2 runs)

Not a ‘ROOGY’ or ‘LOOGY’… kind of an equal opportunity guy as lefties are hitting .338 against him and right-handers .272.  Not great numbers.

Brach does have a history of solid performance.  Between 2012 and 2017 (Padres and Orioles), Brach sported an ERA of 3.19 or less, including a 2.05 in 2016.

He also has appeared in at least 60 games in each of the last 3 seasons, so at least he’s fairly durable.

It’s Official

Here’s hoping that the shift out of that juggernaut division called the ‘AL East’ helps him out… I can at least understand the idea that perhaps being there doesn’t exactly lead to confidence on the mound.

Regardless, this is Alex Anthopoulos doing what he said he would do:  getting bullpen help and yet not paying much for ‘rental’ guys.  Not spectacular, but hopefully useful.