This pitching prospect could crack the rotation this season

He is one of the Orioles' top 10 prospects, and after he threw 86 2/3 innings at Triple-A Norfolk last year, he is also among their most major league-ready on that list.

Right-hander Kyle Bradish, acquired by the club on Dec. 2, 2019 with three other pitchers from the Los Angeles Angels for Dylan Bundy, is likely to make his big league debut during the 2022 season. In November, he was added to the Orioles' 40-man roster.

We've been looking at various 2022 rotation candidates over the last few weeks and Bradish should certainly be on this list.

He's got a lot of what you would want in a pitching prospect. Size, in that he is 6-foot-4 and 220 lbs. Quality pitches with a mid-90s fastball that touches 97 mph. He's got a unique over-the-top delivery that could help him provide batters a look they don't often see. And now, after last year, he has experience at the highest minor league level and some success as well. Baltimore could be the next stop for the 25-year-old Bradish, a fourth-round draft pick by the Angels in 2018 out of New Mexico State.

When the Orioles acquired Bradish, he was ranked No. 21 on the Angels' top 30 prospects list. Now he is ranked as the Orioles' No. 8 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 9 via Baseball America. He is the Orioles' third-highest-rated pitching prospect, after Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall, neither of whom has yet pitched at Triple-A.

Bradish began last year at Double-A Bowie and threw 13 2/3 scoreless innings over three starts to begin the season. He was quickly promoted to Triple-A. With Norfolk, he went 5-5 with a 4.26 ERA over 86 2/3 innings. He allowed a 1.431 WHIP and posted a 4.1 walk rate and a strikeout rate of 10.9. He did allow a batting average on balls in play of .335 and recorded a 43.3 groundball rate while with the Tides.

Between Bowie and Norfolk, he made 24 total appearances, going 6-5 with a 3.68 ERA and 1.36 WHIP. He walked 3.9 per nine with 11.8 strikeouts. His fastball velocity has increased since the trade to Baltimore and his slider is rated a bit ahead of his curveball, with his changeup a bit behind those two offerings.

MLBPipeline.com put a 55 grade on his fastball, slider and curveball, while Baseball America provided 60 grades on his fastball and slider, and a 50 on his curveball.

During a Zoom interview I did with Bradish for this entry not long after last season ended, he talked with me about many topics, including his fastball velocity. It dipped a bit early in his pro career with the Angels, but has come back strong since he joined the Orioles.

"Yeah, definitely," he said. "Coming out of college, I think I was maybe hitting 96 (mph) at my max, but usually sitting low 90s. In 2019, my first season with the Angels, I don't know what the deal was, but I was throwing slower than in college. Coming to the Orioles, I got a really good offseason program and then with the COVID shutdown (of 2020) I just really hit the weight room hard. And tried to clean up my mechanics a little bit and it paid off. There were multiple factors (to improve velocity), but having that COVID shutdown kind of gave you an extra offseason. So I tried to run with that and get as much work in as possible. Then cleaning up mechanics was another factor."

Bradish pitched to a 1.80 ERA with Norfolk in September. And, over his last four Tides starts, he allowed two earned runs in 20 innings for an ERA of 0.90 with six walks to 24 strikeouts.

Among 14 pitchers on the O's farm throwing 80 or more innings in 2021, Bradish ranked fourth in strikeouts per nine and strikeout percentage (30.5), he was sixth in ERA and sixth-best in homers per nine at 0.90. His walk percentage of 10.2 ranked only 11th-best among the 14 hurlers and only Zach Peek (.351) had a higher BABIP.

Right now, it seems like Bradish flies under the radar a bit among 2022 Baltimore rotation candidates. But whether he begins next season back on the farm or not, his day to get a shot in Baltimore is likely pretty close.

Click here for the YouTube video from last spring training with a nice behind-home-plate look at his over-the-top delivery.