Matt Kremnitzer: Brach's leverage in O's bullpen is improving

There's no single, effective way to build a bullpen. Some teams throw money at high-priced relievers to fill holes. Some target young relievers early in the major league draft, hoping they'll be able to contribute to the club in a hurry. Many teams convert failed starting pitching prospects into one- or two-inning relief options, while most frequently seek out overlooked or underwhelming pitching options and hope they figure something out. That's how someone like Kevin Gregg keeps finding work, after all. Nearly every team uses some combination of the above, though even the smartest front offices struggle to construct a competent bullpen once, let alone year after year.

The current version of the Orioles bullpen was built with some smart acquisitions and some luck. The team's best reliever, Zach Britton, could easily have been traded before the beginning of the 2014 season to some team looking for starting pitching help. Instead, Britton was outstanding in relief and eventually seized the closer's job, and he hasn't looked back.

Darren O'Day was a waiver wire acquisition. Tommy Hunter was picked up along with Chris Davis in the Koji Uehara trade. Brian Matusz is a failed top starting pitching prospect. Oliver Drake, drafted by the O's in the 43rd round in 2008, was granted free agency in November and then signed a major league deal with the club a couple of weeks later. Chaz Roe was a minor league free agent signing. T.J. McFarland was a Rule 5 draft pick in 2012.

But let's not forget Brad Brach, who might not be as good as O'Day, but he's close. Brach was acquired in November 2013 from the San Diego Padres in exchange for minor league pitcher Devin Jones (who re-signed with the Orioles in April and has since retired. Brach was promoted early in the 2014 season, and in 62 1/3 innings, he finished with a respectable 3.18 ERA. But a pitcher's ERA doesn't tell the whole story. Brach was fortunate on balls in play (.250 BABIP) and didn't strike out many batters (7.8 strikeouts/nine innings). However, he did cut down on his walks, though his 3.61 walks/nine innings certainly wasn't great, and he did reduce the amount of hard-hit balls against him. Buck Showalter took notice and wisely started to use Brach more in higher-leverage situations.

Despite a bad outing last night in Houston, in a bit more than 25 innings this year, Brach has been better. It's not always the smartest thing to draw broad conclusions from a slice of a reliever's already not substantial workload (at least when compared with a starting pitcher), but let's take a glimpse at Brach's numbers anyway. His strikeouts are up (11.01 K/9), his walks are down slightly (3.55 BB/9), and his .288 BABIP is above his career average of .282. He's also doing a better job of inducing ground balls (44 percent) and generating less even less hard-hit contact than last season. Those strong numbers (except for the walks) have led to Showalter using Brach in the team's third-highest leverage situations behind Britton and O'Day.

The best sign for Brach is the increase in swings and misses. Opposing batters are chasing more of his pitches outside the strike zone and making less contact - obviously an effective combination. How has he accomplished that? After an increase in velocity last season, he's again seeing a slight uptick in the pitch speed department. And like last season, he's incorporating a sinker along with four-seam fastballs that he throws nearly half the time. But the biggest change is a decline in slider usage and a jump in splitters, which he's thrown about a quarter of the time this season. Opposing batters have a whiff percentage against Brach's splitter of about 30 percent; his next-closest pitch to that is his slider, at 18 percent. Brach has thrown his splitter even lower than last season, and opposing hitters are finding it hard to resist.

With O'Day possibly departing after the season as a free agent, Brach could reasonably slide into O'Day's setup role without much complaint. Brach is also under team control for three more seasons, though he does become arbitration-eligible next season, meaning he'll see a nice salary bump from the $520,000 he's making this season. Brach will probably never approach the effectiveness of Britton or transform into a star reliever, but the Orioles essentially acquired him for nothing. Every team needs useful relievers, although his room for error may become a bit smaller in future seasons when he's making a couple of million dollars instead of half a million.

Matt Kremnitzer blogs about the Orioles at Camden Depot. Follow him on Twitter: @mattkremnitzer. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.