Welp, Are We Officially Worried About Brach?

[TouchemAll]

Not Closer material.

that is all...

 

[Going Underground]

21 minutes ago, Frobby said:

That’s a bit of an overreaction.   He hasn’t looked very good, but it’s way too soon to give up on him.   

If he does not correct himself,he picked a bad year to be stinking it up. Free agent, 2019.

[Bradysburns]

I don't think it's daring or original to suggest: Brach is not a closer, period. He might be the single worst choice in the bullpen for that roll, actually. And it's 99% mental, IMO. 

I don't what the issue is, but it's more personal intuition than objective analysis. So do with that what you will... 

When he gets a save, I always feel like he got lucky.

But Brad's just one person out of place on this team. We have a middle-reliever as closer... We have our third basemen at short... We have our short at third... Adam is arguably a left fielder in center... And we have too many Rule 5 type players on this roster. We're toast, in other words. 

[FanSince88]

Give Brach until mid-June to clean up his act.  If he's still doing this poorly, we need to DFA him.  Give Donnie Hart or Tanner Scott a shot instead.  

[atomic]

52 minutes ago, Bradysburns said:

I don't think it's daring or original to suggest: Brach is not a closer, period. He might be the single worst choice in the bullpen for that roll, actually. And it's 99% mental, IMO. 

I don't what the issue is, but it's more personal intuition than objective analysis. So do with that what you will... 

When he gets a save, I always feel like he got lucky.

But Brad's just one person out of place on this team. We have a middle-reliever as closer... We have our third basemen at short... We have our short at third... Adam is arguably a left fielder in center... And we have too many Rule 5 type players on this roster. We're toast, in other words. 

Why wouldn't Adam be in right?  He has a decent arm. 

[Moshagge3]

I don't know why people always attribute struggles to mental issues. Take Daniel Cabrera. He had great stuff but he was wild. For that reason, everyone on this board kept saying "it's all between his ears." Why can't he be a perfectly well-adjusted guy who is wild because control is a skill that he doesn't happen to possess?

Brad Brach lives in the mid 90's, has command issues that seem to have gotten worse, and is okay at mixing speeds. All in all, a guy that can have some runs of success when the BABIP fairies are out but is pretty vulnerable in the long term. Sucks that we held on to him for so long while his stock was high, but that's what he is. His blowing saves has nothing to do with mental issues and fear of the ninth inning (wasn't even a save situation last night), and everything to do with his stuff.

[Aristotelian]

18 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

I don't know why people always attribute struggles to mental issues. Take Daniel Cabrera. He had great stuff but he was wild. For that reason, everyone on this board kept saying "it's all between his ears." Why can't he be a perfectly well-adjusted guy who is wild because control is a skill that he doesn't happen to possess?

Brad Brach lives in the mid 90's, has command issues that seem to have gotten worse, and is okay at mixing speeds. All in all, a guy that can have some runs of success when the BABIP fairies are out but is pretty vulnerable in the long term. Sucks that we held on to him for so long while his stock was high, but that's what he is. His blowing saves has nothing to do with mental issues and fear of the ninth inning (wasn't even a save situation last night), and everything to do with his stuff.

The reason I say this is that he has been very good to great pitching in a 7th-8th inning role, but has been mediocre to spectacularly bad in the closing role. 

[Moshagge3]

45 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

The reason I say this is that he has been very good to great pitching in a 7th-8th inning role, but has been mediocre to spectacularly bad in the closing role. 

He pitched the 7th inning on Sunday and got hit hard for two runs. He was great as a setup man in the first half of 2016, if that's what you mean, but his stuff isn't going to be successful long-term in any role right now.

[Can_of_corn]

19 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

He pitched the 7th inning on Sunday and got hit hard for two runs. He was great as a setup man in the first half of 2016, if that's what you mean, but his stuff isn't going to be successful long-term in any role right now.

Right, I don't think it's the fact that he can't close, right now he can't get guys out.

[Aglets]

If you allow two baserunners per inning, almost 6 walks per game, and over 6 runs per game........i'm not sure that plays well in any particular inning.  He has the worst BB rate of anyone currently on the roster...........which is not something he's struggled much with the last few years.   

Ehhh, let's just fire some coaches.......that will fix it.

[Sessh]

Brach no longer lives in the mid-90's and now lives in the low 90's. He was 95-97 pretty routinely when he was good and had great life on it. Now, that life is gone and he sits around 91-93 most of the time. That's 3-4mph in one offseason. So, either he is dealing with an injury (or one is about to happen) or he has lost confidence in his stuff because he can't blow the ball by hitters anymore. The loss of FB velocity also makes his change up less effective, so now he seems to be nibbling more and afraid to throw strikes. On top of that, he doesn't seem to be fooling people anymore with his no-longer-electric stuff.

[El Gordo]

He looks like he's got the yips to me. I'd keep him away from high leverage situations for a while.

[sportsfan8703]

1 hour ago, El Gordo said:

He looks like he's got the yips to me. I'd keep him away from high leverage situations for a while.

This team as a whole looks like they’ve lost a ton of confidence. That culture or losing in September carried over to this year. It’s like the team knew it was done with their run. 

[LookitsPuck]

Drop in velocity and control.

Has nothing to do with not being able to close. And everything to do with not being able to pitch right now. Not sure what the hell is going on, but he's been an unmitigated disaster since Game 1.

[Bradysburns]

On 5/2/2018 at 11:30 AM, atomic said:

Why wouldn't Adam be in right?  He has a decent arm. 

Fair dues, but I'd rather see him in left and Hays in right, as apparently he has a plus arm. I don't know if Adam does or not? Watching him over the years, he appears to have a solid arm, but not a plus arm.