One pitch from one pitcher won't make or break the Orioles' 2027 season, but arguably nothing will be a more important development for their staff than Kyle Bradish rediscovering the feel for his slider next season.
It's not uncommon for a pitcher to struggle with his command in general in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, and especially a pitch like the slider can cause problems and lead to pitchers leaving it over the plate and catching too many barrels. Or puling it so far off the plate the batter never offers in the first place.
There was a lot going on with Bradish last season , and the weight of missing basically two full seasons due to his elbow issues and with pending free-agency looming and him having a rough 2026 overall, he deserves ample grace. But having secured a five-year deal at more money than this franchise ever spends on an arm, and with veteran Trevor Rogers a pending a free agent and Bradish clearly the most accomplished starting pitcher Baltimore has under control, few things will matter more than him regaining his control overall. And especially the feel and touch on a pitch that helped him garner Cy Young votes back in 2023 and became his go-to offering for swing-and-miss from the time he broke into MLB in 2022.
Bradish has displayed the bulldog mentality this franchise needs and his ability to gut through an entire season after two years in which he couldn't post even 40 innings pitched was massive. But it's going to have to be about craft and quality in 2027 - whether they find someone else to start Opening Day as Rogers did or not - and Bradish being a legit No. 2 starter and not a below-average innings eater is a must.
Bradish had a WHIP of nearly 1.50 last season, he was in the bottom 20% of all pitchers in walk rate, and he doubled down on that problems of too many base runners by not getting enough outs himself (39th percentile in whiff rate). The ball was in play too often, and hit too hard too often (30th percentile in barrel rate) with a terrible defense behind him and led baseball in unearned runs; couple that with a lineup that was mostly inept against starting pitching, and you get a 7-14 record and no shortage of depressing moments on the mound.
Bradish finished in the bottom 14% of pitchers in overall pitching run value (2% in breaking pall value). It was an ugly profile all around, it's been long established that Bradish's broad arsenal is deployed to help him pitch around a four-seamer that gets hit hard, and without the slider as an out pitch in 2027, it could be bleak again.
In 2022, as he began to figure out pitching at the MLB level, and Bradish started to get a feel for how his fastball played, he threw the slider 30% of the time and it was effective (.212 average and .343 SLG). In 2023 it was one of the most impactful pitches in baseball; Bradish threw it more than 10% more than any other pitch, he shelved the fastball, and MLB hit .168 off the slider and slugged just .272 off it.
Expecting him to return to that form after the elbow issues and the awkward timeframe the Orioles chose to use to eventually conduct surgery is probably folly. But finding a happy medium between those 2023 numbers and what the league did to the slider last year - .266 average and .586 slug with 10 HR in 143 plate appearances - is mandatory.
The fact a sports hernia, which sent him to the Injured List for the final weeks of the season, will cut into Bradish's offseason is hardly ideal. Time will tell if the Orioles make what would appear to be mandatory changes to all aspects of their coaching staff and player-development staff , and whether their medical team can adopt a proper throwing program to help him get back on track for 2027.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/orioles/onsi as For The 2027 Orioles, No Pitch Is More Important Than Kyle Bradish's Slider .
