Matt Brash’s numbers improved in 2023 from 2022 as did his Sodomojo.com ranking! Let's take a look at some of the differences, how he did last year, and what we can possibly expect in the upcoming season.
Matt Brash in 2022
In 2022, Brash began the season as a starting pitcher. He also spent some time in AAA Tacoma. He pitched 50.2 innings his rookie year, and had a win-loss record of 4-4. There were walk issues at the start of the season which was a part of the change to reliever... and Brash never looked back.
Matt Brash in 2023
Brash struggled a bit at the beginning of the season. When Brash is not at the top of his game, he tends to walk batters, deal a wild pitch, or hit a player unintentionally. Matt had more wild pitches and hit six players this year. In addition, some batters made hits that the defensive players didn't catch. This fluke affected his stats.
Matt pitched 20 more innings in 2023, a total of 70.2. His win-loss ratio was 9-4. After some struggles, the nasty-pitching Matt was back. When on his game, Brash is an elite pitcher. His overall ERA for 2023 was 3.06 compared to 4.44 the previous season. He was the closer for seven games this season versus three games in 2022. Brash allowed three home runs both years even though he pitched 20 more innings in 2023. He also walked fewer players. His WHIP declined from 1.559 to 1.330, increasing his average of strikeouts/nine innings from 11.0 to 13.6. He also was one of the top-ranking relievers by fWAR.
There was a fair amount of turnover in the bullpen between 2022 and 2023. Brash went from rookie to veteran fairly quickly. He , Paul Sewald, and Andres Munoz were the guys who had been on the team the year before and then Paul was gone.
According to pitcherlist.com, Matt Brash was 19th in innings pitched, 15th in strikeouts, and 26th in ERA. He is the fifth Mariners relief pitcher to have 100 strikeouts in a season. He joins Bill Caudill (1982), J.J. Putz (2006), Edwin Díaz (2018) & Paul Sewald (2021).
I like this comment by Daniel Kramer on April 23, 2023, "Matt Brash with three gnarly sliders to make Lars Nootbaar, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado look silly ... He strikes out the side here in the 7th inning."
Brash in 2024
I anticipate that Brash will strengthen his command and continue to improve his pitching in the coming season! How great it would be to see Brash keep improving as a pitcher!