Brandon Young showcased many reasons to be optimistic in 2025
No longer in big league camp, Brandon Young will be back at some point.
Written by: Nick Stevens
On Saturday morning, the Baltimore Orioles optioned RHP Brandon Young to Triple-A Norfolk, signaling the end of his time in the current fight for a rotation spot with the big league club out of camp.
Before being sent down, which was expected, Young put up a hell of a fight and really impressed in his brief time in big league camp. He will be back with the big league club at some point during the 2025 season, and if he can build on what he showcased this spring, he could make for quite a fun storyline.
TV coverage is extremely limited during spring training and not all spring ballparks have publicly available Statcast during gams (Ed Smith Stadium is one of those stadiums where fans must fly blind), but we were able to get a bit of info on Brandon Young’s stuff.
(above image courtesy @TJStats on X)
As you can see from the image above, in the 6.1 innings at Statcast parks, Young threw his four-seamer 43% of the time and averaged 94.4 mph.
Last year in Triple-A, Young averaged 92.2 mph on his four-seamer. It averaged less than 18 inches of induced vertical break and it graded out as an average offering at best. His fastball characteristics appear to be falling back more in line with what we saw in Double-A last season.
Lance Brozdowski had a fantastic breakdown (read here) last year when Young was in Double-A, noting Young’s “plus fastball” which was a bit unique thanks to his 20 inches of IVB with good extension and a lower release from typical 6’6” pitchers show.
The concern was Young wouldn’t be able to replicate a lot of the notable underlying metrics in Triple-A (as Lance discussed in more detail on our show last year), but based on this small spring training sample, he appears to be getting very close to bringing those numbers back. Most importantly, he’s doing so while being On The Verge of averaging 95 mph.
There’s also the changeup. As Lance noted in his piece, pitchers usually land their changeup in the zone at a 40% clip, but Young was throwing his in the zone at a 63% clip in Double-A, and still getting strong swing and miss numbers.
Looking back at the graphic above, you see Young with a 66.7% in-zone rate with the changeup and a 33.3% whiff rate. Again, very small sample in spring against big leaguers kicking the rust off and minor league bats, but it’s still an encouraging sign.
Some may fairly question the spring velo bump and chalk it up to a fresh addition to the 40-man roster looking to make a big name for himself in spring by giving each limited outing some extra juice and assuming that’s not sustainable.
I would fight back against that perfectly logical train of thought by noting that Young lost virtually the entire 2022 season (just 3 starts/11 IP) and the vast majority of 2023 (40 IP/mostly rehab) after recovering from his second Tommy John surgery. Last year, he logged 111 innings between AA/AAA, that after pitching just 137 innings in his career up to that point, over a three year span.
There was also a missed 2020 campaign before his 2021 pro debut due to the pandemic.
One other aspect of Young’s game that I think gets overlooked is his control. Young posted a 4.5% walk rate in 22 Double-A innings to start 2024, which went up to 8.8% in 89 Triple-A innings. That’s just a slight touch above MLB league average. 10% of his Triple-A walks came in one outing, an outing which he left early after admitting he thought he could fight through an illness but ultimately losing that fight. I know, cherry-picking, but projections have him around a 7% walk rate in the big leagues.
Young was a workhorse in 2024 for the first time in his career, blowing his career-high in IP for a season out of the water. It’s not crazy to assume Young’s best velo and stuff was still to come as he blew past his career-innings mark, adjusted to the big league ball in Triple-A, and the part-time ABS system Triple-A experimented with last season.
Young’s fastball velo and data were some of the best among all Orioles’ starters this spring, up to this point, so optioning him down to Triple-A the morning after announcing more scary injury news for Grayson Rodriguez might seem questionable, but the Orioles clearly feel confident in Albert Suarez/Cade Povich holding down the backend of the rotation, at least to start the year. That opens up a whole new can of worms that isn’t the point of this piece.
The Orioles will need Brandon Young at some point in 2025, hopefully less so with a Grayson Rodriguez return and Cade Povich year two breakout. But when they do need to count on Young in the rotation, the early spring returns were quite positive, enough so that he will be a must-watch while in Norfolk to start the year.
Subscribe to the Orioles On The Verge podcast here. Find us on YouTube here. Want extra perks including exclusive podcast episodes and access to a private Discord with a large group of diehard O’s fans? Join our Patreon here for as little as $3/month (discounts available if you sign up for a full year).