Kyle Brnovich isn't the same pitcher you may remember

RHP Kyle Brnovich opened his 2025 season in impressive fashion on Tuesday night.

Written by: Nick Stevens

I will never forget the 2019 Colonial Athletic Association conference tournament. It was a dangerously hot week with the vast majority of people in attendance being just pro scouts getting their final looks at some of the top CAA talent from that year, including two Elon pitchers- George Kirby and Kyle Brnovich.

On a particularly hot afternoon early on in the tournament, an Orioles scout dressed in jeans and a long sleeve, black Orioles pullover, made his way down to one of the first few rows behind home plate and watched Kyle Brnovich’s outing intently, all while a group of us sitting in the section across from him wondered to ourselves how he was surviving the extreme weather conditions in a black quarter-zip.

A couple of weeks later, Brnovich was drafted in the 8th round of 2019 draft by the Los Angeles Angels. He didn’t pitch in affilliated ball after the draft and was traded to the Orioles that winter, along with Kyle Bradish, Zach Peek, and Isaac Mattson for someone you may remember, Dylan Bundy.

God bless that scout. His guy was now an Oriole.

It’s been a long and winding road for Brnovich since then. He didn’t see time in short-season (RIP) or Low-A ball in 2019 after the draft and there was no 2020 minor league season.

He finally made his pro debut in 2021, starting the year in High-A and quickly getting to Double-A after just 34.1 IP. Between the two levels, Brnovich posted a 3.32 ERA with 123 strikeouts and 26 walks across 95 innings and had established himself as a Top 30 prospect in the system.

He would start the 2022 season in Triple-A, but after 8 innings, Brnovich was shut down and would miss the rest of the 2022 season and most of the 2023 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

It was assumed that Brnovich would start the 2024 season back in Triple-A, but he ended up spending the entire year in Double-A with a 75 inning cap. It was a productive season (3.96 ERA, 77 K, .208 average against), but the now 26-year-old pitcher never got the chance to get back to Triple-A and pick up from where he left off in 2022.

Brnovich is now 27 with just 204 professional innings under his belt, but he’s a much different pitcher now than what he was pre-Tommy John surgery.

He was able to rehab with John Means and learn from the veteran, worked closely with one of the mental skills coaches employed by the Orioles, revamped his repertoire, and entered a new level in terms of his velocity.

If you look back at scouting reports from 2021/2022, evaluators loved the knuckle-curve, but emphasized his need to pitch backwards and rely on his deception and bit of funk in his delivery to avoid having to lean heavily on a 90-91 mph fastball with “a little” hop.

Fast forward to present day and Brnovich sits in the 93-94 mph range and has touched at least 96 mph. That fastball also features 18+ inches of induced vertical break (more than “a little” hop). He’s also added a sinker and slider. It’s a revamped operation all with 7 feet of extension.

In his first start with Triple-A Norfolk on Tuesday night, Brnovich struck out 7 across 4 IP, with just one walk. He produced 14 whiffs and a 38% called strike plus whiff percentage. You can see the 96 mph heat and how it can devour a hitter, and the pure filth he was throwing, in the two video clips below.

Brnovich’s repertoire graded out at a 103 Stuff+ on Tuesday, with the fastball specifically at a 106 Stuff+. He no longer needs to pitch backwards to be effective. The fastball is now a strength of his.

As long as he can stack outings like his first one together this year, Brnovich is going to find himself in an interesting situation. He’s Rule 5 eligible again, meaning the Orioles won’t be able to hide him for a third straight year from being picked off by another team. He will have to be added to the 40-man roster or be used in a trade this season. With 40-man spots at a premium and a long list of upcoming Rule 5 eligible players, expect to see a number of smaller deals involving Rule 5 players, like last year’s Trey McGough for Eloy Jimenez or Billy Cook for Patrick Reilly type deals.

More optimistically, the long road Brnovich has traveled leads to Baltimore this season. Either way, it’s been a hell of a journey for Kyle Brnovich. He’s fully healthy and further removed from TJ surgery and he’s no longer just a soft-tossing command artist.

There’s no way to know where his 2025 journey will lead him, but it’s off to a noteworthy start.

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