40 in 40 2025: Matt Brash
The Canadian fireballer was dearly missed last season, and should step back up upon his return.
After a dominant 2023 where he led all of Major League Baseball in games pitched, Matt Brash seemed to be poised to take another step forward last year. Pairing once again with Andrés Muñoz, with Gregory Santos in the fold? Mariners fans were practically drooling at the possibility of a three-headed monster in the back of the bullpen, and as the mid-2010s Royals showed (did y’all realize that that triumvirate of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland was a full decade ago? You’re welcome), that can get you pretty far.
Those hopes were sadly dashed before the could fully blossom, with Brash getting off to a slow ramp up in spring training before being shut down. Our worst fears were confirmed in mid-May, too, with the M’s announcing that he would undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the rest of the season. Although Muñoz was magical, earning his first All-Star nod, we all know that Santos only scattered eight appearances across 2024, and with arguably the best of the bunch in Brash out all season, Seattle’s once-vaunted Los Bomberos took a step back.
Thankfully, Brash has exceeded expectations in his recovery, and has spent most of March ramping back up to game speed. On Sunday, he graduated to throwing to live hitters, and while he will still almost certainly begin the regular season on the injured list and need a perhaps lengthy rehab assignment, all signs have pointed to him at long last returning to the big league club in late April or early May.
The Mariners badly missed Brash’s flamethrowing presence last year, and given the club once again on the outside looking in at the playoffs, one can easily imagine the tide on a few close games turning in their favor if he had been lurking at the end of the ‘pen. Even with Muñoz and Santos set to be entrenched in the high-leverage spots from the jump, Seattle will still need to triage some late and close innings for the first few weeks of the season. But if their cavalcade of arms can keep things patched together until Matt Brash once again strides in? I’m thinking Los Bomberos are back for good.
Projections:
FanGraphs Depth Chart: 48 IP, 0.2 fWAR, 3.06/2.26 ERA/FIP
PECOTA: 30 IP, 0.3 WARP, 3.58/3.38 ERA/DRA
Over/Unders:
Zach: OVER, OVER, OVER. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills looking at these projections. They’re so absurd that when Isabelle was putting them into our over/under document, she accidentally transposed the FanGraphs projection to be 2.0 rather than 0.2, and I had to fix it when I was looking at his FG page and noticed something was off. I get why your brain did that, Isabelle.
Isabelle: Over, and also sorry to ZAM for my error. It was definitely because I believe fervently in Brash and not because the act of inputting all these numbers made a small amount of my brain liquify and trickle out my ear. Maybe 3rd grade crush/nemesis Nate Hall was right, numbers aren’t my strong suit. They certainly aren’t for FanGraphs where Brash is concerned.
Anders: Over, this isn’t even a fair exercise. I’ll just say that I think Brash’s best work is ahead of him, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see him in the closer’s role by season’s end.