Ryan Brasier explains his turnaround
The familiar names get coming off the board. Some left free agency (J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, Xander Bogaerts). Others, like Matt Barnes, were sent on their way while the 40-man roster was being turned over.
Yet, Ryan Brasier remains.
The 35-year-old is one of three players from the 2018 world championship team still calling themselves a Red Sox, joining Rafael Devers and Chris Sale. It was a position he wasn't sure would be in the cards when 2022 ended. Opponents had managed a career-worst .280 batting average and .793 OPS, with the righty's ERA ending up at 5.78.
But both the Red Sox and Brasier viewed his existence in a far different way than some of those numbers might suggest.
"I’m not going to sit here and say I wasn’t worried about it, but I wasn’t worried about pitching," Brasier said on the Bradfo Sho podcast. "I knew this year I was going to pitch regardless of whether it was Red Sox or someone else. Obviously, I like it here and I want to be here. But it’s out of your control. You don’t really think about it. I guess when it happens you think about it. But for the most part it’s out of your control and you kind of pick up and move on.
"I think at the end of last year I was in a really good spot. I finished the year strong. It’s just the daily work with Alex, or Bushy, or Walk in the bullpen or the video guys … As much work as we did you can tell if somebody is behind you, if that makes sense. I worked hard at the end of the year on trying to figure out the best way to go about stuff as far as pitching. My mechanics. It kind of showed and we went into the offseason that I was going to keep doing the same thing from Day 1 in the offseason until I got here. You just kind of work as if you’re getting ready to come back here and if that wasn’t the case I was just as ready to go somewhere else if I had to. Obviously, No. 1 was coming back here. There is nowhere I love playing more than Fenway. It’s my favorite park. You can’t really get surprised any more."
What was under the hood when it came to looking at Brasier's 2022 finished product was a reintroduction to the two-seam fastball, along with less predictability.
In his last 13 outings, Brasier' managed a .128 batting average against (third-best of any MLB reliever during that stretch) and .423 OPS against.
It was a rhythm that the righty knew would be key in both keeping him around, and carrying over the success to 2013.
"We got a really good plan as far as attacking hitters and how I was going about actually pitching. In-game stuff," Brasier explained. "I felt like I would have my best stuff and get hit a little bit and wonder why. You go look at certain numbers or certain analytic stuff, you could see … Like percentage of fastballs. Certain counts you might throw that pitch 99 percent of the time. If I know that as a hitter, as soon as I get in the box if I get to a certain count and you throw predominantly one pitch I’m setting up for that one pitch.
"There were certain things that I changed in the last six or seven weeks of the season the started showing better results almost immediately. Going into the offseason the mechanical work that I was doing and the stuff I was working on on the mound, just keep doing it while getting ready for this year."