Brad Brach Rides The Bus

The former long-shot draft pick remembers his time in San Diego and Baltimore

Welcome to Warning Track Power, an independent newsletter of baseball stories and analysis grounded in front office and scouting experiences and the personalities encountered along the way.

Before diving into an interleague connection, I want to let you know that the seventh annual Kirk Gibson Golf Classic takes place this Monday at The Wyndgate Country Club in Rochester Hills, Michigan. This year, there’s an additional event on Sunday: Strike Out Parkinson’s, a bowling event that includes a panel conversation about the 1984 World Series with Alan Trammell, Kirk Gibson, and Goose Gossage. More info can be found here, and you can peruse the silent auction items here. The Kirk Gibson Foundation for Parkinson’s funds programs to benefit Parkinson’s patients and to provide research grants to help find a cure for Parkinson’s Disease.

There are precisely 100 players who have appeared in a Major League game for both the Padres and the Orioles. I’ve always been partial to Al Bumbry, Fred Lynn, and Manny Alexander myself. Manny Machado and Jorge Mateo — in opposing dugouts at Petco Park this week — are part of the club, too.

(Next time you get these two teams in Immaculate Grid, you can thank me.)

In honor of the three-game series wrapping up tonight between the Friars and the Birds, I spoke to a member of the America’s Finest/Charm City Century Club.

Selected in the 42nd round of the 2008 Draft out of Monmouth University by the Padres, Brad Brach was never supposed to be a big leaguer. Even after he earned California League Pitcher of the Year honors in 2010, it was still a long road to the Show.

Jim Bretz, who is now the Northeast Scouting Supervisor for the Tigers, was the scout who recommended and ultimately signed Brach.

“He stuck his neck out a little bit and took a chance on somebody, at the time, who probably didn’t deserve to get drafted,” the right-handed reliever says of Bretz. “I didn’t really throw very hard. He just happened to be there on one good game.” Bretz told Brach that if there was the right spot late in the draft, he might get a phone call from the Padres.

Of course, it takes more than good scouting and good luck to develop a big leaguer.

Brach credits Padres minor league pitching coaches Tom Bradley, Bronswell Patrick, Dave Rajsich, and Jimmy Jones with honing his craft.

“I really enjoyed being around the Doug Dascenzo,” Brach says of former Major League outfielder and long-time coach who managed the Ft. Wayne TinCaps in 2009. (Dascenzo is currently the minor league outfield coordinator for the Cubs.) “He gave me some of the most confidence of anybody in organization. I remember after we won the [Midwest League] championship, we were having a couple of drinks, and he came up to me and was like, ‘You’re gonna play for 10 years in the big leagues.’”

In the moment, Brach thought, “Where in the world did that come from?” But it stuck with him throughout his playing career and beyond. “Just a little comment like that went a really long way for me, being a 42nd-round pick and not having any clue what was going to happen with my career. Hearing somebody who had been to the big leagues and had seen pretty much everything in the game say that was pretty awesome.”

Brach also credits minor league hitting coaches Tom Tornincasa and Bob Skube for helping him understand how professional hitters approached an at-bat. Both Dascenzo and Tornincasa coached Brach in Ft. Wayne and again in Double-A San Antonio. He says the continuity was a positive factor in his development.

“You can get to know somebody pretty well when you’re making all those bus trips together.”

Brach, who retired after playing for the Reds in 2021, has sat in the booth as an analyst for Orioles broadcasts during a few series this season. He’s now watching a roster of players who rode the bus together.

The Orioles/Padres series provides a stark contrast in roster construction: The O’s represent a team on the upswing of a rebuild, assembled largely at or near the league minimum; the Padres possess a top-heavy collection of well-paid stars all brought into the organization from elsewhere and a rotating patchwork of players filling out the bottom of the roster.

In last night’s 10-3 Padres victory, the Orioles started five players they had drafted and developed. By contrast, the Padres had no such player in their lineup. Both teams have surprised this season, though each for a different reason. This is not to say that homegrown talent is a prerequisite for winning — last year’s Padres team advanced to the NLCS — but it’s a good place to start the conversation.

“My strongest relationships are still with the guys I played with in the minor leagues,” Brach says.

“When you’re spending all day, every day with the same people... You can’t get away from people — thankfully, we had a group of guys who all enjoyed being together. But if you have some issues, you’re either gonna get over them or you’re gonna have a hard time because you’re with each other all the time.

“That’s what I’ve heard about these Oriole guys. They’ve gotten to know each other really well. And their families all know each other. They all came up together. And so it’s really cool to see them get to all be there together.”

Brach compares it to his stint in Baltimore. He was part of the 2014 team that lost to the Royals in the ALCS. He was an All-Star in 2016. He knows what the good times look like at Camden Yards and what it took to get there. Brach watched as J.J. Hardy, Adam Jones, and Matt Wieters — it’s important to note that Wieters was the only homegrown player of that group — quietly went about their business and showed up to play every day.

“When I got to Baltimore, the biggest thing I noticed was when we won games, especially the year we won the division, it was back in the locker room and — whether we’d won or lost — it was the same exact thing. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong that way. But, to me, that was the first example of true professionalism. Like, we’re out there trying to win these games and — yeah, it’s hard to win a big league game, but — that’s what we’re expected to do every single day,” Brach says.

“It’s just… let’s go out there, do your job, and let’s win as many baseball games as possible.”

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