Name: Brandon O’Brien
School: Division Ave.
Position: RHP
Brandon is a 6’2″ 160 lb RHP for Division. He is a 2017 graduate and is currently uncommitted.
He has pretty clean and fluid mechanics. He begins with a slight step back along the rubber as he lowers his hands, as he gets prepared for his leg kick, he raises his hands to about head height and has his leg just above the belt. His back leg is firm and his front foot is parallel to the ground. He gets terrific drive from his back leg during his falling action and has good linear direction towards the plate. He has a very long arm circle. He could have a little longer stride for his 6’2″ height, and he also lands with his front foot pointed off-center. While this could help cause more deception, it could also cause the release point to be off and it is not optimal. His arm circle is low 3/4. His extension is not great, he could definitely add a couple more ticks of velocity if he reached out more. He finishes square to home plate.
In his May 2nd start, he was absolutely cruising through five innings. He utilized close to a 50-50 variation of his fastball and knuckle-drop. The latter was an absolute weapon and had batters in fits all day. He ended up allowing two ER, his second base committed a costly two-out error that allowed a third run to score and then he allowed a bases-loaded walk to tie the game and prevented him from earning the victory.
He worked mainly in the 79-82 MPH range with his four-seam fastball. It was not overpowering by any means, but he had two things working for him–1) he had tremendous command of the bottom third of the strike zone, particularly low-and-away and 2) his knuckle drop is from the same arm speed and angle so the batters were left guessing and were often late with their swings when they were wrong. The knuckle drop came in between 67-71 MPH. It has the drop of a curve ball but is not nearly as easy to read because the drop varies on his grip and the wind.
Through five innings, he had allowed only one walk (which was erased by a caught stealing) and three hits. He was absolutely dominant, but then after a leadoff strikeout in the sixth, he allowed consecutive hits (one on a fastball and one on a hanging knuckle-drop) before walking the bases loaded. A strike out gave him the second out, but then he allowed a two-run single on a high fastball and then the error and walk before finally escaping the jam with a groundout.
He controlled the running game very well. He has quick feet, strong and accurate throws to first base and he also varied his looks. Can’t ask for anything better than that.
O’Brien won eight games last season and is well on his way to matching that this season. He needs to put on some more weight because he is so thin and wiry, but he has all the talent and baseball IQ to be a Div-II pitcher.
