John Brebbia

The 2020 data points with Brebbia are nil as he was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery in early June. The Cardinals decided they did not want to wait it out and non-tendered the right-hander in December. San Francisco signed Brebbia to a major-league contract a couple weeks later and the team looks content to mostly just monitor his progress throughout 2021. A best-case scenario would a late-season return, but realistically, the Giants are not expecting any real contributions from Brebbia this coming season. Brebbia was a workhorse from 2017-19 and an effective mid-to-late-inning arm for the Cardinals, posting a 3.14 ERA and 19.9 K-BB% over his first three MLB seasons (175 innings). If he's even close to that level post-surgery, Brebbia will find steady work in a big-league bullpen.

Brebbia spent the entire season on the big-league roster for the first time in 2019, appearing in 66 games and ranking second among Cardinal relievers with 72.2 innings pitched. The right-hander owned a 1.53 ERA at the end of May but tailed off the rest of the way and finished the campaign with a 3.59 ERA (3.12 FIP). Overall, Brebbia's body of work portrayed a capable reliever with room to grow. He posted a solid 28.6 K% and held opposing hitters to a .205 xBA -- the best mark of his career. Though his walk rate increased for the third straight season, it remained tolerable at 8.9%. Brebbia continued a career-long trend of accumulating a high flyball rate (50.5% in 2019, sixth-highest among qualified relievers), but he largely succeeded at keeping the ball in the park (0.74 HR/9). Brebbia is far from a priority draft target, but with the Cardinals' closer situation in flux, he's worth keeping an eye on.

Despite coming off a solid season and a strong spring, Brebbia began 2018 with Triple-A Memphis. It didn't take long before he made the first of his six trips to the majors as the Cardinals shuttled Brebbia back and forth often. In between stints on the farm, Brebbia pitched well, mostly in low-leverage scenarios though he did record five holds and two saves, one of the three-inning variety. Of the 18 runs Brebbia surrendered, eight came in a two-week stretch when he allowed at least one tally in five of six outings. With 60 whiffs in 51.2 innings, Brebbia could handle a consistent late-inning role but since he still has an option left, he could also make the trip back and forth from Memphis again. Brebbia isn't someone to consider on draft day, but monitor his early-season usage as he could emerge as a candidate in leagues scoring holds.

Brebbia appeared in 50 games last season, but threw just 51.2 innings of work in mostly low-leverage situations. He pitches with a very heavy flyball tilt, and paid the price for that with a high home run rate, but limited his damage by being stingy with the walks. The 2.44 ERA had a lot of help from a suppressed .216 BABIP and an inflated 91 percent left-on-base rate -- two fortunes that are unlikely to continue in 2018. He also did all of this without recording a single decision or a save, which (min. 50 innings) is something that has only been done two other times in baseball history. One was by Peter Moylan last year and the other was by Sam Freeman in 2015.