Dan Connolly

Brach wins arb case — or O’s actually lose one

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The Orioles’ arbitration cases are over – and so is their streak.

A three-person arbitration panel ruled in favor of Brad Brach Friday, according to multiple reports. The right-handed reliever will receive $3.05 million, more than doubling his salary ($1.25 million) from 2016.

The Orioles had countered with $2.55 million and the two sides participated in a hearing Thursday in Florida – the second the Orioles have had this spring. They won earlier in the month against catcher Caleb Joseph.

The loss to Brach was the first time the Orioles hadn’t won an arbitration hearing since 1995, when pitcher Ben McDonald was victorious. The Orioles are now 11-2 in arb hearings since attorney Peter Angelos took over as majority owner of the team.

I believe the Orioles had won their last 10 hearings – and all three previously under executive vice president Dan Duquette.

The club had roughly a dozen potential cases for arbitration at various points this offseason, but settled with most. Only three – Brach, Joseph and pitcher Kevin Gausman, who ultimately settled – filed salary figures this year.

Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.