Dan Connolly

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

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.

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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.

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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.