Steven Brault

Pirates fans did not have much to cheer about in 2020, but Brault quietly put together a nice season. The lefty finished with a 3.38 ERA and 1.20 WHIP over 42.2 innings. He allowed BAs of .149 and .152 on his two primary pitches (four-seam fastball and changeup, respectively), leading to a 4.4% opponents' barrel rate. Brault only sits about 92 mph with his fastball and has never averaged even a strikeout per inning in a big-league season. Further, he's far from a control specialist, with a career 11.4 BB% leaving him with little margin for error. Brault has to work around traffic and hope for weak contact, which puts him largely at the mercy of the BABIP Gods (.243 BABIP in 2020). To be fair, Brault has gotten that weak contact consistently throughout his career, and the home park helps, but in the absence of swing-and-miss dominance, we should not expect him to emerge as more than a streaming option.