Caden Bragg’s return to game action has come with a reminder of why the Orioles were so intrigued by him in the first place.
The right-hander, now Baltimore’s No. 22 prospect, has looked sharp in the Arizona Fall League after missing time with a torn UCL. Bragg threw his second straight scoreless three-inning outing for the Peoria Javelinas on Friday afternoon, helping them roll past Salt River, 10-0, at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. He filled up the strike zone, landing 20 of his 29 pitches for strikes.
Bragg said the elbow injury was a brutal setback, but the recovery process eventually turned into routine.
“It was kind of devastating finding out I tore my UCL,” said Bragg. “There's a stretch where I was obviously disappointed, but after a while, you got to get over it, be a pro.
It's my job to get back. After a while, it's week after week after week, you build up and throw different ways and then finally you're on the mound and then finally you're throwing lives.
“It's a whole process and I'm excited to be back.”
That return has been clean so far. Through Friday, Bragg had worked six scoreless innings for Peoria without issuing a walk, one of only two Fall League pitchers to go that deep without allowing an earned run. He said the feel came back quickly once he got through the early stages of his rehab.
“I'm very confident in myself to throw strikes and that's something I've prided myself on my whole career. After the first couple of lives, bullpens, you start feeling it again.
“It’s kind of like riding a bike, honestly.”
Before the injury, Bragg had been piling up results in the minors. After three High-A outings in which he didn’t allow an earned run, he moved up to Double-A Chesapeake and kept dealing: a 2.32 ERA across nine appearances, including eight starts, with a 59/12 K/BB ratio in 42 2/3 innings. Baltimore grabbed him in the eighth round of the 2023 Draft out of Dallas Baptist and signed him for an under-slot $100,000 bonus, and he had started to look like another development win for an organization that has seen Brandon Young, Trey Gibson and others reach the big leagues in recent years.
The stuff has held up in the Fall League, too. Bragg has worked with a four-seamer and sinker, sitting around 93-94 mph and reaching 95.6 on Oct.
- He’s also leaned on a kick-change, plus an upper-80s/low-90s cutter and a high-70s sweeper.
“I knew I was in a good spot last year,” said Bragg. “It was more so just getting back to that and finding different ways to refine my mechanics to better my future. Obviously, still working on [pitch] shapes - I’m not perfect, no one is.”
The numbers before the injury backed up the eye test. Bragg posted a 25 percent K-BB% in 2024-25, the best mark in the Orioles’ system, and his 2.59 xFIP led all Baltimore pitchers with at least 35 innings in that stretch. He also limited line drives to 18.2 percent, 12th-best among the 144 pitchers who threw at least 40 innings in the Eastern League, while pairing that with a 48.5 percent ground-ball rate, 21st in that same group and just ahead of the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler, the presumptive favorite for the 2026 American League Cy Young Award.
Bragg’s path from here is tricky. He’ll be 26 in 2027, and he’ll be doing it while coming off major surgery and with fewer than 50 innings in the upper Minors. Because he is Rule 5 eligible, the Orioles will need to decide whether to add him to the 40-man roster or risk losing him.
Even with that decision looming, Bragg sees the organization’s pitching depth as a positive. Baltimore has added plenty of talent through the last two Drafts and Trade Deadlines, and MLB Pipeline now ranks its pitching prospect group fourth in baseball.
“It's always awesome when you have a lot of great talent that gets developed through the org because it makes you better,” said Bragg. “It makes you want it, makes you hungrier.
… You can learn different things from different guys. I'd rather be in an org where we have a bunch of talented guys so we can learn from each other and compete.”
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