X-Factor: Zach Britton

Zach Britton of the Baltimore Orioles is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. His sinker teases hitters by zipping towards the bottom of the strike zone then dropping out. Although he has enough power to miss bats, he isn't primarily a strikeout pitcher. The lefty makes his living by generating harmless ground balls with his sinker. In his minor league career Britton has induced nearly 3 times as many ground outs as fly ball outs (2.94 GO/AO).

Keith Law has 23 year-old Britton 11th on his Top 100 Prospects list, ahead of nationally known prospects like Aroldis Chapman, Kyle Drabek, and Jeremy Hellickson. This spring has been Britton's coming out party. In 14 spring training innings, Britton has yet to allow a run. He has been the best pitcher in Oriole camp.

Britton opened eyes last week when he threw five innings of shutout ball against a mixed group of New York Yankee regulars and rookies. Mark Teixeira said "You don't see a lefty with that much movement...It moves late and he throws in the mid-90s." Tex went 0-3 against Britton with two Ks and a ground out. Will Zach Britton spend the next six months in Baltimore, making the best hitters in baseball pound his sinker into the dirt in front of home plate? Maybe, maybe not.

As Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun explained after the Yankee game, if the Orioles wait until April 21 to bring Britton to the majors it will delay his free agency by a full year. As Connolly points out, it's an easy decision. 4 extra starts from Britton now, or 30 when he is in his prime? Of course Britton will spend a few weeks at AAA. He only has 12 starts at the AAA level anyway. A few more will be good for him. But that April 21 date is hardly carved in stone.

Tom Verducci at SI.com suggests the O's might wait until early June to call Britton up from the minors, a move that would save the team a year of post-arbitration salary. Baltimore did that a couple years ago with Matt Wieters. If the Orioles can find five reasonably competent pitchers to fill out the staff until June (unlikely) they could leave Britton in the minors until then. One more thing...with a career high of 153 innings, it's likely the Oriole front office will shut Britton down sometime in September to avoid wear on his arm.

So far I've established that Britton will pitch somewhere between three and six months of the season. That alone makes him a true X-factor, but his pitching could still use some polish as well. The late movement on his pitches costs Britton a certain amount of control. Oriole reporter Roch Kubatko recently wrote "...nobody--including Britton and his catcher--know exactly where it's going." We can be confident that Britton will keep it at the batter's knees, but there are questions beyond that.

Britton has run up some high pitch counts this spring. In his five inning showcase against the Yankees he threw 90 pitches, 52 for strikes. He clearly has to make some adjustments if he wants to go deep into games against patient major league hitters.

I would project Britton to pitch 100-ish ML innings with an ERA floating around 4.75 but there is a lot of uncertainty. Injuries or poor performances could force an early call-up. Britton could adjust more quickly or slowly to the majors than I imagine. He could react poorly to the amount of hype currently surrounding him or he could thrive under the pressure. He is an intriguing X-factor this season.