Tyler Beede Promoted to Double-A; Making Quick Work of Minors
Over the past couple of days, the San Francisco Giants have had to undergo a lot of changes in their minor league system. On Monday, two Triple-A pitchers, Robert Coello and Juan Gutierrez exercised their respective opt-out clauses, effectively ending their stint with the Sacramento River Cats. Just two days before that, Kevin Correia, a veteran who also had a June 1st opt-out, was released at his own request.
To fill these open spots, the Giants had to do some maneuvering. They signed old friend Kevin Frandsen to a minor league deal, placing him in Sacramento. He went 2-4 in his re-debut in the Giants’ organization on Tuesday. The team also promoted former first-round right-handed pitcher Chris Stratton and left-hander Jack Snodgrass from Double-A Richmond to Sacramento.
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Moving those two pitchers from Richmond created space on their roster. One of those spaces was filled by San Francisco’s 2014 first-round pick Tyler Beede.
Beede has made quick work of the minor leagues to this point. In 2014, he pitched with the Rookie League Giants for four games before being promoted to Low-A with the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes.
He was impressive at both levels, but they were both very short stints. In the Rookie League, Beede threw 8.1 innings, allowing eight hits, four walks, and three earned runs with 11 strikeouts. In two games after his promotion to Salem-Keizer, Beede pitched 6.2 innings, surrendering eight hits, two runs, three walks to go with seven strikeouts.
Although there wasn’t a lot of minor league experience off which to base it, the prospect rankings looked very favorably at the Vanderbilt product. Baseball America ranked Beede as the Giants’ second-best prospect, behind catcher Andrew Susac, and just ahead of Kyle Crick. MLB Pipeline has Beede third, behind Crick and another intriguing young pitcher, Keury Mella.
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Beede lived up to that hype completely to start the 2015 season. He skipped Single-A Augusta altogether, and was instead placed at High-A with the San Jose Giants. In nine starts, he threw 52.2 innings, surrendering 13 earned runs on 51 hits while striking out 37 batters.
At the time of his promotion, Beede was third in the California League with a 2.24 ERA, and ninth with a 1.15 WHIP.
The biggest improvement in Beede’s game this year has been his command. In his 52.2 innings with San Jose, Beede walked just nine opponents, good for a rate of 1.5 walks per nine innings. In his final two years at Vanderbilt, he averaged 4.9 BB/9, and in his 15 minor league innings, he walked seven (4.2 BB/9). The improvement went a long way to allowing Beede to throw deeper into games as his pitch count was able to stay manageable.
While his walks have dwindled, so have the strikeouts. But that’s not a bad thing. This year, Beede has focused on pitching more to contact, and it has worked. He averages 12.8 groundball outs per game, and 51 percent of his outs have come from balls on the ground. He also averages 1.68 groundball outs for every out recorded in the air.
The most notable example of Beede’s prowess as a groundball pitcher came on May 10th against the Stockton Ports. On that day, he recorded 19 outs, 17 of which came via balls on the ground. The other two outs were strikeouts.
That’s not to say that Beede can’t still be a strikeout pitcher. In his last outing while with San Jose, which just happened to be his best, he struck out 11 batters in seven shutout innings, while allowing just four hits and a walk.
Beede is still young, having just turned 22 years old on May 23rd. If his rapid ascension through the minor leagues continues at this pace, he could force his way into the Giants’ rotation in 2016. There are bound to be some openings, as Tim Hudson is expected to retire after the season, Tim Lincecum is an impending free agent after this year, and some of the Giants’ veteran starters can’t seem to shake the injury bug.
There’s no need to rush Beede. He’s still got a lot of innings in his young arm, and as of now, there’s no spot for him in the upper levels. But with the way he’s pitching, it might not be rushing to keep moving him forward.