The guardians appointed the right hand Tyler Beede for Friday work and call another right-hander Peter Strzelecki from Triple-A Columbus in a related move, Mandy Bell of MLB.com tweets.
Beede, 30, (31 later this month) signed a minor league deal over the winter and won a spot in Cleveland's Opening Day bullpen with a good spring showing. He was hit hard in his first 14 innings of the regular season, however, giving up 13 runs on 16 hits, nine walks and three strikeouts. He struck out 18 batters, giving him a nice 26.5% strikeout rate, but a low 13.2% walk rate and a high 44.7% strikeout rate overshadowed his ability to miss bats.
Beede spent the 2023 season with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball, where he posted a 3.99 ERA in 49 2/3 innings out of the bullpen. A former first-round pick by the Giants in 2014, the Vanderbilt product was a top prospect but saw his career end — in part due to injuries (most notably, Tommy John surgery). He has pitched 201 innings in the majors and is sporting a 5.55 ERA with a worse than average strikeout and walk rates of 19.6% and 10%, respectively.
Between MLB stints, Beede has dramatically changed his pitching repertoire. His first MLB run saw him use mostly a four-seamer, changeup and curveball, but the 2024 version of Beede features a four-seamer, splitter and sinker in addition to his breaking ball (the FanGraphs lists it as a slider but Statcast considers it a curveball). Beede didn't throw a single homer from 2018-22, but it was his most used pitch in 2024. It hit a lot when it was pitched, but Beede also missed a ton of at-bats with the pitch (16.8% swinging-strike average).
The Rangers will have a week to trade Beede, try to move him through waivers, or release him. He will be able to decline an outright assignment to Columbus even if he ends up clearing waivers.
Source link
