Tyler Beede’s 2019 was both promising and bad

117 IP, 113 K, 46 BB, 22 HR, 5.08 ERA, 5.03 FIP, 0.2 fWAR

Tyler Beede’s 2019 was a season of adjustments. The first adjustment he made was dropping the sinker like so many other pitchers around baseball had done. That led to a dominant stretch in the PCL where he maintained a sub-2.00 ERA despite the juiced ball spreading to Triple-A. That earned Beede a call-up in May, and his 2019 major league debut was impressive if you just ignored the results. Fortunately, the Giants’ potent offense was able to pick him up.

For the next two months, Beede struggled to carry his success in the minors to the majors, that is until Beede started working the slider into his repertoire. The slider helped Beede shave down on walks and for a time, he looked like the prospect who was promised. But then his fastball command wavered, and it didn’t matter how well the slider was going.

Beede struggled for another month before making a slight adjustment to his delivery. He told Eno Sarris of the Athletic that he shortened his arm path and threw footballs to gain more velocity. In his final outing, Beede struck out seven in three innings without giving up a hit before straining his oblique.

Maybe this is just the recency bias talking, but the way Beede ended his season gave hope for 2020. Maybe if he had ended his season a start earlier in Atlanta that hope wouldn’t be there. Beede may not have shown consistency in his first full season, but what he did show was that he’s not stubborn. He’s willing to make changes and do anything he can to make himself better. The changes may not always work, but he’s fun to watch when they do.

Role on the 2019 Team

Out of the many, many starters on the back of the rotation carousel, Beede was the only one who didn’t lose his spot. He was briefly optioned back to Triple-A in May, but after that Beede held a permanent spot no matter how bad things broke. It’s not hard to see why the Giants kept faith in him. When he was on, he electric. Back in July when all the Giants drank of Michael’s Secret Stuff, Beede had a three start stretch where he gave up just four runs in 21 2/3 innings while striking out 16 and walking just one. Near the end of the season, Beede appeared to have figured something else out. Three of his last four outings were all scoreless.

The problem of course is that in between those flashes of brilliance, Beede was quite bad. In half of his starts, Beede gave up four runs or more. But even with those stinkers, the Giants stuck with him. The promise of Beede is just too great.

(It also helps that no one else forced him out.)

Role on the 2020 Team

Unless Farhan Zaidi goes buckwild on the starting pitching market, Beede has a rotation spot lined up at least to begin the year. The depth chart currently looks something like this:

· Johnny Cueto

· Jeff Samardzija

· Tyler Beede

· Logan Webb

· Dereck Rodríguez

· Andrew Suárez

· Shaun Anderson

· Conner Menez

It’s hard to see Beede getting the same amount of leash in 2020. If he doesn’t put things together early, he could be relegated to the bullpen. Maybe that would ultimately be the best move for him. He could air it out with the fastball, and his command issues won’t be quite so detrimental. With his potential though, it’s worth giving him another shot at starting.

How ‘Farhan’ is Tyler Beede?

Farhan Zaidi loves stockpiling starters, especially ones that make the major league minimum salary. He’s also partial to pitchers who can throw in the high 90s with a plus breaking ball. If Beede had more fastball command or if he were a player development success story, he’d rank higher. But 2.5 Farhans out of 4 is a respectable score.