Out In Front: Breakdown of Tyler Beede's Latest Start + Something Extra

Here on the latest edition of Out In Front, I'll talk about Tyler Beede latest start as I covered him on Twitter last night in America (early morning here). I'll provide an inning-by-inning breakdown about his latest start and probably, his last start before the Futures Game where he's included and together with Keury Mella, they represent the San Francisco Giants in the game full of top prospects and future stars in Cincinnati. Here I go.

First Inning: Beede started the first inning flawlessly, with a quick three-pitch strikeout where he threw 2 great changeups with great movement in it. Then it is followed by a routine groundout and a popout to second base to end the inning. 
Second Inning: His second inning is as good as the first, 1-2-3. One thing that I noticed is that he kept on pounding the inner half of a right handed hitter due to the sinking movement of his fastball and his changeup. He might've thrown his changeup too much in the early going, as hitters hit a lot of foul balls and in one at bat, it seems that he has thrown 5 changeups in the 8-pitch at-bat and worked all around the zone that resulted in a groundout. His sinker velocity reached as high as 93 MPH in the inning. 
Third Inning: Beede finally held back his changeup and threw more sinkers in the inning and , resulting in another 1-2-3 with 2 groundouts and a strikeout. He has kept his balls in the middle to lower half of the zone. His changeup flashed as a plus pitch for him as he faced the Akron lineup. 
Fourth Inning: Here's where all of the damage has been done and I call this the 2-out blitz. After a one pitch groundout to the leadoff hitter, he surrendered his first baserunner as Ryan Rohlinger walks. After a groundout to the next hitter, I really thought that this should be another easy for him but boy I am wrong. Anthony Gallas hit the first hard hit ball that Beede allowed, a double, the other way and into right field and to the wall. Beede is pretty frustrated that he allowed the double to him. After getting Carlos Moncrief to swing to a pitch in the dirt, Beede left a tasty pitch in the heart of the plate and he pulls it, beating the shift and allowing another run. In the span of 6 pitches, 2 runs had crossed the plate. Moncrief was then caught stealing second base to end the inning so that improves the percent of runners stealing bases off of him. It is not 7-9, still pretty high as he's a slow worker from the stretch. 
Fifth Inning: After that 2-out blitz by Akron's heart of the lineup, Beede regathers his composure and pitches a clean 1-2-3 inning. Beede has consistently kept his sinker either at the thighs to the knees down in the first 5 innings and he allowed the first flyout to Jordan Smith that almost scared me but ended up being caught. He's pitching efficiently at this point, throwing only 58 pitches and pounds the zone really well, throwing 40 strikes.
Sixth Inning: After Young Beedah's offense posted a 4-spot in the bottom half of the inning, he faced the 9-1-2 hitters in the lineup. After retiring the first two hitters easily via flyout and strikeout, he faced Ryan Rohlinger and just like what Jon Laaser said, he's a really tough out as he worked an 8-pitch at-bat to draw his second walk of the ballgame and he felt and I felt that he was pretty squeezed by the home plate umpire because on Gameday, it's right at the knees. Beede showed cracks as he got to a 3-0 count and pitching way out of the zone and he allowed to the next hitter. He got behind to Gallas but he got out of it by getting a huge groundout to end the threat. His pitch count suddenly rose up to 82 pitches after a taxing inning.
Seventh Inning: A first-pitch bunt single is the first thing that welcomed Beede in the inning. After a pitch way inside to the next hitter, he regathers his composure and pitched on the lower half and induced a forceout. After getting a strikeout and got two outs, Beede shows that he's running out of gas as he induced his 3rd walk of the game. As he creeps closer to 100 pitches, Beede worked to his last hitter in a 6-pitch at-bat and he induced a groundball out to the shortstop Rando Moreno to end the jam and his outing. If Beede would've pitched efficiently this inning, he got a big chance to pitch in the 8th inning.


Overall Assessment Of His Start

Overall, the Young Beedah pitched a great game. In the first three innings, I just saw what Beede could really become once he's fully developed, a groundball machine that can generate strikeouts whenever he needs or wants. But then there's that sudden blitz of hits that Beede was able to tone down as he made good to great pitches to get out of jams in the 6th and the 7th inning, showing his poise and confidence on the mound. 

He pounded the zone well this game. It is proven proven that out of 101 pitches that he has thrown, 66 of them are strikes especially in the first 5 innings where 40 out of 58 of his pitches are strikes before raising his pitch count in the 6th and 7th innings. Also a point to consider what he's pounding the zone is that there are 18 called strikes in his outing.  

Below is the location of the pitches that he has thrown all game. I relied on Gameday for every location of the pitches that Beede has thrown and Gameday has proven me that the locations of his pitches there are pretty legitimate. (No grades for creativity here. Just cold hard numbers and squares.)

The innermost 3x3 square is where the strike zone is and the surrounding squares are outside the zone. I did my best regarding the judgement of the location of all his pitches because a lot of pitches are borderline calls so I judged them based on the call except for one where it is called a ball but it is within the strike zone. As you can see from the squares that the Young Beedah pounded the lower half of the plate and especially middle-in to a righty and never left anything above the zone that can be lifted. This is the representation of Beede's as his sinker and his changeup will normally be located on that lower left corner of the strike zone. There are some wild pitches where he lost grip of the fastball and ride way up and in. 

Beede might be also doing an experimentation by leaning heavily on his changeup early and showed his curveball later in this start while in his start before this, he heavily relied on his curveballs and showed his changeup later while used the cutter sparingly in both starts. I feel it's a matter of what offspeed pitch feels good on his right hand right now together with his sinker. Beede got ahead of 18 out of the 27 hitters that he faced and induced 11 swings and misses in this game together with the 11-2 groundout-flyout ratio. 

As a wrap up of Beede's start, I think I saw the Beede of old, the one that we saw in his San Jose days. His sinker is sitting pretty in the 89-91 MPH range throughout the game and topped 93 MPH and described by Jon Laaser as having a heavy sink in it with some run while I call it a "bowling ball" sinker, which goes to show that he doesn't need to be overpowering to get hitters out. His changeup flashes plus potential in this start as hitters are way in front of his pitch due to the same arm motion and release point though he tends to rely on it too much that hitters are gonna pick up that changeup once he shows it too much on the hitter's eyes. His curveball is going to be a close to above-average offering and his cutter/slider flashes above-average too. The command for Beede though is exquisite until the tank slowly ran out of gas. Stamina can be trained by proper conditioning though to help carry that command deep into the later innings. He's Boston Strong and this start is the reason why he's the top prospect of the Giants.

Something Extra

-There's only one guy to be mentioned in this edition of Something Extra. After the Young Beedah went full 7 innings of work, he's replaced by a familiar name, and his name is Kyle Crick. I have mentioned my opinions and persuading everybody in my latest Top 10+10 (go to No. 9, he's right there) about the possibilities of a positive outcome to converting him to a reliever. I also got a chance to listen to Jon Laaser and Jay Durham and the Gameday to check on Crick's relief appearance. 

He started his outing in the windup and started out strong, pumping his plus-plus fastball in the 94-97 MPH range and just blown by Todd Hankins even when his pitches are on the upper and middle of the zone for the strike out. Great start to his outing. Then here comes the bad part. He then throws 3 straight balls down in the zone but came back to work it to a full count but then allowed a walk. Then, here comes the wildness. He then allowed another walk, missing badly in the zone and the only ball in the zone that time is in the letters. I Twitted then "Place the ball in the zone, Crick." 

At the next hitter, even though he started the pitch at the ball he got the heater that the hitter manages to foul off and then blown by him his fastball even though it is pretty much on the middle of the zone but down enough. If I'm not mistaken he then throws his only pitch lower than 94 MPH, a 91 MPH cutter/slider that just misses off the plate away that made the hitter to flinch. He then rung him up with a K inside and thigh-high. This what I think is what I love about the potential of Crick as a reliever. He needs to know that he doesn't need to spot his fastball on the black to get hitters out. He needs to learn and appreciate the talent that he got in his right arm where his fastball will easily blow by hitters and whenever they made contact on it, the tremendous run that he has on it will make sure that he's going to expect a weak contact. I don't really care if he throws it right down the pipe, I just want him to experience the feeling of having success when he pounds the zone with his fastball. 

On the next hitter, he kept his pitches (all fastballs as far as I can remember) and worked ahead of the last hitter but his pitch count is creeping up to 30 pitches already and he then has thrown 3 out of 4 pitches for balls, allowing his 3rd walk of his outing and then he got pulled by Jose Alguacil. 

He has thrown more balls than strikes this outing (27-13 strikes) and there's a lot of negatives to pick up like he's command is not much better than as a starter and there's seemingly no improvements. For me, I'll take the at-bat against the 4th hitter (vs. Gallas) as a positive note and something to ponder on if I'm Crick. To sum it up, I'll take what Jon Laaser said about him (non-verbatim) "He's like a golfer, when you think that you have figured your swing, you then hit a ball into the rough." I'm pretty sure it's a golfer comparison but my memory has failed me to remember it exactly.

-It is now time for the pun of the week! (It will not be on a weekly basis, though.) All of the voices in the Giants minor league system (Joe Ritzo, Jon Laaser, Jay Burnham, Rob Schreier, Jamie Daffner, and others I didn't mention) are really fun to listen to (unfortunately River Cats radio is not available here). The pun of the week goes to Rob Schreier when he described Junior Amion's 15-pitch, 6-pickoff at-bat where he said in the middle of the at-bat that (non-verbatim) "Junior Amion might become Senior Amion after this at-bat." I really laughed in front of my laptop. I don't know if you find that hilarious but I do. I find that one really good and really humorous. I guess I can laugh at the simplest of jokes. The true bummer is after that when Chris Shaw punches a base hit in the first pitch that he saw. But that Amion at-bat is just a really good sight.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Out In Front and I hope you find my analysis on Beede's start informative and fun, with the addition of making something positive out of a bad Kyle Crick relief appearance and the pun of the week! Cheers!