The New Britain Bees of the independent Atlantic League announced today that they’ve signed right-hander Brandon Beachy.
It’ll be the first professional action for Beachy since he tossed one lone inning with the Dodgers’ Rookie-level affiliate in 2016. Once a rising star with the Braves earlier this decade, Beachy’s promising career was derailed by a pair of Tommy John surgeries. While Beachy has been out of the news almost entirely for more than two years — the last time he was even mentioned on MLBTR came back in 2016 when the Dodgers outrighted him off the 40-man roster — it appears as though he’ll work the indy circuit late in the season in an effort to generate some interest in a minor league deal this winter (or perhaps a late look in September).
Beachy, perhaps surprisingly, is still just 31 years of age, though he’ll turn 32 early next month. It’s been more than a half decade since he looked like a long-term cog for the Braves’ rotation, but he was certainly impressive in his brief peak. From 2010-13, Beachy totaled 267 2/3 innings of 3.23 ERA ball for Atlanta, averaging 9.2 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 along the way. A return to the big leagues would seem like a long shot at this juncture, though there have certainly been more improbable success stories in recent years (e.g. Rich Hill, Jonny Venters).
With the Bees, Beachy will step onto the roster in place of 39-year-old Andy Van Hekken, who pitched for the Tigers back in 2002 and spent several seasons in Triple-A before carving out a successful six-year career with the Nexen Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization. Van Hekken is headed to Taiwan’s Uni-President Lions, per Mike Ashmore of MyCentralJersey.com (Twitter link).
I hope it will all work out. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t rich hill A little older when he came back to the majors?
Hill has appeared in the majors every year since 2005. He just made adjustments.
Yeah — Hill never had the type of absence that Beachy faces right now, but he totaled all of 75 unremarkable innings of relief and was a constant DFA/minor league deal candidate from 2010-15.until he exploded late in the 2015 season and went on to cash in $54MM between Oakland and L.A.
. My bad.
Add scott kazmir to your list.
he could be the next mikolas
Mikolas went and had three excellent seasons pitching in Japan where he improved his secondary pitches substantially. Beachy just simply hasn’t pitched over the past few seasons.
If he does make it back — and who wouldn’t want to see him do so? — he’d be a different type of success story (albeit a similarly good one all the same).
Correct, Beachy’s career path, other than his actual pitching role, is more closely aligned with Kris Medlen’s, Jonny Venters, and possibly you could say Eric O’Flaherty…
All four of Medlen, Beachy, Venters, and O’Flaherty were never really big time prospects, but all four greatly surpassed expectations when they reached the show in Atlanta.
All four, at times, flashed glimpses of brilliance and dominance pitching at an All-Star level, yet each of these pitchers had their promising careers derailed due to injuries.
Beachy was a bulldog on the mound, and the Braves had seemingly struck gold signing Beachy as an undated free agent. He had 4 excellent pitches which he would utilize in any count, and he was a true pitcher, in every sense of the word..If he could have stayed healthy, you can’t help but wonder if he could have remained as one of the NL’s best pitchers moving forward..
I really hope he’s able to stay healthy, and revitalize his career, similar to what Venters has been able to do this year with the Rays and back with the Braves..
Speaking of the man, the myth, and the legend that is Jonny Venters, at one point in time, Venters owned TWO of the FIVE filthiest pitches in professional baseball!! Really take that in for a minute, and let that sink in..He was unreal..
O’Flaherty didn’t have the same arsenal of Venters, but he was definitely one of the NL’s top set-up men during his Atlanta tenure, seemingly coming out of nowhere..After being claimed from the Mariners the Braves tinkered with O’Flaherty’s mechanics, altered his grip on his 2-seamer, and it was game on from then on out..Again, until his career was ruined by injuries..
Venters, O’Flaherty, and Kimbrel gave Atlanta one of the best bullpen trios in my own recent memory..They were the Royals, before the Royals, the Indians before the Indians, and the Yankees before the Yankees…
Meds, Beachy, Venters, and O’Flaherty were all MAJOR pieces of the Braves pitching staff, and it was truly devastating for them to lose all four to such injuries..As a fan of baseball in general, you can’t help but wonder what could have been if they all stayed healthy…Just completely tragic losing for upper tier talents the way they did…
Also, everyone tends to forget the Braves also lost another former first round talent in Mike Minor. While he didn’t have the same level of success as the previously mentioned pitchers, he was still a very talented pitcher in his own right..He seemed like he was well on his way to putting everything together, when injuries derailed his career as well…
You’re aware Mike Minor is a major leaguer starting pitcher right now, right? He had a nice season in KCs pen last year and now is having a mediocre yesr in the Texas rotation.
Medlen made it back briefly before retiring if I remember correctly, and Venters is in the middle of an incredible comeback too. If Beachy could get back to the majors it would be a really cool story for those guys.
Medlen pitches for the Braves in AAA Last Year.
He actually made it up to the DBacks this season.. made one forgettable start against the Astros where he gave up 7 ER in 4 IP.
Yes, after TWO TJ Surgeries, Meds was able to make it back to the big leagues with the Royals, a brief stint with the D-Backs, and then another cup of coffee retiring as a Brave..
I can’t really recall what happened to EOF, after he was injured…
After TWO TJ Surgeries, Mike Minor signed on with the Royals, and then got a solid multi-year deal with the Rangers this past off-season
Venters is still going strong, with the Braves, THREE TJ Surgeries later..!!
I believe Beachy has had 3 major arm/shoulder surgeries, and it would be nothing short of a miracle if he’s able to come back and pitch effectively..I certainly wish him nothing but the best!!
If I remember correctly, didn’t EOF sign a 2 year deal to rehab with Oakland after his TJ? I think he was then traded in the last year of that deal to the Mets in an August swap.. He actually wasn’t too bad in his first year back but wasn’t great after that… He later signed with the Braves during the rebuild and I don’t think he’s latched on with any one since last season. Regardless, the O’Ventbrel bullpen was filthy.
Good luck to Beachy!
rooting for Beachy so much! good luck!
I find it really interesting that independent league signings like this are given their own headline and minor league movements are well chronicled, but something like Brandon Belt coming off the DL doesn’t get a mention, nor does Brandon Crawford being on Concussion Protocol. I’m starting to understand those fans that constantly complain about “East Coast Bias”.
This is not about just the Belt news. I’ve noticed the missing of SF news more than a few times and every time I’m hesitant to say something because I feel like I’m being a pain in the butt fan who is demanding more stories about his favorite team but it’s really starting to become frustrating when I see inane news on my feed but news about SF (which I consider more important, and yes I’m biased) is ignored.
Also, I refresh this site on my laptop at least 25 times a day and I have the alerts pop on my cell. I also read EVERY single article so it’s not like I’m not a regular user.
You can always go somewhere else and pay to get your updates. Don’t be so ungrateful, dude.
I’m not being ungrateful @tsolid, I’m offering constructive criticism as a regular reader of this site. I’m not the first person to point out that media covers East Coast teams a lot more than the others. This often has to do with the time difference.
Things don’t have to always be black and white. Meaning that the second someone offers a different perspective that someone should “go somewhere else”.
Why does the response have to be so simplistic? Why can’t you say “yeah that’s an interesting perspective, maybe this site could cover West Coast teams a little better” or maybe you could say “I think the balance is fair, you’re being a little biased” (which I even suggested in my post).
If they had articles for every player that went on or off the DL, they’d never stop. They have a few posts about significant injuries and a few “injuries notes” posts and that seems more than sufficient.
Fair comment. In general I notice that there seems to be a LOT of transaction details about every other team. Like for example minor league moves. But this is a major league move regarding one of the better players on that team. It just seems that this happens a lot with SF. Again maybe I just notice it because it’s my team but when I see an article about an independent league signing and the “big news” for my team about Belt isn’t mentioned on this site (until today), just frustrated me a little.
Like I said it’s not just this one thing. There’s lots of times this happens. My chat questions about SF are never answered so much so that I never even go into the chats anymore. Yet they will constantly answer the same inane questions like “Player X for Player Y, who hangs up first?” when it’s not even a realistic trade scenario.
the Giants aren’t worthy of MLBTR headlines.
This is very hard to argue with because it’s probably true! :)
Lots of pressure on Beachy to fill the shoes of the legendary Andy Van Hekken. Here’s hoping Andy gets a shot at a Taiwanese title!
Good luck to the son of a beach