Per Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the Giants have signed righty Brandon Beachy to a minor league pact. Beachy had been out of affiliated ball since 2015, when he made two late-season starts for the Dodgers.
The 32-year-old Beachy was an early-decade stalwart for the Braves; after a circuitous route to the majors, which saw the Indiana-born product go undrafted following a decorated career at little-known Indiana Wesleyan University, the then 23-year-old broke in with Atlanta during the club’s Wild Card run in 2010. In four injury-marred seasons with the club, Beachy posted a stellar 9.2 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 in 46 games (all starts) on the way to an excellent 3.23 ERA/3.34 FIP.
Beachy’s career was derailed after a 2012 Tommy John surgery and numerous setbacks in the subsequent rehab. Since returning to the big-league hill for five cameo appearances in 2013, and a second Tommy John that wiped out his 2014, Beachy has appeared in just 14 professional games, most of which came with the AAA-Oklahoma City Dodgers in 2015, the first in the four-year GM tenure of current Giants president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi. After signing a one-year, $1.5MM pact with Los Angeles prior to the 2016 season, the 6’3 righty’s campaign was derailed by a recurring bout with elbow tendinitis; after the injury failed to progress in the way he’d hoped, Beachy left the team (and organized baseball) for the remainder of that season and the next.
He did attempt a 2018 comeback with the unaffiliated New Britain Bees of the Atlantic League, striking out a dozen men in just twelve appearances, though attendant scouting reports are predictably scarce. The Giants, though, whose upper-minors starting-pitching depth has been scraped clean of anything resembling a big-league track record, are perhaps a better spot than any for a longshot reclamation project, and should give the aging righty ample opportunity to prove his tank isn’t set permanently on empty.
What the hell
Oh man, theres a name i havent heard in a while. He was the man back in the day. K’s galore.
Well now we know the source of the Dodgers’ two-year infatuation with Beachy.
hahaha who downvoted this? im a big giants fan and even i found this funny
Zaidi wants to bring to the Giants all the players that have played for the Dodgers since he was there. That is good if they help the Giants become better.
This definitely isn’t the case.
Really? Patt Venditte, Brandon Beachy and Breyvic Valera. Who is the next player that might wear the San Francisco uniform this coming season.
So he’s bringing in a ton of played who haven’t done anything to even glance at? None of those players are significant and I doubt they see a lot of time if any on the big league roster. Not to be a d*** but I don’t see how him brining in scraps is good for the team
Did you miss that it’s a minor league contract? This doesn’t hurt anything.
Ever heard of a bottom of the draft barrel who became a HOF’er named Mike Piazza? How about a high school coach turned MLB RP Jim Morris? These “has beens” or “reclamation projects” that are being signed to MILB contracts had at least some success in the majors. These “scraps” as you call them could outperform all of us that have nothing better to do than spout off our opinions.
While calling this a “good” deal may be strong, there’s nothing to lose bringing him to spring training and seeing what he has to offer. All it takes is one gem from the scrap bin to justify ten such deals that don’t work out.
Both the Giants and Zaidi have a track record of turning washed up guys or former prospects into useful MLB contributors. Without deals like this, the Giants wouldn’t have Dereck Rodriguez in the rotation and making noise on the Rookie of the Year ballot, and they wouldn’t have had Ryan Vogelsong make the All Star team on a World Series winner. The Dodgers wouldn’t have Chris Taylor and Max Muncy in their lineup without at least some input from Zaidi.
Up next “Giants sign Chin Hui Tsao and Alberto Callaspo to minor league deals”
Zaidi will soon bring the guys from his A’s days into the fold. That was all he did in L.A.
Josh Reddick was the only big acquisition from his A’s days and all of a sudden thats “all he did”. That Max Muncy guy worked out
You clearly don’t know your baseball history. The Dodgers had to take on pathetic Reddick in order to get Rich Hill and that was just one of several deals with the A’s.
Don’t forget that Drew Pomeranz was an A back in ’14, Zaidi’s last year there. So much for analytics; This guy’s got more loyalty to has-beens than Bobby Evans!
and venditte
He’s trying to field the first all-Brandon lineup….
Between Beachy and Medlen… The Braves could have had such a different outcome in the past 5 seasons or so
Plus the awful Wood trade.
Reason A as to why the Mets will never succeed with their rotation
They had J.J., Hanson, Delgado,Minor,Teheran,Medlen and Beachy. The future looked really bright. Things just didn’t line up like expected
man, didnt even turn out well for two of them. even Teheran hasn’t been as consistently great.
Don’t forget the failed prospects such as Jordan Schafer, tyler pastornicky, Brandon Jones, Cunningham and Bethancourt
And Tim Hudson
Kind of a strange story. After his two fairly disastrous starts for the Dodgers in 2015 he just sort of fell off the map. Remember when he walked off the mound after that second one he looked like he’d been run over by a freight train.
It was a strange time. With the Front Office being so tight lipped, it almost felt like a murder mystery.
This off-season is becoming laughable. At least do fans a favor and admit this is a rebuild with no intentions of competing this year.
If it was a full rebuild they would trade at least some of their players. They have admitted it’s more of a bridge year than anything
A bridge to what? They’re going to have to buy a ton of FA’s because they aren’t filling their holes internally.
Bridge to their A and AA guys, like Heliot Ramos, Joey Bart, Shaun Anderson, etc.
I get that but besides Bart and potentially Ramos none of those guys are high impact players. Your farm system is significantly weaker than LAD, Col and SD. That’s just not going to be enough
Bart has 45 games in LowA. Ramos has an OPS of .709 in 135 A-level games.
Two guys who’ve not made AA yet who _project_ as regular players+ and a bunch of maybe-could-be complimentary pieces.
That’s a long, narrow bridge to not that much. They’re gonna need more than one ‘bridge year’.
Bart is a high end prospect but yeah Ramos is a huge question mark and then there’s nothing of consequence after that. The Giants are going to be a bad team for at the absolute minimum 3 years probably 5. They have a high spending capacity which is their big adv v anyone in the West other than LA but they are essentially Bare behind those 2 guys in the minors. Smith and potentially Bumgarner could bring back some impact talent but there is just way too much money tied up into underperforming immovable guys for Giants fans to think about being good again before 2022. Which is a very optimistic outlook imo.
what did you guys expect when they “went for it” and acquired longoria after signing mccutchen, cueto and samadjiza? this was obviously coming. they cant afford to go over the luxury tax and finish 4th or 5th in the west at the same time. it makes a lot of sense to just dump posey, bumgarner, crawford, belt, panik, and company but thats one of the biggest problem ive had with fellow bay area fans. most of our fans cant really fully embrace a rebuild. there is a reason why the giants have never been sellers at the trade deadline since bonds became a giant. i believe the only players the giants have traded away at the deadline since the late 90s are bengie molina (for chris ray), eduardo nunez and mccutchen. from 2005-2008 they won 70-76 games all 4 years and never sold. its actually absurd that they got nothing for jeff kent, jason schmidt, randy johnson, benitez, durham, randy winn, omar vizquel. the giants have a long history of sucking and staying put at same time
Kent and Schmidt left as free agents: Kent after the 2002 pennant-winning season, Schmidt’s arm fell off after he signed with the Dodgers. Johnson got injured in his season with the Giants and ended up retiring. Benitez was toxic waste. Ray Durham was traded to the Brewers for nothing much. Winn and Vizquel were both very old and worth little to nothing.
“…when they “went for it” and acquired longoria after signing mccutchen, cueto and samadjiza”
Cueto and Samardzija were signed two years before they “went for it” by acquiring Cutch and Longo.
This is going to be an ugly season. Must remember 2010,2012,2014
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming….
Or just keep “Living in the Past” by Jethro Tull running on a loop for the next decade or so.
So true. Sad…but true
Beachy? Seriously? I was always bummed out about how this guy’s career ended up. Would be a great comeback story.
But when are Harper and Machado going to sign? It’s February and they are still taking meetings with new teams lol. This is crazy to me
The cupboard is bare. Unmovable contracts. 4 year rebuild. Learn how to draft. Don’t trade your best prospects. Sign free agents to short contracts. The Giants are not the only team to get burned on long contracts.
Madbum, buster, Cain, Lincecum, the Brandon’s, Pablo were all homegrown. Bogey, Huff, Burrell, Pagan all on reasonable contracts. Not sure what you’re referring to. They just burnt out. All teams eventually do. Now, just a matter of rebuilding smart.
Sign him mets! We need the depth!
Whaaaaa???
The Kokomo Kid returns
Looks like a keeper! lol
This is why, going by the odds, young pitchers should sign extensions the minute a pen is offered to them.
None of the old declining sp’s the Giants were saddled with were internal extension candidates. They all had been in the league well past their rookie deals. The only one who actually signed an extension with SF was Bum. And if you think that extension helped his earning power you are insane. This a horrible example for proving your point about young pitchers taking extensions.
Wrong article. Beachy would help your point there
At least us Giants fans will have a new scoreboard this year. Every hitter batting in the low .200s, no power and rbis.
Somebody call Bobby Evans and fire him again please.
Is that stupid organic garden still out under the batters eye? Haven’t been to a game in a couple of years.
Jeez people. Calm down. It is just a minor league signing. Every team does it. No need to freak out.
I don’t think it’s the minor league signing that is worrisome it is the lack of any other type of signings.
As of midweek, 53% of this offseasons free agents were still unsigned. Theres still plenty of talent out there to be had and Zaidi doesn’t intends to set the market. The roster will likely look very different come April.
Ahh… I guess I don’t really care because they need to build up the farm system. They also need to reduce they’re payroll. I think some of these signings could play positive roles. I’m not expecting a ring. Just competitiveness.
None of the off-season signings will financially hurt the team. They’ve picked up multiple outfielders, none of which have contributed much at the MLB level, in hopes that maybe 1 of them can be a solid contributor this year. Throwing $400M at Harper isn’t the answer. They’ve been burned by many of the high dollar contracts of the past and they are not going to spend their way out of the hole they are in. As the offseason wraps up, expect the team to make a couple of higher profile moves. Patience will result in getting a solid player or two to sign, for less money, and less years. The returning players all underachieved last year besides Smith, Watson, Moronta, Holland and Rodriguez. The offense needs to be better and it needs to get better with who they already have, for the most part, because they do not appear as if they’ll be adding anyone for more than $8-12M , if that. They need to be more healthy and more consistent. This isn’t a bad team, as currently constructed. Not a WS team but not awful either
I agree with you. I think it will take a few seasons before they are in contention again. Maybe Mac Williamson will have a healthy season. I’m interested in seeing if Melvin Adon can can carry his monster Arizona Fall League performance into the full MLB season. It might be be the return of “Torture”.
“This guy’s dead.”
“Well cross him off!”
yeah, but did you try the AED paddles?
I’m all for thinking outside of the box but this feels like one hell of a stretch.
Ok Mr. Zaidi pull the trigger already, no doubt you intend to resign Hunter Pence.
Under the old regime, definitely. I dont think Pence fits with where Zaidi sees things going though.
I certainly hope you’re right. Although I loved Pence at one time, I got so sick of watching him hit into inning ending double plays the past few years.
The Zach Wheeler trade still kinda burns. But I don’t see too many other former Giant’s farmhands on big league rosters that bother me. Duvall for a minute at his peak maybe.
Might ask for a do over on the Arroyo-Longoria and Duffy-Moore trades, too.
Arroyo and Duffy aren’t that great. Arroyo regressed. Duffy is more of a super fringy player. Luciano profiles better then those guys.
Wheeler hasn’t pitched a full season.
This guy was a beast in my MLB 12: The Show franchise mode. Best of luck to him.
It’s funny reading all the over-reactions to minor-league deals and spring-training invites. Happens every off-season,