The New Blake Beavan: Black Forest Ham

By Anthony

I am assuming everyone has a different kind of taste buds and I will not claim to be an expert in different kinds of ham, but a quick Google search says that black forest ham is the best. I am not saying that Blake Beavan is the best, and is nowhere near close to being the best. But after being recalled from Tacoma on July 17^th, Beavan has put up these numbers- 20.2 innings, 2.03 ERA, 14 K’s and one walk. Yeah, the same Blake “The Ham Sandwich” Beavan is all of a sudden somewhat interesting. Or at least he is not as boring as he was. Honestly, even a ham sandwich would get more interesting over time, just because of the different kinds of mold that would grow but Blake is more interesting than weird colored molds. I’ll take you through what Blake is doing differently since going down I-5. 

These are Blake’s basic numbers before he went down: 56.1 innings, 6.55 ERA, 30 K’s, 11 walks, 12 HR’s. Those are bad, like Hector Noesi bad. However, something that I care about more, and will tell us more is what happened with each of his pitches individually. He pitches to contact and used the huge outfield in Safeco to his advantage with fly balls. Pitch-wise, this is what he did.

Pitch	Strike %	Whiff %	Velocity
Fastball	69	6	91
Curveball	55	8	75
Slider	65	10	80
Changeup	49	4	82

Want to know why Blake Beavan is not interesting? Look at those whiff percentages. All of those are under league average. He doesn’t strike out a bunch of guys and doesn’t miss a bunch of bats. That limits his ceiling immensely. So these numbers are what he has been doing lately.

Pitch	Strike %	Whiff %	Velocity
Fastball	72.5	8	91.5
Curveball	68	5	74.3
Slider	56	12	80.6
Changeup	28.6	0	80.9

Hmmmm…. So that isn’t really helpful. Those numbers are very similar and don’t really tell us too much. I then decided to look at where he is releasing the ball.

This is a look at Blake’s release point. The top was at the start of the year; the bottom is what he has been doing recently.

This spread is definitely amplified by the sheer number of pitches he threw before he was sent down but the difference is still noticeable. He is releasing his ball closer to the plate as well as lower than before. If you look closely you can see that his curveball is the only thing that is consistently released above six feet from the ground. Since he is releasing lower to the ground, it is giving his breaking pitches some new movement that is making them better.

At the start of the year, Blake’s slider was dropping about 0.8 inches and moving away from right handed hitters 4.45 inches more than if it was thrown without spin. This is more of a sweeping slider that is clearly different than his curveball, which broke down 5.6 inches and away from righties 6.6 inches. Now, Blake’s slider has more drop to it and doesn’t break away as much. It now drops 2.5 inches and 3.69 inches horizontally. His curve drops 5 inches and 6.3 inches horizontally. His new slider is missing more bats, albeit by a small margin. He is striking out more batters than before and this new movement on his slider is one of the reasons why. 

I will say that his three starts have come against the Royals twice and once against the Rays. Neither are very potent offenses, even though Beavan gave up five runs to the Royals one time around. Still, he has won three games in his three starts back and has been generating more groundballs and strikeouts than before. His new release point is a large part of that and while it may not be enough to let him hang around next year, Beavan should improve from his earlier numbers. 

Wow, I never really thought I would talk about Blake Beavan for that long. I don’t think anyone ever plans on talking about Blake Beavan for this long. To reward those of you who have dedicated this much time and effort to read about Blake Beavan, I will reveal something new about Jason Vargas. Guess what!! Apparently the Red Sox have mild interest in him. That’s so much more than you knew before! Aren’t you so glad you read this far? I totally am so glad I wrote this much. Go Mariners, and go Black Forest Ham.