SB Nation    •   7 min read

Nationals Prospects: What to know about Clayton Beeter

WHAT'S THE STORY?

MLB: Seattle Mariners at New York Yankees
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Late last night, the Washington Nationals made a move. They shipped off Amed Rosario to the Yankees for Clayton Beeter and Browm Martinez. Beeter is the better known part of the package and has some big league experience, so we will break him down.

Beeter is a 26 year old right handed pitcher, who was actually drafted by the Dodgers in 2020. However, he was sent to the Yankees in a move

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that actually sent former National Joey Gallo from the Yankees to the Dodgers.

Back in his college days, he was seen as having some of the nastiest stuff in all of college baseball, but fell to the 66th pick due to injury issues and concerns about his control. It turns out those control questions were warranted despite not walking many batters his last year at Texas Tech.

In 323.2 career minor league innings, Beeter has 183 career walks. That is over 5 walks per 9 innings, which is a very high number. However, the reason he has risen through the minor league ranks is because he has some nasty swing and miss stuff to go with it.

Beeter’s fastball has sat around 96 MPH this year out of the bullpen and has a lot of ride to it. However, his best pitch is a wipeout slider that has just devastated batters in AAA this year. In 20.1 AAA innings this year, Beeter has an impressive 33 strikeouts.

In a small sample size in 2024, Beeter’s slider proved to be effective at the MLB level. Hitters were swinging and missing at the pitch over half the time. This year his big league stint has not gone very well, but it is a small sample size.

Overall, we know that Beeter is a bullpen arm at this point. While he started in the past, he has made a permanent move to the pen. His fastball-slider mix and scattershot command can be more effective in that setting.

The Nats need to get Beeter to find the zone more often, but with his stuff, he can still be somewhat wild. As long as he doesn’t have an out of control walk problem, he should be a big leaguer in at least some capacity.

After the trade, the Nats sent Beeter down to AAA. We will see how long he is down there. With the likes of Jackson Rutledge and Andry Lara taking up spots in the bullpen, it is hard to argue that there is not room for him.

However, we will see how he does in Rochester. It is nice to be able to find a big league arm for a guy the Nats signed to a 1-year $2 million deal. In an offseason with a lot of flops, Amed Rosario was a nice little pickup. If Beeter can become a quality bullpen piece, we will remember Amed for a while.

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