Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Brandon Beachy Reaches Deal

The Dodgers seem to have one thing in mind in terms of a goal for their team this offseason beyond financial flexibility: depth.

Injuries riddled last year’s team and having multiple guys to fill in when needed was a major part of their ability to tread water. So, while the names added to the roster might not make you jump out of their seats, that doesn’t seem to be the point.




ICYMI: Maeda Deal Delayed Because Of Elbow Concern


The latest example of this strategy: the team has reportedly reached an agreement with Brandon Beachy. Here’s this, via Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.

And Jon Heyman:

The deal is hardly noteworthy neither in terms of name or dollar amount, which is a good thing, it seems, to the Dodgers front office. Will Beachy start (or even appear in) 30 games this season? One would hope not, or else the season took a turn towards the disastrous. Can he step in for either middle relief or a spot start if need be? Yeah, probably. Basically, the idea this offseason has been balance in the short term to maintain the flexibility to make a major splash down the line when the opportunity arises. The team remains competitive — if not outright favorites — in the NL West for next season. While Beachy won’t impact that outcome by much individually, any positive role he does play will be seen as a value bet given the minor financial investment they’ve made. Beachy appeared in two games last year for the Dodgers and tallied a 7.88 ERA in eight innings and with a 2.000 WHIP before being sent back down to AAA, where one would think he’ll spend most of this season, just as in 2015. NEXT: Kazmir Not Worried About Left-Heavy Rotation

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18 Comments

  1. Friedman’s affection for injured pitchers is one of his most puzzling traits. Beachy was totally worthless last year and now he’s back. Any game he starts is almost a guaranteed loss. Why not lose with someone already on the roster, like Zach Lee?

  2. December 2015 The front office claimed a minor league right-hander Danny Reynolds from the Angels.  11 days later they option Reynolds when the Dodgers front office pick up Tyler Olson who went on Seattle’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disabled_list with a knee injury in May 2015 after going 13.1 innings with a 5.40 ERA.  Olson is now designated for assignment to make room for Beachy who had a 7.88 ERA with 7 innings of work last year with the Dodgers.  Friedman’s efforts appear to be chasing something but I don’t know what?  Its like going to the goodwill and buying an old dull push mower because it was cheap.  Yea, it cuts the lawn but its twice as much work and the results are crap.

  3. Another broken down, cheap pitcher. What is it with Firedman and Fardi??????  Let’s see all you Friedman lovers say how great a deal this is too. This guy and his clowns needs to go.

  4. This is the exact situation where Zaidi and Friedman get to implement the tactics they were hired to bring to the team. Remember the buzz around baseball when Friedman was brought over from Tampa Bay? “Imagine what he could do without the payroll constraints he had to deal with in Tampa!” Same with Zaidi when he was brought over from Oakland.
    Signing Beachy for $1.5M to pitch for OKC and be an insurance policy for the big league pitching staff is just the kind of thing they’re able to do now because they have the resources. Beachy is undervalued due to some physical issues and ANY pitcher with major league experience is worth at least $1.5M in this market. If things go according to plan, Beachy provides Triple-A depth, eats some innings, allows more flexibility for the roster – which possibly gets a Urias, DeLeon or Lee a shot with the big club. Worst case? He makes a couple of spot starts giving Maeda (who is used to pitching once a week) a break or allowing a Ryu or Anderson to rest and maybe avoid the DL. All for the measily sum (for Dodgers) of $1.5M. The talent in the Dodger front office is mind-boggling. If they only did the things the “average fan” liked they would hardly be the innovative group they’re proclaimed to be. They’re marching orders are to build and maintain a winning team that will compete year in and year out in the future while exercising reasonable control over payroll … Which gives an organization like the Dodgers the financial flexibility to dominate the baseball landscape for the foreseeable future. Let these guys work. The Dodger organization has promised to not tolerate anything less than excellence. We’re lucky fans.

  5. PhilFountain  You’ve got to be kidding. This team is a second division club because of Friedman and Co.’s  penny pinching, small market  management. Keep defending them. When we are looking up at Arizona and San Francisco at season’s end see if you still love this clown front office.

  6. PhilFountain What do you think is the number of “average” Dodger fans paying to watch games?  So NEVER dismiss the “average fan”.  That being said … I agree 1.5M is low for MLB talent in todays market.  But the effort that leads to Beachy on the roster is worthless.  Beachy has MLB history that isn’t bad.  But you can’t lean on him like you are hoping after two tommy john surgeries in less than two years.  So your statement of  “undervalued due to SOME physical issues” is overlooking just how MAJOR his physical issues were. He has no real post surgery track recorded as a “work horse” as you are hoping for.  Maeda has yet to be locked so thats a moot point.  Ryu has yet to give any indication on how he will be pitching after surgery.  You can take the Zaidi away from the Billy Bean but you can take the Billy Bean out of the Zaidi.  I’m still waiting to see what the front office “masterminds” can do with anything!!!  They inherited a great line up that they have yet to improve it. (by improve … I mean getting deep into the post season) I’m still looking at the Utley (1 year 7m) signing and scratching my head.

  7. PhilFountain I appreciate your point of view, Phil, but with all due respect, one also could argue that the reason Beachy is such a bargain is because he’s not very good and no one else wants him. After all, his two major league starts last year were terrible and he wasn’t much better in AAA.

    Some times you just get what you pay for.

    It’s not as if Friedman and Zaidi have demonstrated an ability to spot major league pitching talent. Last year they brought in McCarthy, Latos, Johnson, Wood, Peralta, Nicosio, Coulombe, Matt West, Ian Thomas, Sergio Santos, David Huff, Joe Wieland, Scott Baker, Josh Ravin, Chin-Hui Tsao, Eric Surkamp and, yes, Beachy. They all were various degrees of awful. Anderson was a good find, through he predictably ran out of gas at the end of the year and threw away a key playoff game. Hatcher was good for the last month and bad or injured before that.

    I won’t repeat the admittedly higher priced, but far superior, pitchers they passed on in their pursuit of “undervalued” talent, who nearly universally turned out to be undervalued for good reason. The bottom line is that the Dodgers were one game over .500 in games not started by Kershaw or Greinke. 

    For all the talk of value, Friedman last year spent nearly $90 million to pay for or to obtain pitchers not on the roster when he arrived. It was not an efficient use of resources. 

    Hence my skepticism.

  8. WenSheld PhilFountain Perhaps “average fan” was an inappropriate description. I would have been better to say “casual” Dodger fan. What I’m saying is that Beachy could possibly turn into a “buy low-sell high” kind of deal. Say he bounces back at OKC, it’s possible, maybe even likely, he could pitch well enough to become attractive to another team. We certainly don’t “need” Brandon Beachy do we? Say he gets flipped in part of a deal that brings prospects, draft picks or even a solid bench player, might that translate into a worthy $1.5M move? Depth is never a bad thing.
    As far as the litany of pitchers you mention I think that goes to prove the point. Why wouldn’t you want a huge stable of major-league caliber pitchers? It seems to me part of the strategy is to acquire, invest and deal as much talent as possible … buy low, sell high.
    We had this supposed “super team” last season with two of the games best starters and THAT didn’t result in a deep playoff run. Keeping Greinke or getting Price would have meant tying up a half billion dollars on TWO roster spots? WITH NO GUARANTEE OF A CHAMPIONSHIP! Coletti spent like a drunken sailor and it resulted in exactly ZERO World Titles. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results.
    Let’s give these guys more than 1 year to get something going. It took Theo 3 season in Chicago to become competitive. I simply do not believe Ownership and Stan Kasten (in particular) would hire idiots. This is probably the best front office assembled in sports … Friedman, Zaidi, Byrnes, Hunsicker, Coletti and now Anthopolous is a pretty darn impressive group of baseball minds. I think we’re incredibly lucky.

  9. Blue58 PhilFountain See my reply to @WenSheld. As for the $90M Friedman spent for players to NOT play for us, do you think that was just a whimsical move? Do you think Guggenheim/Walters/Kasten said, “Here you go, Andrew, waste $90M without a reasonable assurance of a return on our investment, go ahead! We like to burn money!” Come on, really? I honestly don’t think anybody is THAT stupid.
    But, for a multi-billion dollar operation to take a $90M hit with the idea that down the road you will have achieved 1) Competitive excellence 2. ) Reasonable payroll expenses 3.) Financial and organizational flexibility MIGHT INDEED be worth $90M right now. We’ve already seen how huge contracts from Jason Schmidt, Andruw Jones, and even Hanley and Matt Kemp can bloat into no World Series parades. Why keep following that path?
    Even as things stand we are STILL favored to win the West. We stuck a division rival (yeah, stuck) without our wherewithal to commit a quarter of a billion dollars on a 32-year-old pitcher who plays every five days. We let another division rival get a guy we weren’t even interested in (Cueto) and pay BIG BUCKS for THE WORST STARTER IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE LAST YEAR!!! Yes, that would be the Mighty Jeff Samardzjia. You can’t blame us for not matching the Red Sox offer for Price, they REALLY need an ace … we already HAVE the best pitcher in baseball!!! Obviously, $200+ million is still a lot of money for one player, don’t you think?

  10. PhilFountain  I absolutely agree with your first half.  If some of the pitchers pan out the expense may pay off.  But Blue58 points out the ugly fact of what all the pitching trades gave us last year.  Not only was Latos and crapy pitcher but he was a major Ahole with an attitude that made Wilson look like a boy scout.  Johnson was a good kid but boy did he stink up the bullpen when the Dodgers needed a positive addition to the rotation.  

    Give them more than 1 year? With the way some speak about those guys … they don’t need more than 1 year.  The way some pump up that FO, they should’ve walked away with a World Series Ring last year.  They aren’t brilliant until they make something happen.  What ever they did in their priors is only good for their priors. That collection of yahoo’s have yet to show any results for the Dodgers.   I have no choice but to hope for the best and I will support the ownership and FO as a Dodger fan.  But I have no way to measure what they can do for the Dodgers yet.  And I’m still deeply annoyed for losing Dee.  Anthopolous is someone I can smile about because of his scouting background.  I hope he is the missing link that the other FO guys need.

  11. Jagman63 Uh, I don’t agree. It’s not that I want to have Friedman’s puppies or anything, but these aren’t dumb guys, despite their unwillingness to do the things we as fans might wish. We’re STILL a contender and I like that.

  12. Blue58 Friedman is totally Wall Street, these guys do their homework. They’re maneuvering … buy low, sell high. Build depth. Be flexible. Be smart. I have to believe they know MUCH more about the Danny Reynoldses and Tyler Olsons and Brandon Beachys than we do. At least, I would sure hope so.

  13. WenSheld PhilFountain Last year, on their watch, we survived a plethora of injuries and some underachieving performances to win the division by a comfortable margin. The Brett Anderson signing (that everybody hated) turned out OK. The goal was to play better defense to get the most out of our pitching strength. We led the Major Leagues with the fewest errors over the season. In their first year you can’t say they failed on any level, except we still haven’t won a World Series since 1988. I wouldn’t blame this Front Office for that. And Dee Gordon (I loved him too) was ALL we really gave up. Let’s see what dealing Peralta gets us, let’s see how Alex Wood does in the long haul, let’s see what happens. I’d much rather root for these guys than to declare them a miserable failure after one season. Come on! Be happy! I think this team we’ll surprise us … one way or another … and that’s the fun part!

  14. PhilFountain Most all of the FO occupiers do their homework.  Plus they have a staff to do a lot more homework.  But I’m hardly surprised that some fans DO know more than they do.  This isn’t Wall Street. ITS BASEBALL. A lot happens WAY beyond “buy low … sell high” come on … You need heart, soul and intuition.  Wall Street has Zero heart and sucks the soul out of everyone.  The reason I love baseball is because its amazing ability to surprise us all.  They way a John Kruk can be an amazing hitter.  How a stolen base can end up getting into the head of a pitcher.  How a coach can come out of the dugout and inspire the guys on the field.  How a double switch can topple the oppositions line up.  Its a craft … not a stock exchange.

  15. PhilFountain Blue58 I love your attitude, Phil and sincerely hope you’re right. This is a great discussion. I’m not ready to give up on Friedman and Co. just yet, but nor do I believe they walk on water. 

    Opinion, at least on the websites, seems to be divided between those who think they’re morons and those who think they are geniuses. I’m in neither camp. I believe in results and facts. Just because some of them worked on Wall Street, for example, means nothing to me. I was a professional journalist for nearly 50 years before I retired and I ran across many people who worked on Wall St. who were geniuses and nearly as many who were crooks, idiots or incompetent. There’s nothing magical about it. In fact, if they were real Wall St. geniuses, they’d still be there, not running a baseball team.

    I give the front office credit for rebuilding the minor league system, protecting top prospects and aggressively signing international players. But I believe they are too timid when it comes to free agents, question their ability to judge talent (as demonstrated by all the bad pitchers they signed and their misjudgment of Gordon) and believe there is a window for a championship that is closing.

    Just for the record, Friedman and Co. spent more money on payroll last year than Coletti ever did and their results were no better. But there’s too much attention paid to payroll. The Dodgers are the richest team in baseball and can afford a mix of expensive free agents and cheap younger players, which is what the Cardinals, Giants and Cubs do. 

    No amount of payroll can guarantee a championship, I agree, but let’s consider that if last winter the Dodgers had signed Max Scherzer instead of McCarthy, kept Dan Haren and Dee Gordon and invested in Anderson. We can’t know if they would have gone to the World Series, but I like their chances in game three of the NLDS much better with Scherzer on the mound than Anderson. Also, they would have been in much better condition to lose Greinke than they are today. Those judgements by the front office are fair game for second guessing.

    As for whether a player is “worth” $200 million, the answer is he’s worth whatever some team is willing to pay him. The marketplace sets value. Now, it’s a legitimate question of whether you want a 37 year old pitcher earning $34 million a year six years from now. But the marketplace suggests other pitchers will be making even more at that time. By then cheap young pitchers like Urias and DeLeon should be in the rotation, offsetting some of the cost. If Kershaw opts out after the 2018 season, what do you suppose he will command? I’d say $40 million a year might be possible. Will Friedman be the guy who lets the best pitcher of his generation walk? 

    My point is that it’s probably futile to try to outguess the marketplace that far into the future. In five years, Greinke might be injured or he might also be a relative bargain, if he has a Maddox-like career. As for Kershaw, if the Dodgers haven’t made the World Series by 2018, I’m guessing no amount of money will keep him. He wants to win and he will go to the team that has the best opportunity of winning at championship. If the minor leaguers the Dodgers have stockpiled and are so in love with have matured into big league stars by that point, Kershaw might stay with the Dodgers. But if they look like Joc Pederson in August (a timely reminder of how hit and miss young players can be), Kershaw will be gone and Friedman will probably be out the door behind him.

    I agree with you 100% about the Giants. They may regret those deals. But just because they were questionable doesn’t mean every big name, big money, free agent deal is bad. The Price contract with Detroit actually looks pretty good today.

    I agree with you 100% about the Giants’ signings. They are questionable at best and the Giants still have an old and injury-prone outfield.

  16. PhilFountain Phil, I agree with you we have to  let them implement  their plan. We could not continue  what Colleti was doing. We’re  still hurting from those moves. I’m sure that Crawford , Either and other  players love it, but it’s  not good for the team. I’m 68 yrs old and want to win now, but i’my also Dodger  blue and wants what’s good for the team and fans.

  17. Blue58 I believe  that whatever  sports, when you hire someone to change the culture you have to give them time. They are trying  to win now and build the  future. They are boxed in, where Colleti wasn’t. I don’t  believe in or understand some of their moves. But ask yourself, would  you rather give Colleti the wheel again. They’re making  the  team in their image.

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