It’s Time To Re-Sign Joe Beimel… Maybe
The 2014 Seattle Mariners were a good team with a great bullpen. The closer was awesome, the setup guys were awesome, and the middle innings guys were mostly awesome. It wasn’t that the bullpen drove the success of the team, just that they were a larger part of that success than you’d typically expect.
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Joe Beimel was part of that bullpen. He was the matchup guy, the lefty-on-lefty specialist. He was also the only bullpen regular to finish with a WAR under zero. Here are the two numbers you should know about Beimel: 2.20 and 4.18. That’s his ERA, followed by his FIP. It’s February 19th, 2015, and Beimel is still a free agent.
Already the parallels to Chris Young should be readily apparent. Young, as we talked about yesterday, is still hanging around on the free market in large part due to his ERA-FIP gap. It would appear that Young greatly outperformed his peripherals, and now can’t seem to find a team who values him more for his results than his peripherals. The same holds true with Beimel.
Except that’s kind of the end of the similarities. Young’s success in beating his FIP is well-documented, as he’s just always done this by working up in the zone and achieving a greater perceived velocity due to his towering height. Beimel has a career 4.08 ERA. His career K/9? 5.08. In 2014? 5.00.
Young’s “luck” wasn’t entirely luck, and there’s evidence of that. With Beimel, there’s no evidence that his luck was due to anything but luck. Beimel had a nice ERA in 2014 and felt like a reliable arm. But he wasn’t, as shown by his peripherals. He just got really lucky, for a whole season. His results were better than they should have been, and it’s not surprising that nobody wants to pay for that.
There’s still a chance he comes back, of course. Nobody else has snagged him, and he’s definitely not getting a big league deal at this point. The downside is minimal, if there even is any downside. Just like there was no downside with signing Rafael Perez.
Who? Oh yeah, that’s right, Perez, the lefty journeyman reliever who the Mariners signed to a minor league deal a week or so ago. We didn’t write about it here, because we already wrote about David Rollins and Mike Kickham. Lefties, those two. There’s also Lucas Luetge, and probably at least a couple others I’m forgetting about. The Mariners have a lot of candidates for the LOOGY role. Which, of course, is Beimel’s old job.
So there’s already a competition to be had, without even factoring in Beimel. He wouldn’t be favored to win this competition, were he to join the fray. The favorite’s gotta be Luetge or Rollins, just because there aren’t guaranteed spots for them in Tacoma. Plus, the team knows Beimel isn’t going to strike out MLB hitters. He best profiles as AAA depth. Or, more likely, the depth’s depth.
Should they sign him? Maybe. Do they need to? Nah. Joe Beimel is fun. He’s a goofball with a silly beard, and fans like goofy relievers. I know this because I’m a fan and I like goofy relievers, and I’ve spoken to at least one other fan who feels the same way. Bullpens are about personality, right? Beimel’s a personality. Reason enough to invite him to spring training, right?
Probably, yeah. Joe Beimel should be a Tacoma Rainier in 2015. He can be a Seattle Mariner if enough other Seattle Mariners suck or get hurt. If a guy who was good by some measure in the majors last year is available for the farm team, he’s almost always a worthwhile addition. So go ahead and sign Joe Beimel, Seattle Mariners. But if not that’s okay, because they already have a lot of Joe Beimels.